36Kr Holdings Inc. (KRKR) Q4 2025 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for 36Kr Holdings Inc.'s Second Half and Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to your host, Xin Wang, IR Manager of the company. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Hello, everyone, and welcome to 36Kr Holdings Second Half and Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. The company's financial and operational results were released earlier today and have been made available online. You can also view the earnings press release by visiting the IR section of our website at ir.36kr.com. Participants on today's call will include our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Dagang Feng; and our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Xiang Li. Mr. Feng will start the call by providing an overview of the company and the performance highlights of the second half and the fiscal year 2025 in Chinese, followed by an English interpretation. Mr. Li will then provide details on the company's financial results before opening the call for your questions. Before we continue, please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, the company's results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding this and other risks and uncertainties is included in the company's prospectus and other public filings as filed with the U.S. SEC. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. Please note that 36Kr's earnings press release and this conference call include discussions of unaudited GAAP financial measures as well as unaudited and non-GAAP financial measures. 36Kr's earnings press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited GAAP measures. Please note that all amount numbers are in RMB. I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Dagang Feng. [ Tao ], please go ahead.

[Interpreted] Thank you. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our second half and fiscal year 2025 earnings conference. Over the past 2 years, 36Kr has consistently focused on improving operating efficiency and optimizing financial structure. We have continuously upgraded our organizational structure, optimized expenses and strengthened our core capabilities. In 2025, while maintaining solid revenue performance, we achieved a major operational breakthrough by turning profitable. At the same time, our cash reserves remain stable, paving the way for the company's long-term financial health and sustainable innovation-driven growth. For the full year of 2025, our gross profit margin reached 57.7%, an increase of 9 percentage points year-over-year. Operating expenses decreased by almost RMB 70 million from the same period last year. Our total operating expenses as a percentage of total revenues decreased to 53%. Notably, the company recorded a net profit of RMB 11 million for the year. These achievements were driven by our continued integration of content innovation, commercialization breakthroughs and technological applications into the company's business operations, which together optimized our organizational structure and improved workforce efficiency. We consistently fortified our content ecosystem in 2025, leveraging our [ PLS ] content creation promise to steadily extend our influence. In terms of our content dissemination network, we expanded our footprint across diverse channels, crafting a comprehensive circulation metrics, encompassing major new medium platforms like Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Zhihu, Bilibili, Toutiao and Kuaishou, among others. Broad channel exposure has brought us wider overall dissemination and higher visibility for our premium content. Our consistent production of high-quality content also diversified our user demographics, elevating user engagement and stickiness. At the end of 2025, we had over 36.8 million followers, marking 19 consecutive quarters of user growth. We explored a growing area of content formats throughout 2025, including text, graphics, short- and long-form videos, audio and live streaming, enriching our content offering with a greater diversity of styles. For text and graphics, we continue to create high-quality content on multiple fronts while maintaining our existing content metrics. Building our flagship channels, including 36Kr and 36Kr Pro, we continuously broadened our reach in subverticals, actively expanding high-quality content-specific accounts like the emergence of intelligence, 36Kr Auto, Future Consumption, 36Kr Games, WAVES, 36Kr Finance, Oh! Youth and Tide, among others. This accounts enriched our metrics with both broad content coverage and deep expertise in specialized domains, providing users with invaluable insights into industry trends and evolving business dynamics. At the start of 2025, we rolled out 36Kr Industry Future and all new content channels, spotlighting, urban innovation and state-of-the-art technologies, building our influence in emerging industries. A notable feature on the innovative pharmaceutical sector in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province garnered over 70,000 page views on our official WeChat accounts and more than 100,000 total exposures. To date, our accounts cover artificial intelligence, global expansion, advanced manufacturing, hardcore technology, consumer lifestyle, investment and much more, comprising a thriving content ecosystem. For the full year of 2025 on the 36Kr official account alone, 698 of our articles achieved over 100,000 page views. Meanwhile, [ WeChat ] followers expanded by 54% year-over-year. In terms of short video, our exceptional content creation capabilities earned us widespread visibility and real user reviews from users. Our video followers expanded 9.5 million as of the end of 2025. With WeChat channels followers surging by 67% year-over-year. Following the debut of our brand-new 36Kr tech account on Douyin in the second half of 2025, we released blockbuster videos such as AI Confidence and the AI Creator, attracting over 130,000 followers to date. In addition, our video undercover multiple host -- multi-host live garnered over 10 million views on Xiaohongshu, Douyin, [indiscernible] channels and the Bilibili. In live streaming this year, we optimized our resources with a streamlined team and fully leveraged the WeChat channels to cultivate an area of content-specific accounts, including the big deal, global expansion, Golden Shovel and 36Kr CEO Tips. We also unveiled AI Insider, a program targeting AI entrepreneurs and independent developers. During this year's World Artificial Intelligence Conference in July, 36Kr served as a special supporting medium partner and offered a super live streaming channel that combines whole conference reporting, expert panels, cutting-edge technology insights, future trained forecast and tech product [ groups ], garnering 50.2 million total views and engaging 1.17 million viewers across the 36Kr live stream metrics. Moreover, at the Appliance and Electronics World Expo 2025, 36Kr launched its first robot-themed exhibition, Future+ in partnership with 5 robotics companies, showcasing the immense potential upside of embodied artificial intelligence in home appliances and home settings. With this exhibition, the 36Kr WeChat channels live stream garnered over 1.04 million views in total, racking up over 80 million views across diverse platforms. In terms of event IP, we hosted our signature investment-focused conference WAVES in 2025, centered on the new era of venture capital, founders of emerging companies and innovative young scientists gathered the top-tier investors to discuss leading-edge topics, including AI breakthrough stabilization and value assessments. This year's WAVES event amassed over 150 million views. In addition, our 2025 AI Partner Summit focused on the AI sector under the theme "here comes the Super App" highlighted the disruptive impact of AI super applications across diverse industries, garnering over 130 million views. In the second half of the year, we hosted the WISE 2025 Business Kings Conference at the company's largest annual flagship conference. WISE 2025 business teams garnered an impressive 500 million-plus views across diverse platforms with its live stream racking up more than 