ZH

Zhihu Inc.
Communication Services·Internet Content & Information
$2.95
$239M market cap
Claude Rating
4/10UNDERWEIGHT
Revenue
$2.7B
Free Cash Flow
$-424.4M
Rev Growth
-27.2%
FCF Margin
-15.5%
P/FCF
--
EV/FCF
--
Fwd EV/EBITDA
-126.1x
Fair Value
$3.80
Upside
+28.8%

Zhihu Inc. operates an online content community in the People's Republic of China. Its community allows people to seek inspiration, find solutions, make decisions, and have fun. The company also offers technology, business support, and consulting services; information transmission, software, and information technology services; information and marketing services; vocational training; and internet services, as well as holds audio-visual permit. The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered

2-Year Price History

$3.05-6.4%
$3.0$3.5$4.0$4.5$5.0$5.5volMay 24Sep 24Jan 25May 25Sep 25Jan 26May 26

Quarterly Financials & Projections

Quarterly Waterfall (CNY M)
PeriodRevEBITDAOpInNIOCFFCFCapExCashDebtSharesROICIntCovEV/EBITDA
Est2027-Q4650.052.0--32.5--32.5-0.74,154----------
Est2027-Q3560.0-28.0---39.2---50.4-0.64,122----------
Est2027-Q2610.054.9--33.6--36.6-0.64,172----------
Est2027-Q1575.0-17.3---28.8---40.3-0.64,136----------
Est2026-Q4680.040.8--20.4--20.4-0.74,176----------
Est2026-Q3590.0-47.2---59.0---70.8-0.64,155----------
Est2026-Q2640.051.2--28.8--32.0-0.64,226----------
Est2026-Q1620.0-24.8---37.2---49.6-0.64,194----------
Act2025-Q4634.6-135.6-135.6-205.8-415.5-424.4-8.94,24472.078.5-711.9%----
Act2025-Q3658.9-99.8-99.8-46.70.00.0-0.04,372150.779.8-264.9%----
Act2025-Q2710.0104.9-90.171.80.00.0-0.04,610229.680.3-131.4%----
Act2025-Q1728.3-5.6-52.5-10.10.00.0-0.04,556128.281.5-163.2%----
Act2024-Q4872.385.012.187.60.00.0-0.04,85819.191.4251.9%----
Act2024-Q3826.5-9.7-82.5-10.30.00.0-0.04,99670.491.4-463.1%----
Act2024-Q2937.0-81.8-184.5-83.00.00.0-0.05,01078.793.0-901.9%----
Act2024-Q1966.4-159.3-226.1-165.80.00.0-0.05,21736.692.8<-999%----
Act2023-Q41,116-96.2-174.6-101.70.00.0-0.05,46345.796.2-317.7%----
Act2023-Q31,030-280.8-352.8-280.90.00.0-0.05,65451.498.2-267.5%----
Act2023-Q21,077-285.5-337.6-288.752.552.5-0.06,15980.8100.2-142.6%----
Act2023-Q1998.9-175.0-217.8-182.255.955.9-0.06,25894.3100.6-73.5%----
Act2022-Q41,073-170.2-208.3-173.042.642.6-0.06,26296.6100.4-60.3%----
Act2022-Q3950.1-307.3-290.3-312.844.944.9-0.06,625105.5101.1-70.5%----
Act2022-Q2847.1-487.0-466.8-493.541.441.4-0.05,849118.4101.2-99.8%----
Act2022-Q1743.7-612.2-648.6-614.60.00.0-0.06,836132.699.1-118.1%----

AI Analysis

LLM Evaluations

Claude4/10UNDERWEIGHTFV: $3.80

Zhihu is a structurally challenged Chinese Q&A platform trading at a significant discount to its net cash position (RMB 4.5B cash vs RMB 1.7B market cap), which creates a floor on downside. However, this 'value trap' discount is largely justified: revenue is declining 20%+ YoY, MAUs are shrinking, the core product faces existential disruption from generative AI, and the VIE structure adds permanent governance risk. The company achieved non-GAAP breakeven through cost cuts rather than growth, and new AI data/IP monetization initiatives are speculative. The negative enterprise value makes this uninvestable as a short, but the deteriorating fundamentals and China ADR risk premium make it a poor long. Leadership turnover (CTO, CFO departures) further undermines confidence in execution. This is a 'watch and wait' situation — the cash provides optionality but the business trajectory is clearly negative.

