The 0.1% e-commerce platform fee increased 23 times, and after listing, 125 production staff were laid off.

（Source: IPO pre-review）

By / Rui Finance Yang Hongbin

Less than 1 month after submitting the filing, Qianfenyi received the stock exchange’s first round of inquiries.

In December last year, Qianfenyi submitted its filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to pursue a listing on the ChiNext. In March this year, the exchange released the content of the first round of inquiries, with a focus on the following questions:

1. The reasons for the sharp growth in overseas sales revenue

2. The reasons and reasonableness for the high customer concentration

3. The reasons for the decline in sales revenue from customers such as iFlytek and Amazon, and whether there is any situation where competitors replaced the company or the market share declined due to intensified competition

4. In light of the fact that Hanwang Technology incurred losses in 2024 but the company’s performance saw explosive growth in 2024, explain whether the changes in performance are still consistent with the industry cycle and the operating conditions of comparable companies in the same industry.

5. The reasons for selecting companies with differences from Anchor Innovation, Ugreen Technology, Huabao New Energy, and Yingshi Innovation in terms of product categories, product structure, product application fields, and market competition conditions as comparable companies in the same industry.

6. The match between marketing and promotional expenses and promotional outcomes; the comparison of the proportion of marketing and promotional fees to operating revenue in each period of the reporting period with that of comparable companies in the same industry

7. Research and development (R&D) personnel compensation; the reasons and reasonableness for differences between the R&D expense ratio and expense structure and those of comparable companies in the same industry

01

Single product structure, high customer concentration

Overseas revenue more than 5x

Qianfenyi is a provider of intelligent pen technology solutions. Its products can be paired with smart terminal devices such as tablets, learning devices, laptops, and smartphones.

The company mainly has two operating models: the ODM model and the self-owned brand operations model.

Under the ODM model, major customers include well-known enterprises such as Amazon, Lenovo, HP, ASUS, OPPO, vivo, iFlytek, Zuoye Bang, and TAL Education.

From 2023 to 2025, Qianfenyi’s main operating revenue was RMB 312 million, RMB 622 million, and RMB 1.003 billion, respectively. The company’s main operating revenue in 2025 more than tripled compared with 2023.

Qianfenyi’s revenue growth is mainly related to strong growth in sales volume. From 2023 to 2025, the company’s sales volume was 3.1094 million units, 7.3265 million units, and 13.1822 million units, respectively.

Qianfenyi’s main revenue comes from overseas. From 2022 to 2025, the company’s overseas revenue was RMB 115 million, RMB 188 million, RMB 406 million, and RMB 655 million, respectively, with a clear increase in 2024 and 2025.

The exchange requires Qianfenyi to explain the reasons for the sharp increase in overseas sales revenue.

Qianfenyi stated that the company actively participates in industry trade shows to increase product awareness. By expanding different sales channels, the company enlarges its product sales regions and promotes the continued growth of sales revenue. In addition, the company promotes online sales through cross-border e-commerce marketing and promotions.

The reply letter shows that Qianfenyi’s overseas revenue growth is also related to increased procurement by major customers. In 2024, revenue from Lenovo amounted to RMB 94.1175 million, up 5.66x year over year; revenue from ASUS was RMB 51.7072 million. The revenue from both companies was overseas revenue.

In 2025, revenue from Lenovo and ASUS reached RMB 168 million and RMB 83.2773 million, respectively, and both were overseas revenue.

From 2023 to 2025, the five largest customers contributed 46.32%, 44.42%, and 42.53% of revenue to Qianfenyi, respectively. However, in 2022, the five largest customers accounted for 66.96% of revenue contributed to Qianfenyi. Starting in 2023, the company’s customer concentration declined significantly.

The exchange issued inquiries, requiring Qianfenyi to explain the reasons and reasonableness for the high customer concentration.

Qianfenyi stated that its customer concentration is high mainly because its principal products are prominent and because major customers have large demand volumes. From 2023 to 2025, the revenue from the company’s smart pen sales as a percentage of operating revenue was 97.22%, 96.87%, and 94.85%, respectively.