800,000 views. In 2025, our deep expertise in innovation in content and IP brought the continuous commercialization breakthroughs, including client structure optimization, stronger commercialization of subvertical medium channels for younger audiences, new momentum in live streaming and video revenue and meaningful progress in industrial services commercialization. In terms of client structure optimization, our enriched content ecosystem and diverse content distribution channels empowered us to consistently expand our portfolio of services and products, constantly enhancing our commercialization capabilities within our Internet client portfolio, revenue from AI-related services continued to grow with the number of clients across model, application and hardware layers steadily expanding. Regarding the commercialization of the sub-vertical medium channels for younger audiences, revenue from channels like Oh! Youth and Tide increased by over 50% year-over-year, with core clients continuously making repeat of purchases, reflecting sustained client recognition of our PC content. As for live streaming and video commercialization, the number of clients placing short videos and live streaming orders continued to grow with new clients exceeding 50% of the total. For the full year of 2025, our live streaming revenue surged by nearly 40% year-over-year, leveraging major technology exhibition in 2025, including AWE and WAIC, we stepped up our development of live streaming offerings tailored for event coverage. To address diverse market needs, we launched a low ARPU product line effectively [indiscernible] our existing premium commercialization content offerings. This expanded the appeal of our video and live streaming offerings to more clients, particularly early-stage start-ups, enabling them to reach more potential users. Furthermore, thanks to our sustained efforts in the global expansion segment in the live streaming content innovation, we achieved a breakthrough with Tantan their clients, forging important commercial partnerships and earning high recognition from the organizers with our live streaming content. At the fourth Global Digital Trade Expo held in Hangzhou, we partnered with Hangzhou Culture Radio Television Group on a full event uninterrupted live streaming metrics, across the 5-day event, total online attendance exceeded 2.7 million, more than 10x the number of on-site visitors. Looking ahead, we will continue to explore new live streaming formats and scenarios, building richer content scenarios in more diverse service models for users and clients. Regarding industrial service commercialization in 2025, 36Kr reached a 3-year strategic partnership agreement with Hangzhou Qiantang New Area Construction and Investment Group Company for the Chinese Enterprise International Service Center Operations project and AI Panorama Community operations project. This collaboration will leverage our expertise in organizational operations and online content distribution as well as our vast network of industry resources to support Qiantang New Area in building a unique services ecosystem and operational framework for corporate empowerment, amplifying its regional influence. Furthermore, building on the growing influence of 36Kr industry future, OpenTalk in 36Kr Industrial Belt projects, we focused on key sectors driving urban industrial transformation and future industry development, including low LTG economy, commercial aerospace, advanced manufacturing and new energy and materials. This initiative attracted more than 200 upstream and downstream industry projects in the government entities, fostering deep collaborations and commercial partnerships. Beyond the advancements across content and commercialization, we continue to expand the boundaries of meeting in 2025, consistently driving cutting-edge AGI applications to further optimize content production and commercialization efficiency. On the content side, we provided intensive coverage of China's AI ecosystem in 2025. At the beginning of 2025, 36Kr made headlines at home and abroad as only tech media outlets worldwide to have exclusively interviewed DeepSeek founder twice. In addition to our deep vertical tech demographic accounts like The Emergence of Intelligence and WAVES, we launched video channels such as AI Map and 36Kr Tech in 2025. The future human laboratory official accounts focused on AI interviews for consumers. The lightweight online tech products launched Series Project X and the live streaming series AI Insider, featuring in-depth conversations and real-world testing with leading ones at the forefront of AI. We also released an area of research reports on advanced productivity in the AGI area. Additionally, we hosted multiple live streaming sessions around major events such as WAIC, joining a strong engagement and recognition from within the industry and beyond. In addition to AI-focused content, we have actively integrated AIGC technology into our content ecosystem to enhance efficiency company-wide. Our AI meeting coverage product launched in the second half of 2024, leverages large-scale AI model, technologies and the AI algorithm to produce AI-powered interviews and generate content. The underlying system incorporates multiple developers of large AI models such as Doubao and Qianwen among others. We also integrated DeepSeek in March 2025. In 2025, AI meeting coverage covered 1,308 companies, highlighting their latest initiatives for fundraising ventures. AI meeting coverage has meaningfully improved our content team's efficiency, substantially easing previous manpower limitations and enhancing our coverage of start-ups. We also launched the 36Kr corporate Omni-Intelligence in October 2024, targeting investors in the secondary market by providing AI-powered savings sentiment analysis reports for public companies. The service currently covers over 7,800 public companies listed in Mainland China and Hong Kong. Users can search, filter and subscribe to reports on their preferred companies, receiving daily analysis in a personalized content format. The product's underlying sentiment data is a collaboration between 36Kr and Soften, a fully owned subsidiary of BeyondSoft. Having nurtured a community of several hundred core users. Currently, we have a cumulative user base of 36,600, including 6,187 subscribers. At the end of 2025, we launched our AI review hub, 36aiDianping.com, a community platform integrating AI tool discovery and authentic user reviews, primarily serving individual and enterprise users seeking guidance in selecting AI tools, backed by professional content output and high-quality review services, the platform's new product AI review section gained traction in both reputation and performance. 516 AI review articles have been posted in total with content appeal and user engagement steadily rising. Our advancement of AI products and tools further underscores 36Kr's foresight human and outstanding execution capabilities in AI, leveraging the inherent synergies between AIGC technology and the content production industry, we maximized AIGC technology utilization in our content production activities this year, including information identification, text processing and image generation. Moreover, we continue to broaden our business scope by actively promoting AI applications across diverse business scenarios. The launch of these AI products has enhanced the coverage and the precision of our customer outreach initiatives, connecting with a diverse spectrum of enterprises and organizations previously beyond reach due to bandwidth and manpower limitations and turning them into clients. In summary, as we turned profitable in 2025, the company reached a milestone achievement after 2 years of sustained operational optimization and innovative development, marking the start of our long-term commitment to financial health. Looking ahead, we will consistently place financial health as a foundational core of our development, constantly optimizing cost structure and improving operating efficiency to maintain stable cash flow and profitability. Moreover, building on our core content strength, we will continue to fortify our content ecosystem by driving commercialization breakthroughs on diverse fronts and broaden our business road map by actively expanding AI applications across industries. We will deeply integrate technological innovation with our valuable content assets and industrial services to empower high-quality growth for technology enterprises, ensuring that financial health and innovative development reinforce each other and drive growth over the long term. