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Transcript Summary

Kingsoft Corporation reported 2025 annual revenue of RMB 9.68 billion, representing a 6% year-on-year decrease. The performance was characterized by a sharp divide: the office software and services segment grew 16% to RMB 5.93 billion, while the gaming division fell 28% to RMB 3.75 billion. The growth in the office segment is fueled by a massive shift toward AI; WPS AI reached 18 million monthly active users, a 307% increase, while the enterprise platform WPS 365 grew revenue by 65%. In the gaming sector, although legacy titles declined, the early 2026 launch of "Goose Goose Duck" has been a breakout hit with 30 million users. Under new leadership, the gaming division is pivoting toward AI-driven production to boost efficiency. The company remains financially strong with RMB 2.00 billion in net profit and a cash position of RMB 27 billion. Management is optimistic about 2026, focusing on "AI Office" native products and international expansion. Strategic collaborations with Xiaomi and Kingsoft Cloud are expected to further empower the company’s AI ecosystem and digital transformation initiatives across both individual and enterprise markets.

Full Earnings Call Transcript — Q4 • 2026-03-25

Operator: Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Kingsoft Corporation Fourth Quarter 2025 and Annual Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Ms. Yinan Li, IR Director of Kingsoft. Please go ahead.
Yinan Li: Thank you, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening, and good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to our 2025 fourth quarter and annual results earnings call. I'm Li Yinan, the IR Director of Kingsoft. I would like to start by reminding you that some information provided during the earnings call may include forward-looking statements, which may not be relied upon in the future for various reasons. These forward-looking statements are based on our information and information from other sources, which we believe to be reliable. Please refer to the other publicly disclosed documents for detailed discussion on risk factors, which may affect our business and operations. Additionally, in today's earnings call, the management will deliver prepared remarks in both Chinese and English. A third-party interpreter will provide a consecutive interpretation into English. During the Q&A section, we will accept questions in both English and Chinese with automated interpretation provided by the third-party interpreter. On-site translation is solely to facilitate communication during the conference call. In case of any discrepancies between the original remarks and the translation, the statements made by the management will prevail. Having said that, please allow me to introduce our management team who joined us today: Mr. Zou Tao, our Executive Director and CEO; and Ms. Li Yi, our acting CFO. Now I'm turning the call to Mr. Zou Tao.
Tao Zou: [Interpreted] Hello, everyone, and thank you all for joining Kingsoft's 2025 First Quarter and Annual Results Earnings Call. In 2025, we remained committed to technology empowerment and focused on enhancing our core capabilities. Kingsoft Office Group continued to prioritize its core strategy of AI collaboration and internationalization, deepen its presence in the AI office market and development of future-oriented intelligent office products tailored to the all scenario office needs of both individual and enterprise users. In the online game business, we further deepened our expertise in classic wuxia IP and actively expanded into diversified game categories and global markets. In 2025, the group's total revenue reached RMB 9.68 billion, representing a year-on-year decrease of 6%. Among this, revenue from the office software and services business recorded revenue of RMB 5.93 billion, up 16% year on year and maintaining steady growth. Revenue from the online games and others business amounted to RMB 3.75 billion, up (sic) [down] 28% year on year, primarily due to the high base in the same period last year and the decline in revenue from existing games. After release in early 2026, Goose Goose Duck has received positive market reception and has surpassed 30 million cumulative new users. This demonstrated our potential in expanding into new game genres and injected fresh growth momentum into the online games business. Now I will walk you through the business highlights of the full year and fourth quarter 2025. In 2025, Kingsoft Office Group continued to advance its core strategy of AI collaboration and internationalization. Total annual revenue reached RMB 5.93 billion, up 16% year-on-year. Fourth quarter revenue reached RMB 1.75 billion, also up 17% year-on-year. The company is pursuing a dual-track approach encompassing office AI reconstruction and upgrade and AI office native exploration. On one hand, it is driving a comprehensive intelligent upgrade across its existing WPS component suite to reshape the full scenario office experience. On the other hand, it is exploring an agent-native office paradigm, with its office AI agent WPS Lingxi evolving into an all-around AI office companion marking an entry into the era of office AI agents. WPS 365 has undergone a