Catalyst Successful monetization of AI data licensing deals with major LLM developers could demonstrate the unique value of Zhihu's expert content corpus. A large special dividend or aggressive buyback utilizing the excess cash hoard could also unlock the discount to net cash. Any stabilization in MAU trends would be a significant positive signal.
Risk Continued accelerating revenue decline as generative AI tools increasingly substitute for Zhihu's core Q&A functionality, combined with further MAU erosion, could burn through the cash cushion over 4-5 years, turning the net cash story into a slow liquidation narrative. VIE regulatory risk is the tail risk that could zero the equity overnight.
Trend
DETERIORATING
Mgmt
4/10
Quarter
4/10
Exp. Move
-5.0%

Latest Earnings Call

Transcript Summary

Zhihu Inc. achieved its first full year of non-GAAP profitability in 2025, recording an adjusted net income of RMB 37.9 million. While Q4 total revenue of RMB 643.5 million showed a year-over-year decline, the company noted a strong 24% sequential recovery in marketing services. Community engagement hit record levels, with daily user time exceeding 41 minutes and high-quality content creation rising 20% year-over-year. The company's 2026 strategy centers on leveraging AI for two high-margin avenues: providing premium expert data solutions for LLM developers and scaling its intellectual property (IP) monetization. IP-related revenue grew fivefold in Q4, bolstered by successful short-drama adaptations on major platforms. Zhihu's AI search agent, Zhida, also saw explosive growth, with direct MAUs up 260%. Despite a one-time goodwill impairment impacting GAAP results, the company maintains a robust balance sheet with RMB 4.5 billion in cash and continues active share buybacks. Management aims to balance bottom-line discipline with targeted AI investments to drive sustainable long-term value.

Valuation & Metrics

Market Stats

Price$2.95
Market Cap$239M
Enterprise Value$-2.6B
P/S Ratio0.6x
P/FCF--
EV/FCF--
FCF Margin (TTM)-15.5%
FCF Yield-26.2%
Dividend Yield (TTM)--
Annual Dilution-14.1%
CurrencyUSD

TTM Financial Snapshot

Revenue$2.7B
Net Income$-190.7M
Free Cash Flow$-424.4M

Revenue Growth (YoY)-27.2%
EBITDA Margin-5.0%
Net Margin-7.0%
FCF Margin-15.5%
CapEx % of Revenue0.3%
SBC % of Revenue6.0%
ROIC-317.9%
WC Change % Rev-2.6%
Interest Coverage--

DCF Fair Value Estimate

$7.54
+155.7% upside
Fair Enterprise Value$-163M
− Net Debt$-4.2B
= Fair Equity$4.0B
Revenue Growth-5.3% → 1.0%
FCF Margin-15.5% → 4.0%
Discount Rate16.0%
Terminal EV/FCF6.0x

Forward Outlook & Risk

Short Interest

Short % of Float4.9%
Short Shares1.6M
Days to Cover4.9
Change (vs Prior)+19.0%
Short % Float History
4.90%+0.90pp
2.0%3.0%4.0%5.0%04-3007-1509-1511-1401-1504-30

Options

Call IV (ATM)47%
Put IV (ATM)--
ATM Spread23.0%
Call $OI (near money)$194K
Put $OI (near money)$2K
ATM ExpiryJuly 17, 2026 (56D)
ATM Strike$2.5
Major Expirations3
Near-money chain · July 17, 2026
StrikeCall Bid/AskCall OIPut Bid/AskPut OI
$2.50$0.25/$0.950--/$0.750
$5.00--/$0.750$1.65/$2.400
$7.50--/$0.750$4.00/$5.000
Snapshot: 2026-05-22

Forward Projections & Estimates

NTM Revenue Growth-7.4%
Forward FCF Margin-2.7%
Forward EBITDA Margin0.8%
Forward P/FCF--
Forward EV/FCF--
Forward Int. Coverage7.9x
Model Risk Score8/10
Bankruptcy Odds3%
Est. Borrow Rate12.0%
Terminal EV/FCF6.0x
LT Growth-2.0%
LT FCF Margin4.0%

Employees

Headcount1,887
Revenue / Employee$1,447,732
Gross Profit / Employee$867,958
2022: 2,515 → 2023: 2,731 → 2024: 1,887 → 2025: 1,000,000 (635% CAGR)

Institutional Ownership

Headline & net flow

NET BUYING

In Q1 2026 so far (quarter still filing), institutions are net buyers — bought 8.8% of float, sold 3.2%.