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Mr. Xiang Li, who will discuss our key financial results. Please go ahead, Xiang.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone, and thank you for joining today's presentation. We will now review the second half of 2025 and full year financial performance. Please note, all the amounts are in RMB unless otherwise stated. Our total revenue increased by 4.7% to RMB 134.8 million in the second half of 2025 from RMB 128.7 million in the same period of 2024. Total revenues for the full year of 2024 were RMB 227.9 million compared to RMB 231.1 million in the previous year. Online advertising services revenues increased by 5% to RMB 105.2 million in the second half of 2025 from RMB 100.2 million in the same period of 2024. The increase was primarily attributable to strong advertising demand from AI and high-tech companies, which 36Kr captured through its focus on the tech vertical. For the full year of 2025, our online advertising services revenue were RMB 179.7 million compared to RMB 180.6 million in the previous year, relatively flat year-over-year. Enterprise value-added services revenue increased by 7.7% to RMB 20.9 million in the second half of 2025 from RMB 19.4 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year of 2025, our enterprise value-added services revenue increased by 1.2% to RMB 33.2 million from RMB 32.8 million in the previous year. The increase was primarily attributable to more innovative marketing solutions we provide to our customers as well as proactive sales strategies we adopted to navigate the challenging environment. Subscription services revenue were RMB 8.7 million in the second half of 2025 compared to RMB 9 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year of 2025, decreased by 14.2% to RMB 15.1 million from RMB 17.6 million in the previous year. The decrease was mainly attributable to a strategy shift in training services and a continued focus on refining this segment's customer base. Cost of revenues decreased by 12.6% to RMB 54 million in the second half of 2025 from RMB 61.8 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year of 2025, our cost of revenue decreased by 18.8% to RMB 96.4 million in fiscal year 2025 from RMB 118.7 million in the previous year. The decrease was primarily attributable to company's strict cost control measures. Gross profit increased by 20.8% to RMB 80.8 million in the second half of 2025 from RMB 66.9 million in the same period of 2024. Gross profit margin increased by 8 percentage points to 60% from 52% over the same period of 2024. For the full year 2025, our gross profit increased by 17.1% to RMB 131.5 million in fiscal year 2025 from RMB 112.3 million in the previous year. Gross profit margin increased by 9.1 percentage points to 57.7% from 48.6% over fiscal year 2024. The increase in gross margin were mainly attributable to higher gross margin from brand advertising services offered across 36Kr digital platforms, as well as a strong rebound in revenue from these services this year. Operating expenses decreased by 10.3% to RMB 65.6 million in the second half of 2025 from RMB 73.1 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year of 2025, our operating expenses decreased by 36.1% to RMB 121.5 million from RMB 190.1 million in the previous year. The decrease was primarily due to disciplined operating expenses management. Sales and marketing expenses were RMB 37 million in the second half of 2025, a slight decrease of 0.5% from RMB 37.2 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year 2025, our sales and marketing expenses decreased by 19.6% to RMB 66.4 million from RMB 82.6 million in the previous year. The decrease was primarily attributable to the decrease in payroll-related expenses, travel and entertainment expenses and the marketing and the promotional expenses. General and admin expenses were RMB 22.4 million in the second half of 2025, a 26.1% decrease compared to RMB 30.3 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year 2025, our general and admin expenses decreased by 54.5% to RMB 42.4 million from RMB 93.1 million in the previous year. The decrease was largely attributable to the decrease in personnel-related expenses and the provision of allowance for credit losses. Research and development expenses were RMB 6.3 million in the second half of 2025, a decrease of 12.5% from $5.6 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year 2025, our R&D expenses decreased by 11.8% to RMB 12.7 million from RMB 14.4 million in the previous year. The decrease was primarily due to the reduction in R&D headcount following a team restructuring in prior year, partially offset by an increase in salaries and discretionary bonuses for the R&D team this year. Share-based compensation gain recognized in cost of revenues, sales and marketing expenses and research and development expenses as well as general and admin expenses totaled [ RMB 76,200 ] in the second half of 2025 compared to share-based compensation gain RMB 220,000 in the same period of 2024. For the full year 2025, the total amount of share-based compensation gain were [ RMB 13,400 ] compared to RMB 180,000 of share-based compensation expenses in the previous year. The change was mainly due to higher reversal of SBC expenses caused by strategy workforce optimization in 2024 compared to 2025. Other income was RMB 1.1 million in the second half of 2025 compared to other expenses of RMB 38.6 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year 2025, our other income were RMB 1.4 million compared to RMB 63 million of other expenses in previous year. The change reflected large long-term investment impairment losses recognized in 2024. Income tax expenses were RMB 25,000 in the second half of 2025 compared to RMB 1,000 of income tax credit in the same period of 2024. For the full year 2025, our income tax expenses decreased by 57.2% to RMB 21,000 from RMB 64,000 in the previous year. Net income, net income was RMB 15.2 million in the second half of 2025 compared to net loss of RMB 44.9 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year 2025, the net income were RMB 11.4 million compared to net loss of RMB 140.8 million in the previous year. The turnaround was primarily driven by the effectiveness of the company's strategic initiatives focused on cost control and high-margin business, along with the reduction in impairment loss on long-term investment and lower provision of allowance for credit loss resulting from improved receivables collection. Net income attributable to 36Kr Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders was RMB 16.1 million in the second half of 2025 compared to net loss attributable to 36Kr Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shares of RMB 42.3 million in the same period of 2024. For the full year 2025, net income attributable to 36Kr Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders were RMB 11.2 million in fiscal year 2025 compared to net loss attributable to 36Kr Holdings Inc.'s ordinary shareholders of RMB 136.6 million in the previous year. Basic and diluted net income per ADS were both RMB 7.616 in the second half of 2025 compared to basic and diluted net loss per ADS of RMB 19.999 in the same period of 2024. For the full year of 2025, basic and diluted net income per ADS were RMB 5.274 and RMB 5.266 respectively, compared to basic and diluted net loss per ADS of RMB 64.795 in the previous year. As of December 31, 2025, the company has cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investment of RMB 116.1 million, an increase of 25.5% from RMB 92.5 million as of December 31, 2024. Well, this concludes all our prepared remarks today. We will now open the call to questions. Operator, please go ahead.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from Lingyi Zhao with SWS Research.

