 | A request that this article title be changed to REDnote is under discussion. Please do not move this article until the discussion is closed. |
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| Company type |
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| Founded | June 2013; 11 years ago (June 2013) | ||||||||||||
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| Headquarters | Shanghai, China | ||||||||||||
| Products | REDnote (Xiaohongshu) | ||||||||||||
| Owner | Xingyin Information Technology (Shanghai) Co Ltd | ||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 小红书 | ||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 小紅書 | ||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | Little Red Book | ||||||||||||
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| Website | www | ||||||||||||
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| Available in | Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English | ||||||
| License | Proprietary | ||||||
| Website | www | ||||||
Xiaohongshu (XHS; simplified Chinese: 小红书; traditional Chinese: 小紅書; pinyin: Xiǎohóngshū; lit. 'Little Red Book'), also known among Anglophones as RedNote (stylised as REDnote) or simply RED, is a social networking and e-commerce platform.
Xiaohongshu has been called "China's answer to Instagram". As of 2020, 70% of the platform's users are reportedly born after 1990, and nearly 70% of them are female. In January 2025, the app gained an influx of new users from the United States due to the anticipated shutdown of TikTok's US operations in accordance with the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
Etymology
The app was initially called "Hong Kong Shopping Guide" and targeted Chinese tourists.
The name Xiaohongshu or 'Little Red Book' was inspired by its co-founder Mao Wenchao [zh]'s career at Bain & Company and education at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; both institutions feature red as their main color.
'Little Red Book' is also the English nickname for the 1964 compilation Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung.
The app is often called RedNote by U.S. users.
History
Xiaohongshu was founded by Miranda Qu and Charlwin Mao in 2013 as an online tour guide for Chinese shoppers, providing a platform for users to review products and share their shopping experiences with the community. In October 2014, the founders started focusing on connecting Chinese consumers with global retailers and established its own cross-border e-commerce platform, where Chinese consumers could buy products from overseas and order directly.
In 2015, Xiaohongshu set up its warehouses in Shenzhen, Guangdong and Zhengzhou, Henan.
By May 2017, Xiaohongshu had over 50 million users and earned nearly CN¥10 billion. That month, Xiaohongshu's international logistics system REDelivery went into service. On 6 June that year, Xiaohongshu held a shopping festival to celebrate its fourth anniversary, which saw the sales revenue exceed CN¥ 100 million in 2 hours, while the app ranked in first place in the iOS App Store under the "Shopping" category that day.
In June 2018, the Alibaba Group and Tencent invested US$300 million in Xiaohongshu, with a valuation of US$3 billion.
In 2018, Xiaohongshu became an internationalized platform that attracted many overseas users. However, at the end of that year, Xiaohongshu encountered regulatory problems and its app store shelves were suspended.
Due to the platform's early focus on fashion and beauty trends, Xiaohongshu's user base was predominantly female in its early years. 90% of Xiaohongshu users were women, according to a report published in April 2021. The app had attracted affluent Gen Z female users in urban China as an alternative to Instagram, which is blocked in the country. Xiaohongshu subsequently adjusted its corporate strategy to attract more male users to maintain its growth. In 2021, it announced that the platform would promote male user content.
In 2023, Sequoia China bought the Xiaohongshu shares in multiple transactions at a valuation of $14 billion.
According to the Financial Times, Xiaohongshu completed a round of stake sales of existing shares to new and former investors around July 2024 that valued the company at around $17 billion. This round saw participation from prominent venture capital investors, including DST Global, HongShan (formerly Sequoia China), Hillhouse Investment, Boyu Capital, and CITIC Capital. The platform, which already has significant backing from Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba, achieved profitability in 2023 with a net profit of $500 million on revenues of $3.7 billion. It generates revenue primarily through advertising, particularly from cosmetics brands. However, it faces challenges as many users purchase recommended items on other platforms such as Taobao and Tmall, limiting Xiaohongshu's direct e-commerce potential. Despite having a large user base of over 300 million monthly active users with high engagement, its total revenue remains significantly lower than Douyin's.
In January 2025, the potential banning of TikTok in the US caused many US users to look for a TikTok alternative, which led to a significant increase in Xiaohongshu downloads. It was the most-downloaded free app in the App Store and #TikTokRefugee became a trending topic. The Financial Times reported that an employee from Xiahongshu stated that the platform is trying to capitalize on the sudden influx of US users. Reactions to the influx of American users were mixed in China, with state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) cheering the influx.
Features
The app's homepage is presented in a Pinterest-style layout of notes.
Users can share, search and bookmark product reviews and introductions to travel destinations, known as grass-planting (Chinese: 种草, slang for "sharing and recommending a product") notes, while selling and purchasing goods.