Net flow · Q1 2026still filing
+5.6% of float (net)
Bought 8.8% · Sold 3.2%
48 filers reported (last quarter: 51)

Ownership composition

Active
12.7%(-9.9% YoY)
41 filers
hedge / family / endowment
Retail funds
Fidelity, Schwab, 401(k)
Passive
0.7%(-5.0% YoY)
2 filers
Vanguard, iShares, SPDR
Market makers
0.4%(-1.1% YoY)
3 filers
Citadel, Susquehanna
Insiders
32.1%
Form 4 — latest per insider
0%25%50%75%100%2024-062024-122025-062025-122026-03
ActiveRetail fundsPassiveMarket makersRetail direct

Top holders

Fund$ valueCost basisΔ QoQΔ YoYα lifeFund AUM
ACADIAN ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC$9.2M$3.81+$62K+$831K-0.5%$70.48B
FIL Ltd$5.4M$4.62−$42K+$1.1M+0.2%$128.59B
E Fund Management Co., Ltd.$1.9M$3.16+$1.3M+$1.6M+1.1%$3.36B
E Fund Management (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd.$1.9M$3.46+$415K+$1.6M-1.1%$220M
STATE STREET CORPPassive$1.7M$3.86−$784K+$296K-0.2%$2.89T
First Beijing Investment Ltd$1.6M$2.84+$1.6M+$1.6M+2.2%$2.32B
GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP INC$1.4M$3.91+$975K+$820K-0.2%$760.93B
DODGE & COX$1.4M$4.16+$460K+$1.4M-0.6%$181.98B
Maven Securities LTD$1.4M$4.35+$39K+$1.4M+0.7%$1.68B
UBS Group AG$1.3M$3.51+$33K+$731K-0.3%$562.11B
MORGAN STANLEY$894K$3.51−$285K−$960K-0.3%$1.65T
JANE STREET GROUP, LLCMM$862K$3.44+$551K+$282K-0.1%$92.10B
Qube Research & Technologies Ltd$706K$3.16+$520K+$706K+0.3%$70.36B
Oasis Management Co Ltd.$639K$5.07+$0+$639K-3.0%$729M
ARROWSTREET CAPITAL, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP$426K$3.83−$992K−$2.7M+0.1%$184.72B
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA PUBLIC SCHOOL EMPLS RETRMT SYS$399K$3.96+$0+$0-0.2%$19.62B
Point72 Asset Management, L.P.$389K$2.90+$338K+$389K+0.9%$54.88B
XTX Topco Ltd$385K$3.38+$137K+$385K-1.9%$5.74B
SEI INVESTMENTS CO$367K$3.48+$203K+$203K-0.4%$108.06B
BNP PARIBAS FINANCIAL MARKETS$338K$3.43+$58K+$115K-0.2%$149.31B
Cost basis is a volume-weighted estimate from accumulation periods within our 13F history; holders who built their position before our window started will show a stale basis. % above the cost basis is the unrealized gain at the current price.

Trading behavior

Smart-money alpha (lifetime, %/qtr)BULLISH
Holders
-0.07%
avg per quarter
Holders (ex-self)
-0.07%
excl. this stock
Buyers (this Q)
+0.86%
18 buyers · $0.01B in
Sellers (this Q)
+0.07%
16 sellers · $0.00B out
alpha coverage: 100% of $ has a lifetime-alpha record
Holder behavior on this stocksource: stock
On big dips (−10%+)
-12.1%
how holders react when this stock falls
On quiet Qs
-10.3%
−10% to +10% baseline
On rallies (+10%+)
-4.7%
how they react when this stock rises
Holders' portfolio flow this Q
+15.3%
inflows — adds are organic
Sellers' portfolio flow this Q
+2.7%
Sellers grew AUM elsewhere — opinionated cut of this stock.
▸ Compare to holder-profile behavior (across all their stocks)
Holder dip (any stock)
-6.7%
Holder mid (any stock)
-6.0%
Holder rally (any stock)
-4.2%