[Interpreted] Management team, this is Lingyi Zhao with SWS. And my question is, first, congratulations about the very good results. And my question is, first, how do we see the advertising sections, the trend of advertising sections? And the second question is, could you explain and analyze the margin, the growth of margin?

[Interpreted] Well, Lingyi, outstanding thanks for your support for the past several years, and we are very happy with the good results we have. Well, for your question, we are cautiously optimistic about our advertising growth trajectory for 2026, and advertising revenue was largely influenced by macroeconomic headwinds and the clients' advertising budgets. Well, despite the macro challenges, our overall advertising revenue remained stable as we maintained solid partnerships with our Internet sector key accounts and leading brand customers, leveraging the audience reach and influence of our subvertical [ medium ] channels for younger audiences such as Oh! Youth and Tide as well as new live streaming and video formats like AI Insider. We continued to develop tailored promotion solutions and products that gained strong client approval. In 2025, we added over 50% new clients in our live streaming and video businesses. AI-related demand steadily increased. Live streaming revenue increased by 40%, outpacing market trends and our sub vertical media channels for younger audiences amplified by old use grew by more than 50%. In 2026, we will continue to advance video live streaming development, step up our investment in content creation, explore a wider area of programs and formats in live streaming and continue to build depth in key content verticals that matter most to our clients, such as AI and global expansion, further enriching our content ecosystem. Meanwhile, as we empower clients across diverse industries with premium content to meet their evolving communication needs, we are confident in strengthening the resilience of our advertising business. Well, for your second question, last year, our gross profit margin improved substantially, mainly because we focused on high-margin businesses, streamlined low-margin operations and implemented an area of cost control initiative for the past 1 year. Together, this endeavor to significantly increased our gross profit margin.

