"Outside Shanghai's downtown area, Songjiang and Chongming districts have registered a major increase in the number of people using our service. We see great potential in China's market. Young people born in the 1980s and 90s have a high acceptance for home-sharing, and they account for 80 percent of our customers," Xu said.

A report on home-sharing published by the State Information Center in May said about 3 million minsu were registered online in the country last year, with the transaction amount totaling 14.5 billion yuan, up 70 percent from 2016. The number of shared-homes in rural areas would double, and the market would be worth an estimated 50 billion yuan in 2020, the report said.

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