comprehensive AI-driven upgrade, establishing a multidimensional framework that spans technology infrastructure, collaboration systems, intelligent search, and digital employee ecosystems comprehensively empowering enterprises in their digital and intelligent transformation while enhancing office collaboration and operational efficiency. The Company's international expansion is progressing steadily with completed product upgrades and overall model development, now offering global integration office capabilities. For WPS individual business, the user base continued to expand steadily, with both domestic and international operations achieving quality growth. Total annual revenue reached RMB 3.63 billion, up 10% year-on-year. The growth trend continued in the fourth quarter with revenue reaching RMB 918 million, the year-on-year growth rate accelerating to 14%. The cumulative number of annual paid individual users in domestic reached [indiscernible] million, up 11% year-on-year. By the end of 2025, WPS AI's monthly active users surpassed 18 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 307%. Overseas market, the cumulative number of paying users grew substantially with particularly stronger growth among large-scale users. The monthly active devices for the overseas PC version reached 42.5 million, up 54% year-on-year. WPS 365 business, we maintain high quality and rapid growth. Total ad revenue reached RMB 720 million, up 65% year-over-year. Fourth quarter revenue was RMB 210 million, also up [indiscernible] the fourth consecutive quarter of year-on-year growth about 16%. We continue to advance products and service upgrade guided by the core principle of integration, intelligence [Audio Gap] industries specifically additions. The company further consolidated its advantage among central and state-owned enterprises, while accelerating expansion into private enterprises, foreign-invested enterprises, and local state-owned enterprises, while also advancing channel ecosystem development to further enhance its market presence. In 2025, WPS 365 continued to improve the implementation of AI technology in office scenarios. Our official digital employer has already achieved a large-scale standardized delivery. In early 2026, WPS 365 officially integrated enhancing our core capabilities, injecting growth momentum to improving the quality and [indiscernible] enterprise collaboration and office work. This intelligence further enrich our AI office ecosystem. For WPS software business, total annual revenue reached RMB 1.46 billion, up 15% year-on-year. Fourth quarter revenue reached RMB 530 million, up 15% year-over-year. We actively participated in bids for domestic office software by central and local government. We continue to maintain a leading share in both flow-layout and fixed-layout document software market. We continue to advance the implementation of government digitalization projects support the development of digital platforms in multiple regions and effectively empower the intelligent upgrading of government office operations. In the fourth quarter, our flagship PC game JX3 Online enhanced its costume design through technological upgrade and its aesthetic style was widely praised by players. The version optimization and service upgrades completed at the end of 2025 have received positive market feedback, and we will further increase investment in game play and narrative experience. Our classic JX series PC games and its inherited mobile games like World of Sword: Origin continued to iterate on content and versions, maintaining stable operations in both domestic and overseas markets. Social deduction game Goose Goose Duck officially launched in January 2026. It recorded over 5 million new users on launch day, surpassed 30 million cumulative new users, and ranked #1 on the iOS free chart for most of the past two months. Driven by word-of-mouth and organic traffic, it penetrated the broader social circle. Two casual games from the Angry Birds series also received publishing licenses and are expected to launch in China in 2026, further enriching our casual games portfolio. Starsand Island, our cozy pastoral life simulation game began early access in February 2026. With its unique art style and game play, the game established a strong reputation among core players worldwide. Going forward, we will actively optimize the products based on player feedback to lay a solid foundation for the official version launch in the second half of the year. Looking ahead, Kingsoft Office Group will deepen the application of AI agent technology across full-scenario office environments, strengthen the core competitiveness of WPS 365 as an intelligent collaboration platform, and accelerate the execution of its internationalization strategy. For online games business, we will continue to focus on premium content development and global publishing, sustain the vitality of classical IPs, and foster the growth of new game genres to achieve sustainable growth. We will deepen technological innovation and commercial expansion, actively expand global market opportunities, and create long-term value for our shareholders.
Yinan Li: Next, I would like to invite Ms. Li Yi to introduce the financial performance for the fourth quarter and annual.