Top Holders Over Time

5-year share-count history (top 10 holders by peak, incl. exited) + price

02.6M5.2M7.8M10.4M$2.73$3.31$3.90$4.49$5.072024-062024-122025-062025-122026-03
hover the chart for per-quarter detailprice (right axis)
ACADIAN ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC3.2MGOLDMAN SACHS GROUP INC494KFIL Ltd1.9MMY.Alpha Management HK Advisors LtdNORGES BANKMORGAN STANLEY315KARROWSTREET CAPITAL, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP150KBANK OF AMERICA CORP /DE/UBS Group AG448KMILLENNIUM MANAGEMENT LLC113K

Corporate

Order Flow (FINRA, ~3w lag)

8.5%retail+5.3pp
19.2%dark-7.3pp
week of 2026-04-13
10%20%30%40%50%60%24-1125-0225-0525-0825-1126-0226-04retail (non-ATS)dark (ATS)
Off-exchange volume from FINRA. Retail = non-ATS (wholesaler PFOF + broker internalization). Dark = ATS (dark-pool crossing networks, institutional). Lit-exchange = remainder.

Filing Risk Analysis

Filing Risk Scores

Zhihu Inc.: Accelerating Cash Burn and Structural Fragility in the PRC Regulatory Landscape

Overall Risk
7/10
Fraud
3/10
Dilution
8/10
Insolvency
6/10
Earnings Overstated
5/10
Hidden Liabilities
4/10
Legal
8/10
Audit Warnings
5/10
Hidden Upside
4/10
Contextually Acceptable
6/10

Counter-Thesis

Counter-Thesis & Recent News

📰 Recent News

Zhihu (ZH) has faced severe fundamental pressure in the last six months (Oct 2025 - Apr 2026). In March 2026, the company reported that total FY2025 revenues plunged 23.6% YoY to RMB 2.75 billion, while average monthly subscribing members declined 10% to 13.5 million (TipRanks, March 2025/2026). Additionally, the company reported a significant impairment of goodwill for Q4 2025 on March 25, 2026, and a major leadership shuffle following the resignation of its CTO on September 30, 2025, and a CFO change in February 2026 (Simply Wall St, SEC Filings).

🐻 Bear Case

The core bear case centers on a structural decline in both revenue and user engagement. Revenue is contracting sharply (down 22% in Q3 2025 and 23.6% for FY2025) as the platform's traditional Q&A model is being disrupted by generative AI. Financial forecasts for the company to reach a breakeven point have been repeatedly pushed back, with the target now moved to 2027 (Simply Wall St, July 2025). The platform is currently struggling with negative net margins and a negative return on equity of -15.4% forecast over the next 3 years (MarketBeat, March 2026).

🚩 Red Flags

Wall Street Zen downgraded ZH from 'Hold' to 'Sell' in March 2026, joining Weiss Ratings with a 'Sell' consensus (MarketBeat). The stock was flagged with a NYSE non-compliance notice in late 2023, and technical sentiment signals remain 'Sell' as the stock trades near 12-month lows of $2.58 (Investing.com). Eight major analysts recently warned that earnings are under significant threat, leading to a 28% drop in consensus EPS estimates in early 2026 (Simply Wall St).

⚔️ Competitive Threats

Generative AI (e.g., Baidu’s Ernie Bot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT) poses an 'existential threat' to Zhihu by providing instantaneous, comprehensive answers that bypass the need for community discussion (Bamboo Works, Dec 2025). Furthermore, the company is losing out in the 'attention economy' to short-form video platforms and algorithm-driven feeds like Douyin (TikTok), which have made Zhihu's long-form text content less 'mainstream' (Nanjing Marketing Group, Jan 2026).

💬 Customer Sentiment

User metrics show a troubling exodus: average Monthly Active Users (MAU) dropped to 81.4–83 million, reflecting a massive 21.2% year-on-year decline (Nanjing Marketing Group, 2024-2026 reports). Critically, the platform's once-dominant youth demographic (under 30) is shrinking, with its share of the active user base falling from 90% in 2021 to 74.1% by mid-2025, indicating a failure to attract new generations (Zhihu IR, Jan 2026).

