E-Commerce Morning Brief: Xiabu Xiabu Posts 5 Consecutive Years of Losses; Douyin Local Life Raises Full-Year Transaction Target; AI Venture Investment Surpasses 300 Billion Yuan in H1

News 1: Xiabu Xiabu expects H1 loss to exceed 29 million yuan, with total losses surpassing 1.5 billion yuan over the past 5 years.

On the evening of August 3, Xiabu Xiabu disclosed its preliminary operating results for the first half of the year ended June 30, 2026. The company is projected to report approximately 1.5 billion yuan in revenue for H1 2026, a year-on-year decline of around 23% from H1 2025. Its expected net loss ranges from 29 million yuan to 39 million yuan, narrowing by 51% to 64% compared to the 81 million yuan net loss recorded in the same period last year. Looking at past performance, Xiabu Xiabu has incurred losses for five consecutive years, with total losses exceeding 1.5 billion yuan. The hot pot chain began to see a decline in net profit in 2019, and turned to a net loss of 293 million yuan in 2021. Losses widened further to 353 million yuan the following year, before reaching 199 million yuan in 2023 and 398 million yuan in 2024. In 2025, Xiabu Xiabu posted a full-year loss of 280 million yuan, narrowing from the 398 million yuan loss in 2024.

News 2: Douyin Local Services raises full-year gross merchandise value (GMV) target mid-year after faster-than-expected growth.

According to media reports, driven by synergies with UGC content on the main Douyin app, faster-than-anticipated growth in short-form local life content and search traffic has propelled Douyin Local Services to post a year-on-year GMV increase of over 50% in H1 2026, beating its pre-set target. The platform has raised its full-year GMV target mid-year. The standalone app "Doushengsheng" has become another key source of growth. In addition, Doushengsheng has launched a "store discovery" entry to further enhance user stickiness and cultivate user habits of searching for local merchants on the platform. Driven by the dual engines of "product search and store discovery", the app is creating more synergies with the main Douyin app. Currently, Doushengsheng's daily active users (DAUs) have exceeded 15 million, with increasing user recognition of its local services entrance.

News 3: Viral AI influencer Fang Taozi charges over 250,000 yuan for 60-second ads.

Recently, Fang Taozi, the AI protagonist of the hit AI short drama *The Laid-off Girl*, has entered the livestream e-commerce sector, with contact lenses as her first promoted product, sparking widespread attention. Data from Xingtu, Douyin's influencer marketing platform, shows that Fang Taozi charges 168,000 yuan for videos between 1 and 20 seconds, 208,000 yuan for videos between 21 and 60 seconds, and 258,000 yuan for videos longer than 60 seconds. These rates already exceed those of most real-life influencers with 1 million followers, and even surpass many influencers with tens of millions of followers.

News 4: 300 billion yuan flows into Chinese AI startups in H1, with venture capital accelerating its shift to AI and hard tech.

According to CCTV Finance, investment in high-tech industries grew 4.6% year-on-year in the first half of this year, a trend underpinned by a continuous rebound in venture capital activity. Industry insiders widely believe that the development of AI technology is the core driver of this round of recovery in the venture capital market, with capital increasingly flowing into sectors such as AI, quantum technology, and computing power. Data shows that total financing raised by Chinese AI startups in H1 2026 exceeded 300 billion yuan, already surpassing the full-year total for 2025.

News 5: WorkBuddy launches "Security Center" feature.

On August 3, Tencent Cloud announced that WorkBuddy versions 5.0 and above have officially rolled out the "Security Center" feature, with core management capabilities including real-time interception of unauthorized operations, automatic routing of deleted files to the recycle bin, and version recovery for modified files enabled by default.

News 6: Shopee Malaysia adjusts commission rates for local Marketplace sellers.

A number of adjustments are being made to the commission structure for Shopee Malaysia's local Marketplace sellers. Starting August 14, 2026, the platform will update its commission rate schedule based on product category clusters. Orders for textbooks and workbooks listed in the Malaysian Ministry of Education (KPM) catalog will be eligible for a fixed 3% reduction in commission rates, a policy that only applies to non-Mall local Marketplace sellers. In addition, effective August 1, new sellers will start paying commissions after their first listed product has been on the platform for more than 120 days or they have completed a cumulative total of more than 200 orders, whichever comes first, marking the end of the platform's previous early-stage commission-free protection period. Meanwhile, the zero or reduced commission policy for more than 100 daily necessity categories (including rice, flour, oil, salt, eggs, dairy, meat, and seafood) introduced on May 21 will remain in effect.

News 7: Eight major e-commerce platforms in Indonesia launch new policy to withhold 0.5% income tax at source.

Starting August 1, 2026, four major e-commerce platforms in Indonesia including Shopee, Tokopedia, Lazada, and Blibli will uniformly implement the Article 22 income tax withholding policy, directly deducting tax at a rate of 0.5% of sellers' total turnover. This tax does not include value-added tax or luxury goods tax. While the overall tax rate is low, since it is calculated based on operating revenue rather than profit, it has a more pronounced impact on sellers with low profit margins. For example, for an electronics seller with a 5% net profit margin and a turnover of 10 million Indonesian rupiah, the tax will account for 10% of its profits. For a clothing seller with a 30% net profit margin, the tax will only account for 1.67% of its profits.

That concludes today's morning brief. For more e-commerce insights, please stay tuned to Ebrun Audio News.