Qianfenyi’s customer concentration is far higher than that of the multiple comparable companies it selected. For example, in 2023 and 2024, the revenue share of the top five customers for Hanwang Technology was only 6.39% and 6.80%, while for Anchor Innovation it was only 11.34% and 10.02%.

Qianfenyi stated that its customer concentration is higher than that of comparable companies mainly because comparable companies have diversified product categories, while the company’s principal products are smart pens, with a relatively single product structure. In addition, downstream customers are mainly well-known brand manufacturers, so the proportion of online sales revenue is higher for comparable companies, whereas the company is primarily engaged in offline sales. Generally, customers in online models are more dispersed.

During the reporting period, revenue from some major customers for Qianfenyi declined. From 2023 to 2025, revenue from iFlytek was RMB 52.8203 million, RMB 47.2528 million, and RMB 39.4632 million, respectively. Revenue from Amazon was RMB 13.7643 million, RMB 10.1784 million, and RMB 6.6745 million, respectively. During the reporting period, Amazon and iFlytek both withdrew from Qianfenyi’s top five customers.

The exchange issued inquiries, requiring Qianfenyi to explain the reasons for the decline in sales revenue from customers such as iFlytek and Amazon, and whether there is any situation where competitors replaced the company or the market share declined due to intensified competition.

Qianfenyi stated that sales to iFlytek declined year by year mainly because the company and iFlytek cooperated on a learning device project, and the company shipped relatively high volumes. As enterprises such as TAL Education and Zuoye Bang entered the learning device hardware field, competition in the domestic education market intensified, and the sales volume of learning devices that had previously been jointly sold with iFlytek declined accordingly, leading to a corresponding decline in transaction value between the two parties.

Sales to Amazon declined year by year mainly because Amazon shifted its focus to developing new products. The new products have not entered mass production, and the orders for mass production of older products declined, resulting in a decline in the company’s sales volume to Amazon.

02

Rationality of selecting comparable companies

From 2023 to 2025, Qianfenyi’s gross margin for principal business was 38.90%, 42.99%, and 40.99%, respectively, while during the same period, the gross margin for the core business, smart pens, was 38.65%, 42.78%, and 40.05%. During the same period, Qianfenyi achieved net profits of RMB 36.4877 million, RMB 102 million, and RMB 140 million.

The exchange requires Qianfenyi to explain, in combination with 2024, the situation where its comparable company Hanwang Technology incurred losses but the company’s performance experienced explosive growth, whether the company’s performance changes match the industry cycle and the operating conditions of comparable companies in the same industry.

Qianfenyi stated that Hanwang Technology’s losses in 2024 were mainly due to cultivating new businesses and expanding its R&D scope, which led to relatively high selling expense ratios and R&D expense ratios. The gross margin for its smart pen intelligent interaction business is close to the gross margin for the issuer’s smart pen business.

Hanwang Technology’s business includes smart pen intelligent interaction, multimodal big data business, AI terminals, and so on.

According to its 2024 annual report, its overall gross margin in 2024 was 40.87%. Among them, the gross margin for the smart pen intelligent interaction business was 43.79%, which is close to the gross margin for the issuer’s smart pen business. However, its selling expense ratio was 26.03% and its R&D expense ratio was 14.49%, which are relatively high, leading to losses in 2024.

Compared with Hanwang Technology, Qianfenyi’s principal business is more concentrated. Its principal products are mainly smart pens, its operating model remains stable, and its selling expense ratio and R&D expense ratio are at reasonable levels.

The comparable companies in the same industry selected by Qianfenyi include Wacom, Hanwang Technology, and Xinwei Intelligent, but in comparisons of multiple financial data items, the companies selected by Qianfenyi are Anchor Innovation, Ugreen Technology, Yingshi Innovation, and Huabao New Energy, which it refers to as financial comparables.

Qianfenyi’s explanation is that Hanwang Technology has more business categories and did not disclose the data for the capacitive pen business separately; Xinwei Intelligent is a subsidiary of a listed company, so it discloses less data.

However, Anchor Innovation’s main business is charging-related products, wireless audio products, and smart innovation-related electronic products; Ugreen Technology’s main business includes transmission products, audio/video products, charging products, mobile peripherals, and storage electronic products.