Full Earnings Call Transcript

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

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Zhihu Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded and webcasted. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to you, Yolanda Liu, Head of IR and Capital Markets. Please go ahead, madam.
Yolanda Liu: Thank you, Hadi. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Zhihu's 2025 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Financial Results Conference Call. Joining me today on the call from senior management team are Mr. Zhou Yuan, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Wang Han, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, actual results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in our public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. Additionally, the discussion today will include both GAAP and non-GAAP financial results for comparison purpose only. For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to our earnings release issued earlier today. In addition, a webcast replay of this conference call will be available on our IR website at ir.zhihu.com. Today, Victor Zhou, an AI agent, representing Mr. Zhou Yuan, will deliver prepared remarks in English on his behalf. As Victor is still being refined, we appreciate your understanding. Victor, please go ahead.
Yuan Zhou: Thank you, Yolanda. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Zhihu's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. I am Victor Zhou, and I'm pleased to deliver today's opening remarks on behalf of Mr. Zhou Yuan, Founder, Chairman and CEO. In 2025, we achieved our first ever full year non-GAAP profit. This historic milestone validates our strategic transformation and underscores the structural durability of our operational leverage. Full year 2025, adjusted net income reached RMB 37.9 million, on a substantial turnaround from the adjusted net loss of RMB 96.3 million in 2024. Our community engagement continues to thrive. In Q4, average daily time spent per user increased to over 41 minutes on the platform. Our ecosystem of trusted creators remains vibrant, consistently delivering authentic and high-quality content across diverse fields. At the same time, we accelerated AI integration within our community. The synergistic evolution of our high-quality content times the expert network times AI capabilities continuously strengthened Zhihu's competitive mode in the AI era. In 2025, we successfully optimized our business structure. With a healthier commercial ecosystem, total revenue trend improved meaningfully in the fourth quarter, driven by a double-digit sequential increase in marketing services. Entering 2026, amid the surging AI adoption, we are leveraging Zhihu's unique advantages to scale AI-driven commercialization, including rapidly building industry-leading export data solutions and deploying AI productivity tools to accelerate IP monetization of our Yan'an Stories franchise. These initiatives will unlock new commercial opportunities for Zhihu. These efforts are anchored by a robust self-sustaining ecosystem. The powerful synergies between high-quality content, our expert network and expanding AI capabilities have created a positive feedback loop, driving heightened community, activity and interaction. In the fourth quarter, our data engagement metrics strengthened significantly. Average daily time spent per user increased sharply both year-over-year and sequentially to over 41 minutes. Substantial year-over-year growth in positive user interactions also drove notable improvements in both short- and long-term new user intention. High-quality content on our platform continues to surge. In Q4, daily creation of high-quality content rose by over 20% year-over-year, contributing to over 31% growth for the full year. Notably, professional AI-related content increased by over 30% year-over-year. As the global AI landscape has shifted from capability races to architectural innovation and system integration, Zhihu remains a leading forum for prominent researchers and frontline engineers to share insights, unpack complex topics and debate key issues. At the vanguard of the AI revolution, our community hosted extensive high-level discussions on key topics such as DeepSeek's Engram architecture, Qwen's new RIF's winning mechanisms, and the continuous iterations of Kimi and Zhipu. The conversation has moved from stronger models to effective system deployment, emphasizing tiered agent architectures and workflow redesign in products like Open Cloud and Cloud Co-Work. The debut of Unitree Robots at the Spring Festival Gala, together with Tesla and the figures progress towards a mass-producing humanoid robots have filled a critical analysis of embodied AI road maps as founders and the employees from leading AI enterprises personally engaged on Zhihu to answer questions and address concerns. Our platform remains attractive space where AI innovations are first explained, validated and responsibly disseminated. We continue to leverage AI to upgrade our community governance and content mechanism. By replacing many operations with algorithm-driven automated workflows, we enhanced community governance ,efficiency and precision. We introduced new metrics for trustworthy contents recognition and promotion ,while integrating user feedback into our evaluation framework. These measures effectively reduce system noise, dynamically suppressing low-quality content and elevating the overall user experience. Professional creators remain the backbone of Zhihu's expert network. In