Xunlei Limited () is a Chinese multinational technology company and an
online service provider founded in 2003. The subsidiary of Xunlei Limited, Shenzhen Xunlei Networking Technologies, Co., Ltd. () was formerly known as Sandai Technologies (Shenzhen) Inc. and changed its name to Shenzhen Xunlei Networking Technologies, Co., Ltd. in May 2005. Its headquarters are in
Nanshan District, Shenzhen.
In April 2014, Xunlei received an investment from a Chinese electronics company
Xiaomi of $200 million. On 24 June 2014, it went public on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, selling 7.315 million American depositary shares (ADS) at $12 and raising just shy of $88 million. According to the annual ranking of China's top 100 internet companies released by
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the Chinese government, Xunlei occupied 42nd place in 2017's ranking.
The main products developed by Xunlei Limited is the Xunlei
download manager and
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network, forming a peer-to-peer network of Node ...
software, supporting
HTTP
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, wher ...
,
FTP
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and dat ...
,
eDonkey, and
BitTorrent
BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...
protocols. , it was the most commonly used BitTorrent client in the world. In October 2017, the company announced that it will transform itself into a
blockchain company, and release a blockchain-based product named OneThing Cloud. OneThing Cloud users get LinkToken (a type of virtual token) for contributing their bandwidth to the Xunlei's
content delivery network
A content delivery network (CDN) or content distribution network is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and performance ("speed") by distributing the service spat ...
.
Xunlei Ltd. announced that its board of directors has appointed Lei Chen, who is a former
Tencent
Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...
cloud computing unit leader, as its chief executive officer of the company and director of the board on 29 June 2017. On 12 December 2017, Xunlei announced that the board of directors of the company has elected Mr. Chuan Wang as the chairman of board of directors of the company. Wang has been a director of Xunlei since March 2014. Wang is a co-founder of
Xiaomi Inc., where he has served as its vice president since 2012. He is also the founder of Beijing Duokan Technology Co., Ltd., where he has served as its chief executive officer since its inception of business in 2010.
Products
The Xunlei download manager, generally called Xunlei, is the flagship product of Xunlei Corporation and other desktop software. Xunlei is the most popular download software in China. Since 2017, StellarCloud, OneThing Cloud and ThunderChain have become important products of the corporation.
Xunlei
Through Xunlei, users can access a large portion of the files available on the Internet. Xunlei uses a technology called
P2SP to speed up download. Features in Xunlei includes a built-in browser, changeable skins, cloud storage, "offline" downloading, hi-speed downloading (only available for members), email service and more. According to
iResearch's report, as of March 2014, the cloud accelerates
monthly active users of Xunlei reach 142 million (including approximately 5.2 million paid members), and has a market share of 81.4% in the cloud accelerated products and services market in China.
Xunlei is accompanied by a family of products including , , , and . As
adware
Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue by automatically displaying Online advertising, online advertisements in the user interface or on a screen presented during the installatio ...
, Xunlei products feature
banner advertisements, which can be disabled if logged in as a VIP user.
Nebula CDN
Nebula () CDN is a
content delivery/distribution network (CDN) product which launched by Shenzhen Onething Technologies Co., Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Xunlei, in June 2015. Different from traditional CDN, Nebula CDN make use of idle bandwidth that share by users. In order to participate in this plan, users can buy a network device (ZhuanQianBao or OneThing Cloud) from Xunlei. In return, Xunlei gives the user virtual token as a reward. As the civil broadband prices far below the broadband prices for enterprises in China, Nebula CDN's enterprise-side prices lower than its competitors. The business customers of Nebula CDN include
Xiaomi,
iQiyi,
Momo,
Insta360
Arashi Vision Inc. (), doing business as Insta360, is a camera company headquartered in Shenzhen, China with offices in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Berlin. It makes action cameras, 360-degree cameras, Video editing software, editing software for mob ...
,
Bilibili and Xunlei itself. In August 2017, Xunlei announced they received an official license of CDN operating from Ministry of industry and information industry of China.
StellarCloud
StellarCloud (Chinese: 星域云) is a shared
cloud computing
Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...
platform which expands Xunlei's existing
content delivery network
A content delivery network (CDN) or content distribution network is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and performance ("speed") by distributing the service spat ...
(CDN) services to
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), offering
edge computing
Edge computing is a distributed computing model that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data. More broadly, it refers to any design that pushes computation physically closer to a user, so as to reduce the Latency (engineer ...
, function computing and shared CDN (SCDN) solutions. StellarCloud is created to help companies in their transition to cloud, including content delivery, live streaming, data storage and
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
(AI). Supported by over 1.5 million
computing nodes, StellarCloud can offer as much as 30T bandwidth capacity and 1500
PB storage capacity.
OneThing Cloud
OneThingCloud (Chinese: 玩客云), a
private cloud designed for people who pursue high quality
digital entertainment, provides people with quick download, instant storage and removing,
file management, remote control, multimedia entertainment and other functions.