Yi Li: Thank you, Zou and Yinan. Good evening, and good morning, everyone. As for the financial results, I'm starting for the Q4 use RMB as a currency. Revenue decreased 6% year-on-year and increased 8% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 2,618 million. The revenue split was 67% for office software and services and 33% for online games and others. Revenue from the office software and services business increased 30% year-on-year and 50% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 1,750 million. The increases were primarily attributable to the growth across 3 principal business of Kingsoft Office Group. The steady increase of WPS individual business was primarily driven by the expanding number of paying subscribers attributable to continuous interaction of AI capabilities and improvement in intelligent office experience. The strong growth in WPS 365 business was mainly driven by the deep integration of document AI and collaboration capabilities, along with continued customer expansion among private and local state-owned enterprises. The growth in WPS software business was mainly supported by sustained demand from government and enterprise clients, further consolidating our leading position in the flow-layout and fixed-layout document market. Revenue from the online games and others business decreased 33% year-on-year and 3% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 868 million. The decreases were mainly due to decline in revenue from certain existing games. Cost of revenue increased 5% year-on-year and decreased 1% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 471 million. Gross profit decreased 8% year-on-year and increased 10% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 2,148 million. Gross profit margin decreased by 2 percentage points year-on-year and increased by 2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 82%. Research and development costs increased 30% year-on-year and 6% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 953 million. The increases were primarily driven by increased headcount and AI-related expenditure, reflecting our strategic focus on advancing AI and collaboration capabilities. Selling and distribution expenses increased 36% year-on-year and decreased 18% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 462 million. The year-on-year increase was mainly due to high marketing expenditures in both office software and services and online games business. The quarter-on-quarter decrease was mainly due to high base from promotions for new game launches in the prior quarter, partially offset by increased spending on marketing activities for Kingsoft Office Group. Administrative expenses increased 33% year-on-year and 40% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 202 million. The increases were mainly due to higher personnel-related expenses and increased depreciation arising from the completion and operation of our Wuhan campus. Share-based compensation costs increased 55% year-on-year and 15% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 92 million. The increase was mainly due to the grants of awarded shares to the selected employees of certain subsidiaries of the company. Operating profit before share-based compensation costs decreased 48% year-on-year and increased 70% quarter-on-quarter to RMB 606 million. Net other gains for the fourth quarter of 2025 were RMB 819 million compared with losses of RMB 74 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 and gains of RMB 13 million for the third quarter of 2025, respectively. The gains in this quarter were mainly due to that we recognized a gain on deemed disposal of Kingsoft Cloud as a result of the dilution impact of the issue of new shares of it. Share of losses of associates were RMB 132 million for the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with losses of RMB 148 million and profit of RMB 5 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 and the third quarter of 2025, respectively. Income tax expense was RMB 220 million for the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with expenses of RMB 212 million and RMB 66 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 and the third quarter of 2025. As a result of the reasons discussed above, profit attributable to owners of the parent was RMB 975 million for the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with profit of RMB 460 million and RMB 213 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 and the third quarter of 2025. Profit attributable to owners of the parent, excluding share-based compensation costs was RMB 1,026 million for the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with the profit of RMB 496 million and RMB 277 million for the fourth quarter of 2024 and the third quarter of 2025. The net profit margin, excluding share-based compensation costs, was 39%, 18% and 11% for this quarter, the fourth quarter of 2024 and the third quarter of 2025, respectively. And now on the year 2025. Revenue decreased 6% year-on-year to RMB 9,683 million. Office software and services made up 61% increased 60% year-on-year to RMB 5,929 million. Online games and others made up 39% and decreased 28% year-on-year to RMB 3,754 million. Gross profit margin decreased by 2 percentage points year-on-year to 81%. Operating profit before share-based compensation costs decreased 47% year-on-year to RMB 2,072 million. Profit to owners of the parent was RMB 2,004 million for the year of 2025 compared with a profit of RMB 1,552 million for the last year. The group had a strong cash position towards the end of 2025. As at 31st December 2025, the group had cash resources of RMB 27 billion. Net cash generated from operating activities was RMB 2,292 million and RMB 4,787 million for the year ended 31st December 2025 and 31st December 2024, respectively. Capital expenditure was RMB 342 million and RMB 426 million for the year ended 31st December 2025 and 31st December 2024. That's all for the introduction of our operational and financial results. Thank you all. Now we are ready for the Q&A section. Thank you.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from the line of Liping Zhao of CICC.
Liping Zhao: [Interpreted] I have 2 questions on the gaming business. So first, after Mr. Zou recently took on the role as the CEO of Xishanju, what strategic adjustments have been made regarding to the future development of the gaming business? And are there any opportunities or possibilities for implementing AI to improve efficiency in the game development? And second, we have observed that Goose Goose Duck is performing well in terms of popularity. Could you share some insights on the current user base and retention metrics? I'd also like to understand the time line for future monetization and potential incremental contribution to the overall revenue and profit.