the fourth quarter, daily active high-tier creators grew by double digit year-over-year. A number of verified honored creators rose by nearly 30% as we continue to strengthen incentives for top-tier creators while supporting their efforts to expand industry influence. Our Zhihu 2025 annual review highlighted exceptionally robust high-tier creator engagement. In AI and technology, leading AI companies, including DeepSeek, Moonshot, Tongyi Qianwen, ByteDance Seed, Zhipu and StepFun actively engaged on our platform through their official accounts. Creators with frontline industry and R&D backgrounds consistently shared cutting-edge insights on our platform, contributing to major industry discussions. For the full year, AI-focused creators grew by approximately 16%. In fundamental sciences such as astronomy and chemistry, high-profile creators actively joined our flagship online and offline science programs. Their authoritative content sparked a widespread discussion beyond our community, driving higher search interest for related topics. On the product side, Ideas remains the primary channel for high-frequency knowledge sharing by professional creators, while Circle facilitates engagement around common interest. For the full year, average daily content volume on Ideas grew 73.5%, and the average daily interactions doubled. This momentum persisted in the fourth quarter with double-digit sequential growth across both metrics. We also increased support for mid-tier creators during the quarter, fostering a dynamic growth-oriented ecosystem. Leveraging AI agents, we significantly improved our efficiency in identifying and nurturing talent. In Circles AI-powered proms and standardized tools lowered creation variants and enhanced content distribution. As a result, average daily content creation in Circles surged over 100% sequentially with daily views up 72%. Beyond the AI-driven efficiency gains in content operations, creator support and ecosystem management, Q4 also saw accelerated advances in our foundational AI capabilities enhancing experiences for both creators and the users. In search, creation and consumption, we continue to deepen the integration of AI into the Zhihu community experience. In search, we completed an AI upgrade to our integrated search in December, introducing cross topic content aggregation and hot trend summarization to create a new entry point for high-quality content discovery. We also tailored the answer formats to different query types, which drove a double-digit increase in click-through rates for our AI direct answer cards and meaningfully increased average AI search interactions per user through more multi-turn conversations. In creation, AI is increasingly becoming a practical tool for creators on Zhihu. Since the fourth quarter, we have rolled out features such as content publishing and one-click enhancement powered by intelligent editing, automated formatting and image pairing capabilities. These tools lower the barrier to creation, improve readability and distribution efficiency and help creators turn ideas into shareable content more efficiently. We are also introducing multimodal capabilities such as AI-generated illustrations and image summarization to make long-form content more visually engaging and improve user conversion in the feed. In consumption and circulation, AI is helping Zhihu content transcend traditional community boundaries through external ecosystem partnerships, we are extending our content capabilities into more intelligent assistant scenarios. Within the community users are beginning to use AI in common thrives for fact checking and professional explanation, which supports more authentic interaction and follow-up discussions. Meanwhile, our AI reading panel on PC has improved the efficiency of long-form reading through one-click summarization and terminology explanation and is beginning to generate more valuable interest signals for future recommendation and monetization. Now turning to commercialization. Our efforts to optimize our commercial structure have yielded notable results. With a healthier business ecosystem, total revenue has entered a recovery phase, reaching RMB 643.5 million in the fourth quarter as the pace of sequential decline continued to narrow. This shows a clear top line recovery trajectory. At the same time, we are exploring new scalable AI-powered monetization avenues with an unwavering focus on long-term value and operational excellence. Let's take a closer look at our performance by segment. In the fourth quarter, marketing services revenue reached RMB 234.8 million, up 24% sequentially as our adjustment cycle bottomed out. Disciplined execution in optimizing client mix and upgrading commercial products capitalizes momentum, strengthening our appeal to high-value clients. We elevated the overall client quality, deepened industry penetration and accelerated new customer acquisition. In the fourth quarter, ARPU rose significantly among clients in high-value verticals such as technology and e-commerce. We also reached the new segments in sectors such as automotive and health care. In December, we hosted the Electric Club New Knowledge Technology Conference, which brought together automotive engineers, autonomous driving specialists and leading tech experts from the Zhihu community to explore NEV safety and intelligent upgrades. The event drove 140% year-over-year increase in participating clients enabling industry leaders like BYD, Mitsubishi and Voyah to articulate their technological strength and the safety value through targeted engagement and build trusted content