Rising from the ruins of Kindle, Onyx still faces tough battles in expanding overseas.
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More than three years after Kindle announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market, a “survivor” from Guangzhou is proving to the capital market that the e-ink business is not only still alive, but can also become a company with listing potential.
Recently, Guangzhou Boox Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Boox”) submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The commercial logic of Boox can be described as “anti-Kindle”.
Unlike Amazon’s closed system model of “low-cost hardware + book sales for profit”, Boox’s e-ink products focus on an open system, allowing users to freely download various apps such as WeChat Reading from the app store.
This strategy enabled Boox to quickly fill the vacuum left by Amazon’s retreat.
In 2024, Boox’s revenue reached 1.018 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.62%, taking a significant share of the downstream e-ink market.
But behind the impressive data, there are also concerns.
Upon the ruins after Kindle’s exit, although Boox picked up users, it also has to directly face the challenges of the “tough business” of hardware manufacturing: competitors’ “flood-the-market tactics” and the constraints posed by upstream giants.
In order to catch up with the launch speed of competitors like iReader, Boox released 13 and 9 new products in 2024 and 2025 respectively, at a pace comparable to mainstream domestic smartphone makers.
Even so, Boox’s year-on-year revenue growth in the first three quarters of 2025 was only about 10%, lagging behind the growth rate of the whole year 2024.
Currently, Boox is expanding overseas markets, preparing to compete head-to-head in Kindle’s home market, the United States. Whether the open system model can succeed abroad is attracting attention.
Double Pressure from Giants and Competitors
The story of Amazon’s Kindle e-ink reader exiting the Chinese market is still vivid, and its core reason lies in the serious “incompatibility” of the “razor-and-blade” business model in China.
At that time, Amazon’s logic was: the hardware could be unprofitable or even loss-making, using the closed system to lock users into the Kindle store and earn profits from frequent e-book purchases.
But this model clearly could not continue in China.
On one hand, domestic e-book pricing strategies were chaotic, piracy was rampant, and user willingness to pay was very low; on the other hand, free or subscription-based apps like WeChat Reading rose strongly, but Amazon’s closed system could not support third-party apps.
The closed ecosystem Kindle was proud of instead became a shackle, “drawing boundaries to trap itself”, which gave Chinese companies like Boox an opportunity to rise.
Boox focuses on the open Android ecosystem, allowing installation of third-party apps like WeChat Reading, compatible with various file formats, providing a more personalized reading experience for users.
This “not bundling content, just providing a tool” idea enabled Boox to quickly seize part of the market after Kindle’s withdrawal, with 2024 revenue reaching 1.018 billion yuan, up more than a quarter year-on-year.
Breaking down the products, Boox’s main revenue sources are readers (small size) and tablets (large size), which in the first three quarters of 2025 generated 293 million yuan and 472 million yuan respectively, accounting for 36.7% and 59% of revenue.
However, taking over part of Kindle’s market share does not mean Boox can rest easy.
On the downstream market, besides Boox, Chinese brands like iReader, iFlytek, and Hanvon are also eyeing the market eagerly.
Although Boox cited Frost & Sullivan data, claiming that based on 2024 retail revenue, it is China’s largest knowledge-focused productivity tool brand.
But by other statistical calibers and third-party data, Boox’s “No. 1” position is not solid.
According to data from third-party firm RUNTO Technology, in terms of sales volume, iFlytek accounts for over 80% of the entire offline market, while Xiaoyuan ranks first in all online channels.
All parties are resorting to “product flooding” strategies. In 2025, a total of 83 tablet products with e-paper screens were launched in the Chinese market, with iReader releasing 13 products in one go, and an unwilling Boox launching 10 new products.
On the upstream, raw material constraints are present.
As the core component of e-readers, about 90% of the world’s e-paper display supply is concentrated in E Ink Holdings.
Boox also admits to mainly purchasing e-paper displays from E Ink, with purchases from E Ink accounting for 28.1% and 27.4% of total procurement amounts in 2024 and the first three quarters of 2025, respectively.
With such a monopoly, E Ink takes away most of the profits in the industry.
In 2024, E Ink’s gross margin and net margin reached 49.64% and 27.28%, respectively, which are 12.73 and 15.37 percentage points higher than those of Boox.
Between upstream monopoly and downstream competition, Boox’s path to breaking out is being tested.
Is Going Overseas the Solution?
Relying solely on “selling hardware” is clearly not attractive enough in the capital market.
In its prospectus, Boox explained its growth strategy, which is to promote a shift from the “hardware-led” model to a more diversified structure including “hardware + subscription + ecosystem”.
In terms of subscription services, Boox has developed its own note-taking app StarNote, offering handwriting correction and various value-added services;
As for ecology, Boox intends to gradually open its operating system to attract developers to create apps tailored for eye-friendly reading and focused writing, solidifying its position as an open platform operator.
At present, the proportion of revenue from these segments is still low. In the first three quarters of 2025, the combined revenue from accessories, external e-ink displays, and the StarNote app business was only 35 million yuan, accounting for 4.3% of total revenue.
Whether this part of the business can achieve a qualitative leap in revenue as installations increase remains uncertain, especially when domestic internet platforms generally operate under the “wool comes from the dog, but the pig pays the bill” approach, meaning users are usually unwilling to pay for apps like note-taking.
However, Boox’s advantage is that it already has a certain market share in overseas markets where users are more willing to pay.
In the first three quarters of 2025, the European, U.S., and Asian (excluding China) markets contributed 170 million yuan, 149 million yuan, and 117 million yuan in revenue respectively, together accounting for 54.9%.
To further explore overseas markets, Boox has launched localized products like Note Air5 C and BOOX Go 7, mainly targeting users’ office needs.
But U.S. dollars are not easy to earn. In the first three quarters of 2025, Boox’s revenue growth in the U.S. market was 8% year-on-year, more than 4 percentage points lower than in the domestic market.
Overall, Boox wants the market to see it not just as a hardware company, but more like Apple, a consumer electronics brand that can win global market share through software ecosystems and globalization.
But with only 10.31% year-on-year growth in the first three quarters of 2025, more than 10 percentage points lower than all of 2024, whether Boox’s “hardware + subscription + ecosystem” strategy can succeed remains to be seen.
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