Yingshi Innovation mainly sells intelligent imaging equipment such as panoramic cameras and action cameras; Huabao New Energy mainly sells lithium battery energy storage products and their supporting products.

Judging only from publicly available information, Anchor Innovation and Ugreen Technology both have capacitive pen sales businesses under their own brands, and the financial reports also do not contain related data.

In terms of revenue scale, in the first half of 2025, the revenues of Anchor Innovation, Ugreen Technology, Yingshi Innovation, and Huabao New Energy were RMB 12.867 billion, RMB 3.857 billion, RMB 3.671 billion, and RMB 1.637 billion, respectively. As mentioned above, Qianfenyi’s revenue during the same period was RMB 475 million.

The exchange requires Qianfenyi to explain why it selected companies with differences from Anchor Innovation, Ugreen Technology, Huabao New Energy, Yingshi Innovation, and others in terms of product categories, product structure, product application fields, and market competition conditions as comparable companies in the same industry.

Qianfenyi stated that the reason for selecting the above companies for comparison is that both Qianfenyi and the selected companies are engaged in the R&D, production, and sales of consumer electronics products as their principal business, and their sales models cover both online and offline channels; and they all have self-owned brands and independent design capabilities.

03

E-commerce platform fees up over 23x

Qianfenyi’s main expense is selling expenses, which were RMB 42.9464 million, RMB 80.5247 million, and RMB 128 million, respectively, growing very rapidly.

The most important component of this expense is e-commerce platform fees, which were RMB 29.2220 million, RMB 62.0634 million, and RMB 108 million, respectively. However, in 2022, Qianfenyi’s e-commerce platform fees were only RMB 4.5809 million.

Qianfenyi stated that the company mainly carries out online sales through Amazon. The platform fees on the Amazon platform were RMB 28.0268 million, RMB 57.7060 million, and RMB 104.7930 million, respectively, accounting for 95.91%, 92.98%, and 97.14% of e-commerce platform fees, respectively.

Qianfenyi’s Amazon platform e-commerce expenses mainly consist of platform commissions, marketing and promotional fees, warehousing and logistics management fees, and other expenses. Among them, the combined share of platform commissions and marketing and promotional fees exceeds 95%.

The exchange requires Qianfenyi to explain the match between marketing and promotional expenses and promotional results, and to compare the proportion of marketing and promotional fees to operating revenue in each period of the reporting period with comparable companies in the same industry.

From 2023 to 2025, Qianfenyi’s marketing and promotional fees for Amazon in-platform promotion were RMB 16.4829 million, RMB 32.9325 million, and RMB 65.0378 million, respectively. The Amazon order amounts achieved through promotion were RMB 55.8462 million, RMB 119 million, and RMB 185 million, respectively. The return on investment ratio (order amount obtained / promotional expenses) was 3.39, 3.62, and 2.84.

Qianfenyi stated that in 2025, the company’s return on investment ratio for marketing and promotional fees on the Amazon platform declined, mainly because during the initial stage of promoting its intelligent living products, the click-through rate and conversion rate were relatively low, resulting in higher promotional cost per unit.

From 2023 to 2025, Qianfenyi’s R&D expenses were RMB 27.2267 million, RMB 32.6632 million, and RMB 56.4366 million, respectively, increasing year by year. Among them, employee compensation was RMB 22.8947 million, RMB 26.7557 million, and RMB 43.2603 million, respectively. As a proportion of R&D expenses, it was 84.09%, 81.91%, and 76.65%, respectively.

The increase in employee compensation year by year is mainly due to the company’s increasing number of R&D personnel year by year. During the reporting period, the company’s monthly average number of R&D personnel was 61, 73, and 130, respectively.

The exchange requires Qianfenyi to explain employee compensation for R&D personnel, and the reasons and reasonableness for differences in the R&D expense ratio and expense structure from comparable companies in the same industry.

From 2023 to 2025, the annual average salary per R&D employee for Qianfenyi was RMB 375.3 thousand, RMB 366.5 thousand, and RMB 332.8 thousand, respectively. For comparable companies, the average annual salary per R&D employee in 2023 and 2024 was RMB 319.3 thousand and RMB 348.6 thousand, respectively.