ThunderChain
In April 2018,
Xunlei launched ThunderChain (Chinese: 迅雷链), a high-performance
blockchain platform, which can concurrently conduct millions of
transactions per second (TPS). Based on Xunlei's
proprietary homogeneous multichain framework, ThunderChain is designed to realize confirmation and interaction among homogeneous chains and enable multiple transactions to be executed on different chains in parallel. An optimized
practical Byzantine fault tolerance (PBFT) is adopted by ThunderChain as its consensus model which results in low latency and makes it possible to generate one block per second. PBFT, as a consistency algorithm, is also able to avoid
soft fork. ThunderChain supports smart contracts written in solidity language and is compatible with
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), making it easy to migrate applications from other blockchain platforms.
ThunderChain File System
ThunderChain File System (TCFS), based on Xunlei's proprietary distributed technology and millions of shared computing nodes, is a distributed file system for data storage and authorized distribution. It is built specifically for blockchain platforms including ThunderChain and other platforms. Blockchain developers and enterprises can build decentralized applications (DApps) with distributed data storage and integration, possessing the improved capabilities in openness, transparency, non-temper ability, traceability, reliability, security and encryption, mass storage and authorization.
Xunlei Kankan
Xunlei Kankan, also known as Kankan, is a video-on-demand service with a
web interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...
as well as a client application. Xunlei Kankan is also available on mobile platforms including Android and iOS (including iPhone and Kankan HD for iPad). In 2015, Xunlei sold its entire stake in Xunlei Kankan to Beijing Nesound International Media Corp., Ltd. for a total consideration of
RMB 130 million.
Others
In addition to the above products, the company also produces software such as a
media player, a game accelerator, a live
streaming video platform and
online games.
Facilities
Headquarters and offices
Xunlei Building, the new headquarters building of Xunlei, is under construction and expected to be completed in 2020. Xunlei Building is located in Shenzhen Nanshan District, adjacent to Shenzhen Metro Line 1 and Line 2. The building has 30 floors, and the total construction area of the building is about 65,000 square meters.
Concerns and criticisms
LinkToken
LinkToken, formerly known as OneCoin, is one kind of virtual token issued by Xunlei, and this token must be obtained through the sharing of user's network bandwidth, storage space or other resources. Xunlei said this token can be used to pay for network acceleration services, cloud storage services and other internet content. The company explained that the digital token would allow transparent bookkeeping for the computing resources that users share on the company's cloud platform.
On account of the prohibition of virtual currency trading and
initial coin offering (ICO) in China, Xunlei declare that LinkToken does not constitute an ICO and it cannot be purchased or traded in cash, and the company has issued lawyer's letters to third-party trading platforms, requiring them to stop LinkToken trading activities. Nevertheless, the trading price of the token still rose 30 times in a month on some unofficial trading platforms, and some critics assert that the token is too speculative and may face some regulatory risks.
On 17 September 2018, Xunlei entered into a strategic partnership with Newland Hi-Tech Group Co., Ltd. In connection with the Strategic Partnership, Xunlei also entered into a series of transactions with Beijing LinkChain Co., Ltd., an associated company of
Newland, to transfer the exclusive right to operate LinkToken program within mainland China, including without limitation, the formulation, amendment and execution of the rules governing the rewarding of LinkToken to users, LinkToken Pocket and the LinkToken Mall, and the related assets and liabilities to Beijing LinkChain (the "Transfer"). Upon the completion of this Transfer, Xunlei will cease operating the LinkToken program within mainland China. This Transfer will allow Xunlei to put more focus on research and development of the underlying blockchain technology and infrastructure, such as ThunderChain and ThunderChain File System (TCFS).
File sharing
Xunlei is different from
P2P tools in that it does not support active file sharing. While copyright advocates view Xunlei as a P2P tool that facilitates copyright violation, P2P advocates criticize Xunlei as a
leech
Leeches are segmented parasitism, parasitic or Predation, predatory worms that comprise the Class (biology), subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the Oligochaeta, oligochaetes, which include the earthwor ...
with much more downloading than
uploading. Also it is often observed that Xunlei prioritizes file sharing with Xunlei users rather than other client users. Many pure P2P tools have blocked Xunlei, although this trend weakened after Xunlei began balancing the number of downloads and uploads.
Xunlei sets up its own storage servers to backup the files which are not active or shared any longer. This feature is named as High-Speed Channel and allows Xunlei users retrieve data faster than others. But only purchased users have rights to access to these servers and download files.
See also
*
Tencent
Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...
*
FlashGet, another download manager
References
External links
English Version of Thunder Mini
Malware Win32/KanKan
{{Interwiki extra, qid=Q1456845
Peer-to-peer computing
File sharing software
Download managers
BitTorrent clients
Adware
Chinese companies established in 2003
Internet technology companies of China
Notorious markets
2014 initial public offerings