Your next question comes from Rui Yin with Sealand Securities.

[Interpreted] Well, this Rui Yin with Sealand, and the question is what are the drivers behind the growth in value-added services?

[Interpreted] Well, the growth was mainly driven by the first factor. The first one is many of our legacy IP events continued to perform well in 2025. Over the second half of the year, we successfully hosted multiple events, including WISE, W-I-S-E and AI Partner Conference for All Industries, the Industrial Future conference and more. Beyond this IP submits, we had by ourselves, we also cooperated with AWE, WAIC, those national submits. Well, besides I've already mentioned in 2025, we also restructured our content strategy, business road map and organizational structure for the industry services businesses. 36Kr -- in 2025, 36Kr agreed to a 3-year strategic partnership with Hangzhou Qiantan New Area Construction and Investment Group Company for the Chinese Enterprise International Services Center Operations project and the AI Community Operations projects. But this collaboration will leverage our expertise in organizational operations and online content distribution as well as our vast network of industry resources to support Qiantan New Area in building a unique service ecosystem in the operational framework for corporate empowerment, amplifying its regional influence. Well, the second reason, like, well, we've talked a lot, each time we want to start a new market, we will deploy the new content accounts. For example, our content strategy for industry services began to yield a positive outcome, 36Kr Industry Future. Our all-new content channel, spotlighting, urban innovation, state-of-the-art technologies and our reach across emerging industries has published nearly 90 articles over the past year. Notably a single feature on the innovative pharmaceutical sector in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province garnered over 70,000 page views on our official WeChat accounts and more than 100,000 total exposures. Moreover, building on the growing influence of 36Kr Industry Future OpenTalk in 36Kr industry-built project, we have connected with over 200 upstream and downstream companies in the local government and will continue to develop the industry service offerings to better meet client needs. Thank you for your question.

Thank you. As there are no further questions, I'd now like to turn the call back over to the company for closing remarks.

Well, thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact 36Kr's Investor Relations through the contact information provided on our website.

This concludes this conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.