Search
As Xiaohongshu focuses on lifestyle topics, the ecosystem has given it a growing advantage in competition with traditional Chinese search engines, making it a new generation search engine and earning it the reputation of "National Lifestyle Guide". Xiaohongshu recorded almost 600 million daily search queries in Q4 2024, reportedly half that of Baidu and doubled over the past year.
In January 2025, Xiaohongshu is introducing Diandian, an AI-powered search tool, which is currently in beta testing.
Shopping
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Upon its launch, Xiaohongshu's initial focus was to provide overseas shopping advice to people through digital community interaction. Later, Xiaohongshu launched the function of Posting shopping notes in the community to provide customers with more timely shopping information. In 2014, it launched a "welfare service" function for cross-border shopping. Xiaohongshu has established overseas warehouses in 29 countries around the world, and has built more than 150,000 square meters of bonded warehouses in Zhengzhou, Shenzhen and Ningbo. The app has built REDelivery to provide international logistics services to third-party merchants. In the five months since Xiaohongshu launched its e-commerce model, sales have reached more than 200 million renminbi. As of June 2017, the revenue of Little Red Book was nearly 10 billion yuan.
Content moderation and censorship
The Xiaohongshu terms of service include provisions to "maintain a safe and harmonious community environment." Xiaohongshu strictly prevents advertising and linking to external websites or apps. Actions such as sending WeChat contacts in posts or DMs or inquiring about prices of goods can easily lead to account suspension.
In 2022, China Digital Times published leaked documents showing how the content moderation team bans or limits posts about sensitive topics, including mentions of derogatory nicknames for Xi Jinping, and discussion of events such as labor strikes, geographic discrimination, student suicides and criticism of the Chinese Communist Party. Users noted that topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre are censored on the platform.
Following the growth in users from the United States, Xiaohongshu was said to explore adjust its content review processes if American influencers begin sharing posts. According to The Beijing News, Xiaohongshu announced an urgent recruitment of English content moderators to expand its content moderation team. On 14 January 2025, Xiaohongshu announced that it would direct users to more "positive" content in line with a November 2024 directive from the Cyberspace Administration of China.
Public charity
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Xiaohongshu and the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation (BCAF) established a joint fund on September 7, 2024, focused on intangible cultural heritage preservation in rural China. The initiative pairs traditional craftsmen with contemporary designers in rural workshops to develop new products based on traditional techniques. The program aims to support cultural preservation while contributing to rural economic development.
Controversies
In October 2021, Xiaohongshu received criticism for condoning heavily filtered, stylized photographs and perfectly captured imagery that was becoming increasingly common on the platform's feeds. On 17 October 2021, the platform issued a statement on WeChat to acknowledge that there was a problem of travel influencers posting "overly beautified" photos of scenic spots. According to the statement, Xiaohongshu issued an apology and indicated that because "bloggers did not clearly label their works as creative photography, people interpreted them as part of travel guides. Users who visited the locations were disappointed by the differences between their expectations and reality". Moreover, Xiaohongshu decided to transfer the IPO from the United States to Hong Kong. According to a Bloomberg News report in July, this included requiring all companies holding the data of more than 1 million users to submit a cyber security review, which was one of the reasons for the suspension of Xiaohongshu's listing in the United States.
In December 2021, in response to loss of public trust towards the authenticity of content hosted on its platform, Xiaohongshu formed a dedicated team to identify and remove fraudulent content. A system that uses algorithms and human checks to block falsified content was also implemented. Since then, the platform has banned 81 brands and merchants, deleted 172,600 fake reviews, and disabled 53,600 accounts, according to the company.
On 19 January 2022, an announcement was made by Xiaohongshu indicating that the company had filed a lawsuit against four companies behind several ghostwriting broker sites in an attempt to restore consumer trust. In an official statement made by Xiaohongshu, the company alleged that the four companies had set up marketplaces for merchants and gig writers to carry out fraudulent practices, including the production of fake reviews and click farming. Xiaohongshu asked for US$1.57 million in compensation for damage to its reputation and the infringement of consumer rights on its platform.
On 25 January 2022, reports emerged that Xiaohongshu has received a fine totaling ¥300,000 from local authorities in Shanghai for failing to remove content that was deemed harmful to minors. The fine relates to a violation of cybersecurity law that guarantees protection for minors after an earlier media report was made by state broadcaster CCTV in December 2021, that it found videos posted on Xiaohongshu showing underage girls in various states of undress, featured in advertisements for underwear brands.
In December 2022, the government of Taiwan banned public sector employees from using Xiaohongshu on official devices due to national security concerns.
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