Tao Zou: [Interpreted] So first off, I'd like to talk about the Goose Goose Duck. And so actually, since we have launched on the 7th of January, we [Audio Gap] research of over 30 million new users. And up to now, generally speaking, and the total users could be quite stable at the 3 million up and down. So we are actually doing this planning started from the spring festival up till the summer holiday. We're going to prepare a series of different versions and with different stages, and we would like to have a stable and continuous stable game. And this is actually for the mid- and long consideration for this game is that firstly, through this launch, we could actually have some of the remaining data, and we have confidence that for the continuous version, we could [indiscernible] generation. And so we could make the BAU higher. This is actually the most important priority for us. And it means that we need to make enough users. And once the product has launched, for the income perspective, we didn't do that much work on it because for the industry -- for the game industry, the average performance in the future, we will consider about the payable rate and also the up value. We still have a very big space for it. But for this game, since launch up to now, the total performances is more than like over our expectations. In the future, we still have a very big space for the growth. And in the future, we also would like to launch in the game space. And from the users' perspective, like we would like to make it stable and make it continuously stable. And then step-by-step digging the commercialization possibilities. This is the first stage is that we need to make sure this version is stable, have a good quality service and also with different version, make sure that the total quantity of the users online is good enough and then furthermore, make it higher. So in the long-term perspective for this IP, we're going to consider how to have like expand different surroundings products and also for the other accessories, we have different ideas for it. So let's put it in the future. But currently, the most important thing is that have a stable operation and make the users like to have a higher user quality. So actually, for this first question, it is quite complex. I would like to make it simplified is that since I become the CEO on the 1st of December last year, [indiscernible] is already 3 months past. So generally speaking, firstly is for the service of the [ fit of the thought ] and also for the JX3 for the business is actually the basic of our business. So we would like to continue for the investment of the basic space. And in the past few years, we always have a lot of very like [indiscernible]. And although we have collected some infections of the external competition and infection. But generally speaking, the customers are quite -- the customer quality is quite stable. That is why we believe that -- so currently, the customer service, we're going to provide a better service for our customers and higher quality for them, especially for the content. This is actually our guarantee, the basic guarantee. Second is that we need to make some projects which doesn't have like strategic way. We need to do some adjustment and also maybe shrink that business. It means that we could have enough space, enough ability to make it into the middle and long-term strategy, especially for we're going to have some strategic value. So currently, it's not that convenient for me to release some of the information about it. But probably in May, when we do this seasonal report, it's going to be more convenient for me to have an official introduction for it. And thirdly is about relevant to the second part of the question is that the AI is going to be a completely new area. It's already arrived, especially for our sales. And we can see is that for the industry of their game, actually for the manufacturing and production of the game, in many years, we have a lot of like a revolution. It's not just to have a high efficiency, but this is actually completely changed the way of the mode production. And since I became the CEO on the 1st of December last year, and we could completely carry out of the AI, the different policies, especially not only for their staff thinking and also the platform of the AI building. In the future, we're going to based on this platform to doesn't have that much like identification for the position, but we're going to like to highlight the innovation through the platforms of AI construction in the future, mostly that the creator is going to create the game on the platform. They're going to have a lot of the creation. They're going to have some meaningful content. And internally, we're going to select some excellent projects and commercialize and promote it into this market. So simplified is that we think in the whole industry organization, the content creation organization will completely change and also the way of working will be completely changed. So basically, based on the platform's creation on the AI, everybody is going to be a producer and everybody is going to be the creator for the content. And this is actually everybody could do the creation. This is the time. The time has arrived. So I have strong confidence for it. And in the past few years, the AI tools have completely like become more mature. And especially this year, the whole industry for the products, we have no doubt about it, AI has already come. That is why I think that the time is already matured. And thirdly is for the positions, they have actually a strategic meaning. And the last year for the game, we [indiscernible] has launched, it doesn't have reached our expectation and also the performances of old game is a little bit slow. But this is actually we make analyze internally and make a conclusion. And this is actually a good point for us because we could deduct some of the old things and also we are conducting new. I think that when we move forward on this, we're going to have more space, and this is going to be our opportunity for season. And in the future under this mode, we're going to have a higher product efficiency. And so that is why I think that sometimes the bad news is not actually a bad thing. So like from the challenges and difficulties last year, we actually have some challenges facing, but this is going to let us get to welcome this a new page for Seasun.
Operator: We will now take our next question from the line of Linlin Yang of Guangfa Securities.
Linlin Yang: [Interpreted] I have 3 questions. The first is what is the progress of our AI business as well as the development and commercialization of industry-specific models and products. The second question is about the AI industry. Recently, the view that AI will display traditional software while the core business of Kingsoft WPS has not been materially affected so far. But there is uncertainty regarding the expansion of value-added service. What is your opinion about this question? And when you serve enterprise customers, what are their key demand for AI? And what capabilities do you need to strengthen? And recently, Xiaomi has MiMo with a trillion parameter large language model as well as a line of associated models. In what ways will the MiMo model further empower and enhance the WPS business?