assets. On commercial product upgrades, we leveraged our trusted content and expert network to expand the community-driven monetization and amplify the commercial value of our key IPs such as Zhihu Science Season and Zhihu Reviewers Jewelry. Revenue from IP-related projects increased 21% year-over-year, supported by deeper brand collaborations across our IP portfolio. At the same time, our Idea Plus solution gained strong momentum during the quarter. By offering a lightweight precisely targeted format, Idea Plus extended our native advertising capabilities into short-form content, significantly shortening the path from discovery to purchase, capitalizing on 106% year-over-year increase in daily ideas, interactions. Idea Plus achieved a 62% sequential increase in client numbers and 200% sequential growth in average daily client spend. In 2026, supported by a healthier commercial ecosystem, we aim to drive continued recovery and sustainable long-term growth in marketing services. Next, turning to the business we currently report on the paid membership, which we increasingly see evolving into a broader content and IP operations business. Paid membership remains a revenue contributor of this segment. In the fourth quarter, average monthly paid members reached 12.2 million, generating RMB 333.5 million in revenue. Short-term membership fluctuations aligned with expectations as our structural adjustments prioritize fundamental improvements in service experience and profitability to support a smooth transition during this phase, we are exploring new growth drivers, initiatives to improve member retention and ARPU are yielding results. Q4 average ARPU increased by 1.4% sequentially and overall quarterly renewal rates improved by 2.7 percentage points. Beyond the paid memberships, we are maximizing content IP's value across media adaptations and licensing. IP monetization revenue, which is currently recognized in other revenues grew more than fivefold year-over-year in the fourth quarter and doubled for the full year, underscoring the significant growth potential of this business. The monetization potential of our Yan'an Stories IP continued to translate into tangible results. In December, 2 adapted short dramas Fang and Xia, and The Seventh Year Of Secret Love For My Childhood Friend premiered on Tencent Video, quickly ranking among the platform's top releases. Fang and Xia set all-time popularity record for vertical short dramas on the platform, while Seventh Year Of Secret Love For My Childhood Friend topped the charts and sparked widespread discussion across social media. These results demonstrate our IP's strong adaptation potential and mainstream appeal. During the quarter, we released our short story influence list for the third consecutive year recognizing 62 outstanding works and 20 authors. The selection includes both mature IP already adapted into film and television as well as a pipeline of high-quality titles with strong multi-format development potential. Together, these initiatives highlight our scalable pathway for long-term value creation, cultivating high-quality content, structuring an IP portfolio and extending it across multiple formats to unlock compounding growth. Looking ahead, rapid advances in multimodal AI and the rising industry productivity are expected to further expand monetization opportunities for Yan'an Stories IP creating new growth potential for our content and IP operations business. Building on this, we are exploring a new format for IP development, AI-powered comic dramas and emerging formats driven by demand for lightweight content and improved generative model efficiency. Positioned upstream, Zhihu leverages a dense network of high-quality creators and rich content assets giving us a natural advantage as a stable source of premium IP. Strategically, we will pursue a dual-track approach of IP licensing and in-house incubation. We will also collaborate with platforms and studios to unlock mature IP value, while building in-house AI production capabilities. Turning to other revenues. Beginning in the third quarter to improve profitability, we consolidated our vocational training and the new initiatives into other revenues, which totaled RMB 75.2 million in Q4. We believe 2026 will mark another leap in AI productivity complemented by rapid expansion of real-world applications. Leveraging Zhihu's unique strength we are accelerating exploration of AI-related monetization. We also see growing potential in export data solutions as competition among other ends, increasingly shifts from scale alone to alignment, quality and real-world generalization, high-value, traceable and structured data is now the core driver of model performance. With our long-standing expert network and authentic discussion scenarios, Zhihu is well positioned upstream in the supply of high-quality knowledge and insights and we believe we can be among the earliest platforms in China to systematically define and commercialize high-value data solutions. To support this opportunity, we are developing our export data solution capabilities. At the same time, we are also exploring how to engage experts more deeply in data construction and labeling processing that supports model training and alignment. In summary, achieving full year non-GAAP profitability in 2025 marks a pivotal milestone for Zhihu, validating the resilience of our strategy and the strength of our execution. In 2026, we remain committed to prioritizing disciplined operations, while accelerating AI integration across our community and commercial models. We are sharpening our strategic focus and optimizing resource allocation. In our established businesses, we will continue to prioritize ecosystem health and the user experience, leveraging AI to drive efficiency gains and elevate content quality. At the same time, we are doubling down on AI-driven monetization innovations to cultivate new scalable growth engines. We are confident that 2026 will usher in a new era for high-quality growth for Q4, defined by the further realization of our unique AI capabilities and monetization potential. With that, I will hand the call over to our CFO, Wang Han, whose remarks will be delivered through his AI voice agent. Han, please go ahead.