During the same period, Qianfenyi’s R&D expense ratio was 8.22%, 5.14%, and 5.50%, respectively, while in 2023 and 2024, the average R&D expense ratio of comparable companies was 8.73% and 8.63%, respectively.

Qianfenyi stated that in 2024, its R&D expense ratio was lower than the average of comparable companies, mainly due to the higher growth rate of the company’s operating revenue. But as mentioned above, the company’s revenue is far lower than that of many comparable companies.

04

Five major R&D personnel come from TP-Link

Production personnel reduced by 125

Qianfenyi was founded in April 2014 by Deng Jian. As of the filing submission date, Qianfenyi was held 27.96% by Qianfenyi Investment, and Qianfenyi has 5.79% held by Yihao. Qianfenyi Investment is held 99% by Deng Jian, and Yihao is controlled by Deng Jian as the general partner.

In addition, Deng Jian directly holds 3.99% of Qianfenyi’s shares, which brings his controlling stake to 37.75%, making him the actual controller of Qianfenyi.

Deng Jian joined TP-Link in July 2010 as a procurement engineer for three and a half years. After leaving, he started Qianfenyi.

Many core personnel at Qianfenyi all come from TP-Link, including director and R&D center director Zhan Ziyu; director, secretary of the board, and finance director Li Qiang; R&D center development manager Li Zhuojun; R&D center structural manager Huang Yanxin; hardware engineer Ding Xinman; and software engineer Li Lin. All these people are Qianfenyi’s main R&D personnel.

Qianfenyi’s other core personnel also include employee-representative director Li Na and deputy general manager Deng Hongtao.

Li Na is 33 years old. After graduating from university, she joined Qianfenyi. She has served as a sales assistant and delivery supervisor. Deng Hongtao is 47 years old, with an education background of a technical secondary school. He joined Qianfenyi in August 2016 as sales director and has served as deputy general manager since May 2025.

As mentioned above, as of the filing submission date, Yihao holds 5.79% of Qianfenyi’s equity. Deng Jian controls this partnership enterprise, holding 5.68%, while the remaining portion is held by Deng Hongtao.

The compensation Deng Jian provided to his old colleagues is relatively substantial. In 2024, the salaries of Zhan Ziyu and Li Qiang reached RMB 2.43 million and RMB 2.40 million, respectively. Li Zhuojun and Huang Yanxin also reached RMB 1.0343 million and RMB 1.0533 million, respectively, while Deng Jian’s own salary during the period was RMB 1.10 million.

In the first half of 2025, the headcount at Qianfenyi grew rapidly. At the end of 2024, the company had 569 employees; within half a year, it increased by 423 to 992 employees. In contrast, at the end of 2022 and at the end of 2023, the company had 411 employees and 506 employees, respectively.

Then in the second half of 2025, Qianfenyi reduced its workforce. As of year-end, the company had 919 employees, decreasing by 73 over the half-year period.

In the first half of 2025, Qianfenyi had 747 production personnel and 125 R&D personnel. By the end of 2025, production personnel decreased to 622, a reduction of 125; R&D personnel increased to 164, an increase of 39.

From 2023 to 2025, Qianfenyi’s capacity utilization rate was 62.06%, 99.06%, and 70.81%, respectively, while its production-to-sales ratio was 93.80%, 79.81%, and 102.69%, respectively.

In 2025, when capacity could not be fully utilized and production could not meet sales demand, Qianfenyi reduced its production personnel.

As mentioned above, Qianfenyi’s average monthly R&D headcount in 2025 was 130, while it reached 164 at year-end, an increase of 34.

At the same time, in 2025, the number of employees at Qianfenyi who contributed to the housing provident fund surged significantly. From 2022 to 2024, the proportion of employees contributing to the housing provident fund was 39.66%, 33.99%, and 38.31%, respectively, and it rose to 95.32% in 2025.

Appendix: List of intermediary institutions related to Qianfenyi’s public offering

Underwriter and lead underwriter: Guolian Minsheng Securities Co., Ltd. (Sponsorship and Underwriting)

Legal counsel for the issuer: Beijing Zhonglun Law Firm

Audit firm: ShineWing Certified Public Accountants (Special General Partnership)

Valuation institution: Shanghai Lixin Asset Appraisal Co., Ltd.

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