Xiaohongshu Surpasses 400 Million Monthly Users, Announces Full-Scale Investment in Medium-to-Long Videos and Expanding All Content Formats

Amid the wave of AI transforming the internet industry, China’s major social platform Xiaohongshu (RED) is experiencing unprecedented growth. On May 28, 2026, the company officially announced its acquisition of broadcasting rights for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will take place in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, stirring widespread attention. Just three days earlier, Xiaohongshu revealed that its monthly active user count had surpassed 400 million, with daily search queries reaching 800 million. Additionally, the company announced plans to introduce long-form text, podcasts, and 4K ultra-high-definition video functionality throughout 2026, signaling a comprehensive expansion into diverse content domains. As external discussions focus on how AI will transform content creation and short videos compete for users’ time, Xiaohongshu has opted for a contrasting strategy. The company has allocated tens of millions in creative funds, reserved traffic of 50 billion page views (PV), and is supporting 15 content categories. Particularly, it is heavily investing in “deep content” such as medium-to-long videos lasting over two minutes, long-form text, and podcasts.

The Backdrop of Rapid Growth and World Cup

Strategy Xiaohongshu began as a community centered on recommending products and services through text and images, earning user trust through meticulous content management. Positioned as a distinctive presence in the mobile internet sphere by rejecting traffic-first approaches, Xiaohongshu has grown in the gaps between massive platforms. However, this “slow company” is now transforming into a radical all-rounder. Acquiring World Cup broadcasting rights symbolizes this shift. By securing mass-appeal sports content, the platform aims to broaden its user base and enhance brand recognition. The milestone of reaching 400 million monthly active users underscores its solid standing among China’s major platforms, while the 800 million daily search queries highlight its growing role as a “gateway” for users seeking information.

Betting Big on Medium-to-Long Videos:

AI and the Democratization of Creation Xiaohongshu’s focus on medium-to-long videos stems from advancements in AI technology. The company views AI as an opportunity to dramatically lower barriers to content creation, facilitating a new era of democratized creativity. With AI handling foundational tasks such as shooting, editing, and scriptwriting, creators can concentrate on the content itself—personal perspectives, experiences, and unique viewpoints. However, Xiaohongshu does not encourage fully AI-generated content. It emphasizes that AI is merely a tool, while genuine value lies in creators’ authentic expressions and personal insights. The underlying philosophy is that as technology advances, individuals become lonelier, and emotional resonance and genuine expression grow more critical. Competition in the medium-to-long video market is intensifying. Platforms like Bilibili have established mature ecosystems, and TikTok is entering the space with its traffic advantage. Xiaohongshu aims to disrupt existing structures by supporting new-generation creators and carving out differentiated territories. This includes adjustments to core algorithms: rather than relying excessively on completion rates for short videos, new metrics like bookmarks, follows, viewing time, horizontal screen playback, and interactive comments now take precedence. Medium-to-long videos are recommended for a 90-day period, ensuring high-quality content benefits from long-tail propagation. Additionally, Xiaohongshu has rolled out initiatives such as “RED Selection” to boost visibility, creative funds offering up to 1 million yuan per project, and a traffic incentive plan allocating 50 billion PV. These measures aim to enable creators to sustain themselves financially through medium-to-long video production.

Covering All Content Formats:

Text, Podcasts, and 4K Videos In 2026, Xiaohongshu plans further expansions into content formats. By introducing long-form text, podcasts, and 4K ultra-high-definition videos, it aims to become one of China’s rare creative communities encompassing text, images, video, live streaming, and podcasts. Long-form text is dominated by platforms like WeChat Official Accounts and Zhihu. Xiaohongshu intends to address cross-platform transition challenges and establish an independent long-form channel, though whether users possess deep reading habits remains uncertain. The platform explains the update as stemming from user demand. In the podcast realm, previous attempts by platforms like Weibo and Douban failed. Xiaohongshu has attracted several hundred podcast creators but has yet to commercialize the sector. The platform has expressed willingness to allow time for growth in this area. Regarding 4K services, Xiaohongshu plans to offer them free for all users, covering storage and bandwidth costs. By introducing an immersive horizontal screen player, it aims to enhance user experience. However, the exponential increase in costs associated with 4K content could strain the platform if commercial returns fail to offset the financial burden. At the heart of these expansions is the goal of eliminating barriers between different content carriers and enabling mutual integration. By organically connecting text, images, videos, and audio, Xiaohongshu aims to create an ecosystem where “UGC-KOL-Creator” symbiosis becomes its core competitive advantage, difficult for competitors to replicate.

Challenges of Community Expansion and

Maintenance Xiaohongshu has adjusted its long-standing slogan from “Your Life Guide” to “Your Lifestyle and Hobby Community.” This shift reflects saturation and homogenization in lifestyle-oriented recommendation content. Users’ interests are shifting toward hobbies and mental pursuits like gaming and anime, which transcend demographics and unite users from diverse backgrounds. The expansion into new content domains has yielded notable results. In August 2025, Xiaohongshu became the top domestic hobby community among Gen Z users. By April 2026, videos longer than two minutes accounted for over 50% of viewing time, while anime content posts grew by 175% year-on-year and gaming content by 168%. However, community diversification inevitably brings challenges. A surge of new users may dilute the existing community’s atmosphere, creating tensions between old and new users and posing a risk of core user attrition. Xiaohongshu maintains a dual framework of “passive discovery and recommendation + active search,” with 75% of daily active users viewing recommended content and 77% using search to solve problems. While this approach mitigates some contradictions, maintaining the core “recommendation DNA” and genuine sharing ethos in a community of 400 million remains a significant challenge.

Exploring Commercialization and an Uncertain

Future Xiaohongshu’s commercialization strategy is built on three layers of recommendations—products, offline lifestyle services, and virtual hobbies—that feed into six revenue paths: brand deals, store reviews, super players, live commerce, and more. Its core logic revolves around a “reverse funnel recommendation” model, precisely targeting core users, enabling even small creators with follower counts in the thousands to achieve commercial gains. Currently, around 100,000 creators double as buyers and creators. By late 2026, Xiaohongshu plans to monetize comprehensive columns across diverse formats. The “Dandelion Video Revenue Sharing Plan,” currently in testing, takes inspiration from YouTube’s ad revenue-sharing model. If successful, this could address the survival challenges faced by medium-to-long video creators. However, uncertainties persist. The percentage of video revenue sharing and user acceptance remain unclear. Domestic users tend to have lower tolerance for ads, making it difficult to balance monetization and user experience. Monetizing text-based content risks exacerbating income disparities among creators. Moreover, Xiaohongshu’s transaction ecosystem lags behind traditional e-commerce in supply chain and quality control capabilities. Whether it can convert 1.4 billion daily purchase demands into real transactions remains to be seen. Xiaohongshu’s explosive growth and expansion into all content domains are reshaping the SNS industry. By leveraging AI and betting on deep content, it distinguishes itself from short-term traffic competition. Yet, rapid scale expansion brings challenges such as community transformation and uncertainties in commercialization. As this “slow company” evolves into an ambitious all-rounder, its trajectory could serve as a bellwether for the next stage of China’s internet landscape.