Tao Zou: [Interpreted] So we would like to answer the first 2 questions, and then Mr. Lei is going to answer the third question. And so this is actually quite busy that since last April, we have set up the AI product center. And this year, we actually have the full hub. We would like to cooperate with the Kingsoft Cloud to have some collaborations altogether. So actually, the Kingsoft Cloud, we already have delivered some of the products like, for example, the Kingsoft [indiscernible] and also internally the target for the like assessment, we already used some of the products. And we made a conclusion since last year that we would like to really get into the typical industry and trying to figure out the way of the road AI hold to have this empowered for different industries. So the key point of this year is that we need to target for the element -- the target the aim, especially like we can see that this year, the open cloud is show that appeared and it's very popular the whole world. So this is actually a great remind for us. AI is going to have empowered for different person. AI could be able to empower for enterprises, and they have different ways to show up. And all of this could be able to be realized. So we will not only need to based on the initial thinking, actually, the key things of this year is that we [indiscernible] scenario and also to focus on different industries to get into that industry. And this is actually the biggest differences between last year and this year is that last year, we are trying different roles and trying to localize in different ways. Maybe that AI works for that industry. But this year, we have to get deeply into typical industries in probably 1 to 2 different regions and then make actual work. This is actually like the AI product center development and also progress.
Jun Lei: So I would like to answer the second question is that based on my understanding is that the AI is the influence for the AI [indiscernible] if they are saying that -- if we are saying that AI is going to eat up software is not -- so I don't personally agree on this statement because as we know is that for the big language model, AI has to bring that I would like to using like digitalization system to have like restructured the AI currently. So this trend is quite significantly recently. And since 2023, we have the restructure. I can see that AI is the core thing. And as developed in the past few years, AI has constantly strengthened and more and more be recognized by people and simplified saying that this is actually the whole restructure for the [indiscernible] so AI could actually -- if we are seeing that AI is going to eat up the software, the description is not accurate because the software is compared with hardware. So what is exactly software and hardware. So like this year, you can see that the AI scale, I would like to using like the digital system to expand that, especially for the basic on the AI risk structure for the software and compared with the hardware, like, for example, [ Doba ] this is software, right? But today, we can see is that -- and compared with the previously, they have a bigger function. They have the better interaction and also have more like different multiple functions and abilities, which we cannot imagine previously. So this is actually our understanding. But additional software, they are different because the AI software could be replaced the traditional software. That is for sure. But AI is not going to eat up the software because that is not scientific. This is my opinion since 2023. And also the influence for the office is that since 2023, AI has showed up. I discussed about my opinion. So during that time, we can say is that AI could be strengthened, like keep strengthen the ability in the future. That is why right now, we have changed the name as office because 2023, we initially used office AI, and then we used the change name as AI office. So this is constantly of my first question answer is that initially, the AI ability is not that strong enough. That is why we need to use office to strengthen the AI ability. But as the AI ability has become stronger and stronger, like, for example, we have the native AI office development since 2023, then WPS 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, especially last year, we have launched Lingxi, and this is actually a constant development. And up to now this year, 2026, it's significantly clear that Office AI is going to be the big part. And all of us is going to use. All of that is like AI office. So this is the second point, which is super for this time since 2023. And also for the WPS AI membership since last year, we could increase 307% since last year. The reason is that last year -- the first -- last year, we have launched the Lingxi that version. So this is actually the second part I like to answer this question. And third part is about Xiaomi. So Xiaomi has launched MiMo-V2-Pro. So no matter for the communication meeting with Kingsoft or the cloud communication meeting, that is based on One Plus and that is the Xiaomi's big model for MiMo. And for Kingsoft and Xiaomi, we are actually AI like mixer. And Xiaomi would like to do this big model but Kingsoft we are not. So as time when we have AI launched, especially recently, Xiaomi has launched that our own AI and the performance is actually quite good. So we can see that the ability of Xiaomi is increasing all the time. And the key thing is that we need to make our competition ability stronger and also to have our own [indiscernible] strengthen their AI ecosystem construction. As time goes by, the whole like Kingsoft series products could have like a very competitive ecosystem together like development together with Xiaomi.
Yinan Li: [Interpreted] Hello. Thank you for joining us today, and this will conclude our presentation for the 2025 Fourth Quarter and Annual Results Earnings Call. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect your lines. [Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]