Insta360 is selling a lot of cameras, but they are not able to generate as much profit as they made in the previous year. And believe me, the sales are quite high, which means the numbers are more and higher, but the profit has reached its lowest point, specifically when compared to the previous year’s first-half profit.
Insta360, listed in China as 影石创新 (688775.SH), published its first-half 2026 report on the evening of 27 August. The headline is simple: the company sold a lot more cameras and made almost no money.
That is really a big contrast. We are going to explain this situation in this article in a detailed way, so let’s begin.
than Keep in mind that these profit figures and sales numbers are before the Luna Ultra and Luna Pro announcements. These two announcements hit differently and have become two of the top-selling pocket gimbal cameras in most stores across the United States of America. Since the DJI Pocket 4 Pro has now been banned not only in the USA, but the Asian market is also very keen towards the new Ultra. So, the second-half sales numbers will be quite a bit different than the first half.
1. The numbers check out
The figures circulating after the report match the official filing.
For January–June 2026, Insta360 reported:
- Revenue: RMB 5.517 billion, up 50.29% year on year
- Net profit attributable to shareholders: RMB 30.41 million, down 94.15%
- Profit excluding non-recurring items: a loss of RMB 15.34 million, down 103.12%
- Operating cash flow: an outflow of RMB 2.761 billion, down 1,245.12%
- Weighted average ROE: 0.53%
- Basic and diluted EPS: RMB 0.08, down 94.41%
Exact filing amounts were RMB 5,516,546,762.11 of revenue and RMB 30,407,322.67 of attributable net profit. Media outlets rounded revenue to 55.17亿元. Caixin, IT之家, 证券时报 and MarketScreener all reprinted the same set.
The company is still growing on the top line. Profit and cash generation are not.
2. How much profit did they actually make?
The graph clearly shows the **profit **they made in the first half of 2026, and it is quite disappointing, but we believe profit after the introduction of the new series will be different. But for that, we have to wait until March 2027
2026 is not finished. The only audited window so far is the first six months. In that period, shareholders of the listed company were attributed about RMB 30.4 million. At recent rates that is roughly $4.5 million, or about ₹43 crore.
Put beside sales, that profit is tiny. Revenue was about ₹7,840 crore. The company kept about half a percent of sales as attributable net profit.
Even that ₹43 crore overstates the quality of earnings.
- After stripping one-off items, H1 was a loss of about RMB 15.3 million (~₹22 crore).
- The whole group, including minority partners, lost about RMB 94 million.
- Pre-tax profit was a loss of about RMB 90 million.
The parent company can show a small profit while the group loses money because some new businesses — notably early-stage lines such as panoramic drones — booked large losses that were allocated to minority shareholders.
The year also split in two. Q1 still made about RMB 85 million. Q2 lost about RMB 54 million. Insta360 went from “growing but less profitable” to its first quarterly loss since listing in a single quarter.
3. Profit did not rise versus last year. It collapsed.
The clean comparison is first half versus first half.
| H1 2025 | H1 2026 | Change | |
| Attributable net profit | RMB 520 million | RMB 30.4 million | −RMB 490 million (−94%) |
| Roughly in rupees | ₹739 crore | ₹43 crore | −₹696 crore |
| Core / 扣非 profit | profit of RMB 492 million | loss of RMB 15.3 million | −103% |
They made about 6% of last year’s first-half profit. Sales were up by half. Profit was down by nineteen-twentieths.
Full-year 2026 profit is still unknown. The 2025 annual profit was much larger — on the order of RMB 929 million — but that is last year’s completed result, not this year’s.
4. Did they just cut prices to buy market share?
Price competition is part of the story. It is not the whole story.
Well, there’s one of the most important parts of this article. According to their own text from the official source of information, Gross margin fell by about 10 percentage points, to roughly 41% from about 51%, which is very low compared to what they should have to generate to make a lot of money. One of the major reasons behind that is the cheap, competitive products available in the market that they have to compete with. Yes, we are talking about DJI, one of the strongest alternatives and a bigger brand than Insta360.
Although DJI is now banned in the USA, and Insta360 has a big relief over that, that’s why we are saying the second half of the results will be quite a bit different. But right now, other than that, Insta360 has also added pocket gimbal series cameras to its portfolio, so it is going to boost the overall sales record of the company.
Other reasons Why Insta 360 Profit is down:
- Memory chips got expensive. Cameras need a lot of storage. Chip prices stayed high. Insta360 also spent nearly RMB 2 billion buying chips ahead of time. That was a supply bet. It also drained cash and hurt near-term profit.
- They spent heavily to build the next product cycle. R&D was about RMB 1.04 billion, almost 19% of sales. New categories, especially panoramic drones, are still in the spend-first stage.
- Mix changed. More new lines and accessories can dilute the old, fatter 360-camera margins.
So the H1 picture is not “they dumped cameras cheap, and that is all.” It is some price and promotion pressure + much higher component costs + a large investment bill. That combination can produce exactly this result: revenue up 50%, profit almost gone, cash flow deeply negative.
5. Why Ultra and Pro make the next chapter different — and why they do not settle it yet
The H1 report is a poor snapshot of the product line Insta360 is selling now.
- Luna Ultra, the 8K Leica dual-lens gimbal camera, launched on 10 June 2026. H1 includes only about three weeks of Ultra sales.
- X6, the new flagship 360 camera, launched on 12 August.
- Luna Pro, the 4K vertical gimbal camera, launched on 20 August.
X6 and Pro are not in the H1 accounts at all.
Launch demand for Ultra was real. It sold out in minutes on Chinese platforms. The white version vanished quickly in Japan. There were queues. It reached bestseller lists and later appeared in a Costco bundle in the United States. Insta360 also kept Ultra off the main summer discount event, which is usually a sign that management wants to protect flagship price.
The honest split is this:
- H1 = old mix + a short Ultra burst + expensive chips + heavy investment.
- H2 = Ultra in volume + X6 + Pro, still against the same cost and competition problems.
Insta360’s verified H1 2026 result is not a mystery. It sold about RMB 5.52 billion of product and attributed only RMB 30 million of profit to shareholders. Core operations lost a little money. Cash flowed out by RMB 2.76 billion. Versus the same period last year, profit fell 94%.
That is consistent with a company paying up for chips, spending on R&D and new categories, and fighting DJI for share. It is not proof that the business is broken, and it is not proof that Ultra and Pro have already fixed it.
The next story is narrower: can the new gimbal and 360 lineup turn demand into margin, or will H2 repeat the same pattern — more sales, almost no profit? The H1 report cannot answer that. The October quarter can.
The article “Insta360’s H1 2026: Sales Up, Profit Almost Gone – And Why Ultra/Pro May Change the Next Chapter” was written by thenewcamera.com team on 10:17 am, Saturday, 29 August 2026, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) | You can also follow us on Our Official Social Media Handles FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM > get live news — > DJI Rumors | Insta360 News
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