At its 2026 annual gala on February 11, Chinese camera‑maker Insta360 surprised employees and the market by awarding five residential apartments in the Greater Bay Area and a fleet of luxury cars to staff members. Photographs from the event showed deeds and keys presented on stage; the five apartments are reported to be worth more than one million yuan each. The winners were all members of the post‑90s generation, with an average age under 32, and none were company executives.
A company insider confirmed that the property giveaways were real and that the event also distributed six cars: one recipient received a Porsche while five others could choose from an electric Li Auto L7 Pro, a new BMW 3 Series, or a Tesla Model Y. Organizers told staff the apartment winners could pick from two finished, amenity‑rich residential developments. The founder, Liu Jingkang, posted preparatory photos online in the hours before the gala with the wry comment that he never sleeps before the company party.
The spectacle is consistent with Insta360’s recent practice of lavish year‑end rewards; last year the company gave away six new energy vehicles. For a global audience, the story illustrates two converging trends inside China’s private tech sector: fierce competition for talent and the use of conspicuous rewards to bind a young workforce to fast‑growing firms.
Gifting property rather than cash or stock is notable in China’s economic context. The country’s housing market has been under strain for several years, yet ownership in the Greater Bay Area remains both a financial and status prize. For employees in their late twenties and early thirties, an apartment in the region materially changes life prospects and signals a company’s willingness to convert corporate profits into long‑term personal wealth for junior staff.
The winners’ youth and the absence of senior executives among the recipients are telling. Tech companies in China employ a disproportionately young workforce, and management teams are increasingly using high‑visibility, large‑value rewards to recognise front‑line engineers, product managers and designers whose work matters to consumer hardware and content businesses. Such moves can help with recruitment and retention in a labor market that has softened but remains competitive for elite engineering talent.
Still, the public relations calculus is mixed. Lavish giveaways can burnish a firm’s employer brand and energize staff, but they also risk appearing tone‑deaf in a society where housing affordability is a political and social flashpoint. There are also practical implications: awarding property and expensive cars raises tax and compliance questions, and could attract regulatory attention if such programs are perceived as a mechanism to sidestep compensation norms.
For investors and competitors, Insta360’s gala offers a window into how mid‑sized Chinese hardware firms are allocating capital and cultivating loyalty as growth plateaus in some markets. Whether the approach pays long‑term dividends — in retention, productivity or reputation — will depend on execution, the company’s underlying profitability, and how regulators and the public respond to another headline‑grabbing corporate giveaway.