We recently published an article titled Why These 15 E-Commerce Stocks Are Skyrocketing So Far In 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Zhihu Inc. (NYSE:ZH) stands against the other e-commerce stocks.
The e-commerce sector has been on fire for a while in the post-COVID era, and while it did slow down a little along with most tech stocks, it has recovered significantly due to strong consumer demand. We’ve seen some players like Temu have explosive growth with cheap Chinese products flooding the U.S. market. And while there was a scare of De Minimis being ended, Trump has reinstated it. Moreover, U.S.-based e-commerce companies have also done well.
Global e-commerce sales are projected to hit $6.56 trillion this year and could grow even more in the coming years as AI improves logistics and supply chains. E-commerce companies are also expanding into fintech and cloud computing businesses.
If the broader market continues to do well in the coming quarters, this industry could deliver solid returns for investors. As such, it’s a good idea to look into the stocks spearheading the gains so far this year.
Methodology
For this article, I screened the top-performing e-commerce stocks year-to-date. Stocks that I have covered recently will be excluded from this list.
I will also mention the number of hedge fund investors in these stocks. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
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Zhihu Inc. (NYSE:ZH)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q4 2024: 8
Zhihu Inc. (NYSE:ZH) is an online content operator in China.
The stock is up significantly so far in 2025 as Zhihu Inc. (NYSE:ZH) recently achieved its highest gross profit margin since its listing at 63.9%. This was driven by a substantial reduction in costs and operating expenses (down 35.6% and 30.5%, respectively).
The company reported a significant increase in paid membership revenue, which rose 11.5% year-over-year in Q3 2024, alongside a 20% growth in daily active user engagement.
Also, on February 24, Zhihu experienced a surge in options trading volume, with call options increasing by 381% compared to the daily average.
The consensus price target of $4.7 implies 11.9% downside.
Zhihu Inc. (NYSE:ZH) is up 50.14% year-to-date.
Overall ZH ranks 3rd on our list of the e-commerce stocks that are skyrocketing so far in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of ZH as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ZH but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.