Once benefiting from the explosive demand for corporate SMS, the communication platform XUANWU CLOUD is now facing dual pressures from tightening industry regulations and market transformation. With a change in control and expanding losses, the company is betting on AI customer service to find new growth momentum.
Key Points:
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<li>XUANWU CLOUD is expected to report a net loss of between 58 million and 64 million yuan last year, a significant increase of over 50 times compared to 2024.</li>
<li>Earlier this year, the company changed its controlling stake, and founder Chen Yonghui resigned as chairman and CEO.</li>
</ul>
Li Shida
In the business world, a change of ownership is often not coincidental but a necessary result of changes in the industrial environment. When a previously profitable model suddenly fails, companies typically need to seek new development directions and support from new capital shareholders.
The corporate communication service provider XUANWU CLOUD TECHNOLOGY HOLDINGS LIMITED (2392.HK) is undergoing such a process. This 15-year-old SaaS company has experienced a series of changes, including deteriorating performance, business sales, and a change in control, all within a year, indicating a complete transformation is underway.
XUANWU CLOUD was founded by Chen Yonghui in 2010 in Guangzhou. At that time, the mobile internet in China was just emerging, and the demand for corporate SMS was rapidly increasing, but the barriers to directly accessing telecom operators' systems were high. XUANWU CLOUD seized this opportunity. The company encapsulated operator SMS and voice capabilities into API interfaces, allowing businesses to send verification codes or notification messages through the platform. This model is known in the industry as &#34;Communication Platform as a Service&#34; (PaaS).
During the rapid development of the mobile internet over the past decade, the demand for corporate SMS continued to grow. Financial institutions, e-commerce platforms, and internet companies all required a large number of SMS notification services, and XUANWU CLOUD gradually developed into one of China's corporate communication service providers, listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2022.
Tightening Regulations Impact Communication Business
However, the market environment has changed in recent years. The Chinese government has continuously strengthened its crackdown on telecom fraud and harassment calls, requiring corporate marketing SMS to obtain user authorization and provide an unsubscribe mechanism, leading to a significant decline in corporate sending volumes. The company's revenue structure in the first half of last year reflected this change. During this period, the company's total revenue was approximately 411 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of about 36.5%. Among them, CRM SaaS business revenue was approximately 245 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 32.9%; CRM PaaS business revenue was approximately 166 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 41.2%. However, driven by the rising demand for digital customer service, the revenue from customer service cloud products grew by approximately 71.7% year-on-year to about 26.6 million yuan, becoming one of the few product lines that maintained growth.
The latest annual profit warning indicates that the net loss for the fiscal year 2025 is expected to expand to between 58 million and 64 million yuan, while the total loss for 2024 was only about 1.1 million yuan, with the loss scale expanding by approximately 52 to 57 times year-on-year. The good news is that the company expects its cash flow to turn positive last year.
As performance pressures mount, the company's control has also changed. Earlier this year, XUANWU CLOUD's founder and former controlling shareholder Chen Yonghui sold about 20% of his shares, with the buyer Hantang Mingyuan Investment Co., Ltd. and its actual controller Lian Jian becoming the company's largest single shareholder
Subsequently, the board of directors was restructured, with Lian Jian serving as the chairman of the board, while founder Chen Yonghui resigned as chairman and CEO, with former executive director Li Hairong taking over as CEO. The company began to enter a phase led by new shareholders.
Lian Jian is not a typical financial investor. He founded Shenzhen Depu Te Optoelectronic Display Technology Co., Ltd. in his early years and served as a director and vice chairman at the A-share listed company Changxin Technology (300088.SZ), being actively involved in the investment field of technology and manufacturing for a long time. It is widely believed that his takeover of XUANWU CLOUD is due to his recognition of the potential in the combination of enterprise communication and AI SaaS.
AI SaaS Enterprise
Against the backdrop of equity changes and performance pressure, the company has also launched a series of business adjustments. In October last year, XUANWU CLOUD divested its subsidiary Guangzhou Xuantong Technology, which was engaged in sales cloud business. This move reflects the company's ongoing contraction of some self-operated SaaS businesses. From the product layout perspective, the company's future direction mainly focuses on customer service cloud and intelligent customer service platforms, aiming to combine its existing communication capabilities with artificial intelligence technology to create an enterprise customer service platform. The company stated that it is focusing on the &#34;AI + cloud communication&#34; strategy, incorporating AI capabilities such as voice robots and intelligent customer service into the communication platform to expand enterprise customer service scenarios.
This strategy is largely consistent with the development trend of the enterprise software market. As the digital transformation of enterprises accelerates, the enterprise software market is shifting from single-function tools to integrated platforms that consolidate customer data, marketing, and customer service processes. International SaaS companies such as Salesforce (CRM.US) and Zendesk (ZEN.US) have been strengthening their AI customer service capabilities in recent years, and the Chinese market is no exception.
In terms of stock price, although it rebounded briefly due to the news of the change in ownership, it fell nearly 7% on the first trading day after the profit warning was announced. Currently, XUANWU CLOUD's market value is less than HKD 700 million, with a price-to-sales ratio of about 0.7 times, significantly lower than that of Hong Kong SaaS company Weimob Group (2013.HK), which stands at 4.2 times. This reflects the market's concerns about the company's declining performance and indicates that investors are still observing whether its transformation can be successful.
For XUANWU CLOUD, the era of SMS dividends has ended, and a new growth story is still being explored. Lian Jian's takeover may bring new capital and direction to the company, but whether it can establish a foothold in the AI customer service and enterprise software market remains to be seen over time

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XUANWU CLOUD Technology Holdings Limited is facing tightening industry regulations and market transformation pressures, with an expected net loss expanding to between 58 million and 64 million yuan last year. The company's controlling stake has changed hands, and the founder has resigned as chairman of the board and CEO, now betting on AI customer service to find new growth momentum. With a decline in demand for enterprise SMS, revenue has significantly dropped, and both CRM SaaS and PaaS businesses have seen substantial declines

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