Hoto was born out of a moment of restlessness—a spark of inspiration ignited by sheer boredom. For Lidan Liu, a distinguished industrial designer and founder of the company, that restlessness became the driving force behind a new approach to everyday tools. In conversation with *The Verge*, Liu explained that after years of offering design advice through her consultancy, Designaffairs China, she felt creatively unfulfilled. She realized she no longer wanted to simply guide others toward innovation; instead, she longed to construct something tangible, something uniquely her own. Spending day after day in her workshop, surrounded by rows of ageing, uninspiring equipment, Liu began to notice the stagnation of the tool industry around her. The field appeared locked in a cycle of repetition — dominated by products that were not only visually monotonous but molded by traditionally masculine aesthetics and intended chiefly for professional technicians.
Disillusioned by such lack of imagination, Liu envisioned a transformation: Why couldn’t tools also appeal to a broader audience — to anyone who valued beauty, simplicity, and functionality in equal measure? With that idea, she resolved to create a new design language for domestic tools. Thus, she launched iMonkey Technology, which in time evolved into Hoto, a sleek abbreviation for “Home Tools.” Her journey, however, was not a solitary one. Leveraging her extensive professional network, Liu reached out to Liu De, a cofounder of Xiaomi — a titan in China’s tech ecosystem — whom she had previously met while serving as a judge on various design award panels. In 2016, she sent him a message proposing a meeting. What began as a conversation quickly blossomed into an opportunity: he encouraged her to join Xiaomi’s supplier incubator program, an ecosystem designed to foster creative startups. This partnership afforded her invaluable access to Xiaomi’s network of component suppliers and provided a platform to launch Hoto’s early products under Xiaomi’s Mijia brand in exchange for a modest ten‑percent equity stake in her fledgling company.
For nearly half a year, Liu routinely pitched design concepts to Xiaomi’s cofounder, refining her vision every two weeks. Out of this collaboration emerged Hoto’s debut product — a slim, elegantly designed screwdriver set featuring twenty‑four precision bits manufactured by the renowned German brand Wiha. Distinguished by a pop‑out magnetic case that gently secured each bit, the set succeeded in blending utility with an understated aesthetic appeal. The product bore both Xiaomi and Wiha logos, signaling credibility and craftsmanship. Yet, Xiaomi approached the launch conservatively, placing an initial order for just five thousand units, doubting the market’s readiness for such an unconventional design. Critics advised Liu that her product was too niche, too unusual to succeed — but their doubts evaporated within moments. The entire stock sold out in seven seconds, demonstrating a voracious hunger for tools reimagined as lifestyle objects.
By 2020, Hoto’s collaboration with Xiaomi had expanded to include five co‑branded items, such as powered screwdrivers, while the firm began to release products exclusively under its own name. In only a few years, Hoto had sold more than four million Xiaomi‑branded pieces and an additional five million under its independent label, with annual sales doubling the previous year — a trajectory that underscored its newfound global momentum.
Running parallel to Hoto’s ascent was the rise of another fast‑moving contender: Fanttik — a name derived from the word “fantastic.” Fanttik’s formation was deeply tied to Aukey, its parent company, which had once seemed poised to replicate Anker’s success as the first major Chinese electronics brand to resonate with American consumers. Aukey’s core business lay in producing affordable yet dependable electronic accessories — particularly chargers — that exemplified the potential of Chinese manufacturing to combine quality with cost‑effectiveness. However, in the summer of 2021, catastrophe struck. Aukey, along with hundreds of other Chinese sellers, was permanently banned from Amazon after investigations revealed fraudulent review practices, including bribing customers to produce favorable feedback or erase negative critiques. The incident cost Aukey hundreds of millions in lost sales and resulted in a catastrophic $90 million net loss that year. Despite this blow, the company’s expansive structure enabled a swift recovery: Aukey controlled close to three hundred sub‑brands and possessed vast cross‑border logistics operations spanning the United States and Europe. It managed warehouses, served over seven hundred e‑commerce clients, and collaborated with more than five hundred manufacturers. Interestingly, most of its income did not come from electronics at all but from furniture — the company marketed inexpensive beds, bookshelves, and household furnishings under myriad labels such as Allewie, Sha Cerlin, and Keyluv across major marketplaces including Amazon, Wayfair, and Walmart.
After what internal documents referred to as “the Amazon Incident,” Aukey rebranded as AuGroup, publicly distancing itself from the discredited names and realigning focus on its profitable furniture division. Yet within its gigantic business tree lay a small but sophisticated branch dedicated to portable power tools — roughly five percent of its total operations. It was here that the Fanttik brand took shape, embodying a new strategy anchored in brand‑first storytelling and controlled innovation. Prior to this, Fanttik had mainly served as a distributor of other manufacturers’ products. But when CEO Bo Du assumed leadership in 2021, he restructured the division from the ground up, reducing its workforce to approximately 150 employees and establishing dedicated teams for product design, user experience, and brand communication. Speaking at the FastMoss Global Short Video Conference, he explained how this pivot would let Fanttik combine manufacturing prowess with narrative‑driven consumer engagement. The results soon manifested: within four years, the company sold roughly 5.5 million tools worldwide.
