Xiaomi's order feeding has nurtured a 'Luk Ke'

Zebra Consumer, Shen Tuo

Xiaomi provided funding and fed it orders, finally nurturing LOCKIN Technology, a smart lock maker, to maturity.

Recently, the company submitted an application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, officially launching an assault on the capital markets with the ambition of becoming the "first AI smart lock stock."

Although LOCKIN Technology's annual revenue has stabilized at around 1 billion yuan, and it has achieved the top global position in the vein recognition smart lock niche, issues such as a relatively singular business structure, heavy reliance on Xiaomi, and a weak own brand remain significant and warrant full attention from the company's management and investors.

Ten Years to Become the Third Largest Smart Lock Player

Founded in 2014, Yunding Network, led by founder Chen Bin, entered the burgeoning smart lock track in China.

At that time, China's smart door lock industry was still in its early stages of technological exploration and market cultivation. Product forms were primarily basic smart products like electronic code locks and hotel card swipe locks, with only a very few high-end products featuring fingerprint recognition.

Influenced by factors such as high technology costs and insufficient consumer awareness, smart lock products at that time were mainly used in B2B commercial scenarios like hotels and offices, with extremely low penetration in C2C home use scenarios.

Chen Bin obtained a Master's degree in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University in July 2007 and later worked in technical roles at Sony and Baidu after graduation. After resigning from a major tech company to start a business and join the smart hardware track, there were even disagreements among the partners about whether to focus on 2B or 2C products.

Based on the team's technical background, the early Yunding ultimately chose the 2B route. Leveraging its software technology advantage, it secured an order from a leading long-term apartment rental company, initially gaining a foothold in China's smart lock industry.

Today, its own-brand commercial solutions remain one of the company's important business segments.

In 2017, the company launched the "LOCKIN" brand and, through an online crowdfunding campaign on Xiaomi Youpin, quickly opened up the C2C market with a price-driven strategy at 1,699 yuan. That year, a single product sold 300,000 units, becoming the highest-selling single item in the industry. This enabled LOCKIN to achieve 10x growth in the C2C market in just one year. The company subsequently rebranded from Yunding Network to LOCKIN Technology.

As China's smart lock market continued to expand, a large number of players from within and outside the industry flooded in, bringing the "Thousand Lock War" to the brink. During this period, LOCKIN, because it failed to promptly seize opportunities in new channels like Pinduoduo and live-streaming e-commerce, saw its early C2C advantage temporarily surpassed by traditional manufacturers. Later, a decisive shift towards the high-end segment finally allowed it to recapture market share.

The prospectus reveals that the company is the world's first to achieve mass production of vein recognition smart locks. In 2024, its global shipment volume of vein recognition smart locks ranked first, with a market share of approximately 10.5%; its overall smart lock shipment volume ranked fourth globally, with a market share of about 2.6%. In 2024, the company shipped 1.2 million smart locks in mainland China, ranking third with a market share of 5.8%.

Xiaomi Holds Up Half the Sky

In the early days of LOCKIN's venture, although China's venture capital market was hot, many market-oriented investment institutions were not highly enthusiastic about investing in the smart lock track.

Previously, Chen Bin revealed in a media interview that as CEO, besides product development, his other most important task was fundraising. From 2014 to 2018, he met with about 300 investment institutions, almost covering all the investment institutions that could be seen in the market at that time.

In July 2014, the company secured its first round of financing from Nebula Venture Alliance and Hangzhou Xianfeng, amounting to 1.6 million yuan and 1.07 million yuan respectively, with a post-investment valuation of approximately 13 million yuan.

Subsequently, the company raised funds intensively, with Lenovo, Midea, Xiaomi, and Baidu investing successively. According to the prospectus, since its founding, LOCKIN's fundraising has hardly stopped, accumulating nearly 1 billion yuan from the primary market during this period.

In November 2025, Zhongguancun Science City Technology Growth Phase III Fund invested 200 million yuan for a 5.71% stake in LOCKIN Technology, valuing the company at approximately 3.5 billion yuan post-investment.

Currently, founder Chen Bin directly holds a 15.33% stake in LOCKIN Technology, making him the single largest shareholder. Through several institutions, he collectively controls about 30.35% of the company's shares. Baidu, having participated in multiple rounds of financing, holds an 18.43% stake, making it the second-largest shareholder. Shunwei Capital holds 7.25%, making it the third-largest external institutional shareholder.

Although Tianjin Jinmi under Xiaomi holds only a 1.75% stake in LOCKIN Technology, Xiaomi is crucial to the company's development.

LOCKIN Technology's revenue primarily comes from sales of LOCKIN brand smart locks and AI smart home assistants; providing ODM services for brand companies; and offering Yunding brand commercial solutions.

From 2023 to 2024, over half of the company's revenue came from ODM manufacturing. In the first nine months of 2025, revenue from ODM projects was as high as 61.6%. During this period, the proportion of revenue from its own-brand business decreased year by year.

In 2019, when Xiaomi launched its own-brand smart lock, it was manufactured by LOCKIN.

In 2023, 2024, and the first nine months of 2025, Xiaomi was consistently the absolute largest customer of LOCKIN Technology, contributing 48.6%, 51.7%, and 60.6% of the company's revenue for each respective period.

Growth from Xiaomi's ODM business drove the improvement in LOCKIN Technology's performance. During the reporting period, the company's revenue was 1.015 billion yuan, 1.086 billion yuan, and 774 million yuan respectively; net profit was 14.026 million yuan, 53.113 million yuan, and 31.981 million yuan respectively.

Although LOCKIN Technology's performance appears to be growing steadily, judging from the financial data reflected in the prospectus, this growth is not particularly healthy.

During the reporting period, the company's operating cash flow continued to decline, at 89.485 million yuan, 1.247 million yuan, and -38.307 million yuan respectively; accounts receivable continued to rise, with turnover efficiency rapidly decreasing, and turnover days were 70 days, 83 days, and 101 days respectively; the scale of overdue trade receivables continued to climb, at 12.091 million yuan, 25.012 million yuan, and 48.504 million yuan respectively.

Currently, China's "Thousand Lock War" is far from over. The smart lock industry has numerous participants and a highly fragmented market. In the future, as industry competition intensifies further, a market shakeout is inevitable.

If LOCKIN Technology cannot expand the scale and influence of its own brand in the C2C market, even if it can secure Xiaomi's ODM orders in the long term, the capital market's valuation logic for it will likely only be that of a contract manufacturer.