While countless Chinese brands remain confined to online marketplaces like Amazon or AliExpress, both Hoto and Fanttik have taken the crucial step toward mainstream Western retail presence. Their products now grace the shelves of Best Buy, Costco, and Walmart, and their futuristic aesthetic — cordless drills, compact air pumps, and sleek motorized scrubbers that seem straight out of a science‑fiction set — circulates constantly across TikTok feeds. Nevertheless, despite their modern image, neither company is revolutionizing hardware technology in the radical way Dyson once did. Instead, their patents focus heavily on form and visual sophistication rather than on mechanical breakthroughs.
Executives from both firms emphasize an identical philosophy: design excellence and product quality reign supreme. As Fanttik’s marketing director, Zoe Wei, succinctly states, the product team is their largest and most significant force, driven by the belief that “a truly great product ultimately conquers the market.” Indeed, much of their acclaim rests on the sensory pleasure of their designs — minimal, ergonomic, and inviting — though critical users, including the interviewer, have occasionally discovered that aesthetic brilliance sometimes overshadows functional reliability. Examples include Hoto’s Snapbloq system, where magnets intended to interlock modular tool heads proved too weak, or Fanttik’s electric scissors, which, despite social‑media popularity, frequently jammed in real‑world use. Both companies promptly addressed these setbacks by upgrading designs and refining engineering, but the occasional misstep reminded observers that innovation is an iterative art.
The pattern of mutual observation and swift adaptation runs deep between the two. Despite official insistence that Hoto and Fanttik function in distinct market spheres — Hoto more entrenched in China thanks to its Xiaomi lineage and Fanttik targeting North America — the evidence suggests a lively rivalry. Each frequently mirrors the other’s successes: when Hoto launched its award‑winning Compressed Air Capsule, a multifunctional vacuum and inflator honored by the Museum of Modern Art, Fanttik soon unveiled a similar bidirectional model. Likewise, both brands have released parallel iterations of compact vacuums, rotary tools, and motorized scrubbers, often within months of each other. Fanttik’s marketing dominance, however, has been powered by its mastery of TikTok commerce, where thousands of influencers produce viral demonstrations that translate directly into sales. Some of these videos have garnered tens of millions of views, selling thousands of units per clip and generating millions in revenue. The strategy, which relies on creator commissions rather than direct advertising, has proven extraordinarily efficient: although Fanttik maintains only thirty staffers overseeing TikTok operations, over ninety percent of its massive online reach stems from independent creators motivated by generous revenue‑sharing programs.
Recognizing this prowess, Liu has announced Hoto’s intention to invest heavily in social‑media partnerships by 2026, expanding its marketing, sales, and brand teams to emulate Fanttik’s digital momentum. Nevertheless, the two firms continue to build distinct identities. Hoto’s reputation is intertwined with design‑industry validation: its products have earned more than fifty international design honors — from iF Design and Red Dot to Japan’s Good Design awards — and collaborations with cultural icons like Supreme and the Museum of Modern Art. Fanttik, on the other hand, leverages scale and sponsorships, funding partnerships with NASCAR drivers, NBA teams, and UFC fighters to solidify its energetic, tech‑savvy image.
Despite Fanttik’s four‑to‑one advantage in staffing and its extensive lineup — encompassing not only numerous screwdriver models and inflators but also experimental lifestyle appliances — its sprawling variety sometimes feels at odds with Hoto’s deliberate restraint. Hoto maintains a catalog of fewer than thirty‑five products, developed by a lean team of about 300 employees, focusing only on “everyday home tools.” Liu’s philosophy of discipline stems from experience: earlier attempts to diversify into blenders, kitchenware, or heavy‑duty yard equipment were abandoned after realizing that each distracted from the brand’s central purpose — elevating the ordinary household toolkit. As she put it, “tool companies often cannibalize themselves; we define ourselves as creators of home essentials, not industrial gear.”
Although they trade ideas, occasionally even cooperating — Hoto acknowledges consulting Fanttik to navigate Amazon’s ecosystem — both companies ultimately compete to shape the aesthetic and emotional identity of modern tooling. Each, in essence, embodies a different side of the same creative coin: one born from a designer’s quest to reimagine the familiar, and the other from a corporate network’s determination to merge commerce, influence, and design under a global brand.
Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/report/829265/hoto-fanttik-profile-origins-xiaomi-aukey-tiktok