Wang Han: I will now go over our fourth quarter financials for a complete overview of our results, please refer to our press release issued earlier today. 2025 represents a structural upgrade in Zhihu's financial profile. As Victor noted, we achieved our first full year non-GAAP profitability milestone. Financially, this progress was driven by sustained cost discipline, improved operating leverage and tighter expense control, while maintaining healthy gross margins. For the full year, we recorded non-GAAP net income of RMB 37.9 million, and our non-GAAP operating loss narrowed by 33.6% year-over-year. These results reflect the cumulative impact of our multi-quarter structure optimization and provide a strong foundation to build on as we enter 2026. Now turning to the fourth quarter. Our total revenues for the quarter were RMB 643.5 million compared with RMB 859.2 million in the same period of 2024. The year-over-year decrease continue to reflect our ongoing efforts to optimize revenue mix and focus on sustainable, high-quality growth. Notably, the pace of sequential decline continued to narrow, reinforcing a clear top line recovery trajectory. Our marketing services revenue for the quarter was RMB 234.8 million compared with RMB 315.9 million in the same period of 2024, while the year-over-year decline reflects our proactive refinement of service offerings, the sequential trend was notably positive. Marketing services revenue grew 24% sequentially, marking a clear inflection point in our recovery. This momentum was driven by stronger client quality, deeper industry penetration and the successful ramp-up of new commercial products. Paid membership revenue was RMB 333.5 million compared with RMB 422 million in the same period of 2024. Average monthly subscribing members were 12.2 million. The year-over-year decline in membership was expected and reflects our deliberate prioritization of unit economics over scale. That said, we delivered sequential improvements in both ARPPU and renewal rates during the quarter, which we view as early validation that our retention initiatives are gaining traction. Other revenues were RMB 75.2 million compared with RMB 123.1 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease primarily reflected the strategic refinement of our vocational training business, partially offset by growth of revenues generated from our intellectual property derivatives business. Our gross profit for the quarter was RMB 344.8 million, compared with RMB 540.7 million in the same period of 2024. Gross margin was 53.6% compared with 62.9% in the same period of 2024. The decrease in gross margin was primarily due to our ongoing efforts to broaden and enhance content offerings for all users. Our total operating expenses for the quarter were RMB 608.7 million compared with RMB 528.8 million in the same period of 2024. The increase was primarily due to a onetime non-cash goodwill impairment charge of RMB 126.3 million, which was primarily associated with our prior acquisitions, mainly driven by lower valuations amid the current market conditions. Excluding this item, underlying operating expenses continued to decline year-over-year as we further streamline spending across key areas. Selling and marketing expenses decreased by 13% to RMB 275.2 million from RMB 316.2 million in the same period of 2024, driven by more disciplined marketing spend and lower personnel-related expenses. Research and development expenses decreased 16% to RMB 123.1 million from RMB 146.6 million in the same period of 2024. The decrease was primarily driven by ongoing improvements in our research and development efficiency. General and administrative expenses were RMB 84 million compared with RMB 66 million in the same period of 2024, primarily due to higher share-based compensation expenses. Our GAAP net loss for the quarter was RMB 210.8 million compared with RMB 86.4 million in the same period of 2024. On a non-GAAP basis, adjusted net loss was RMB 39.4 million compared with adjusted net income of RMB 97.1 million in the same period of 2024. As of the 31st of December 2025, we held RMB 4.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents, current and non-current term deposits, restricted cash and short-term investments compared with RMB 4.9 billion as of the 31st of December 2024. As of the 31st of December 2025, we repurchased 31.1 million Class A ordinary shares on the open market for an aggregate value of USD 66.5 million. In addition, throughout 2025, we repurchased a total of 16.6 million Class A ordinary shares through the company's trustee for an aggregate value of USD 23.4 million, representing 6.29% of the total issued ordinary shares. Looking ahead, we will further enhance earnings quality and scalability by prioritizing higher-margin, more capital-efficient revenue streams. We will continue to strengthen our monetization capabilities and explore new AI-powered revenue models, while leveraging Zhihu's core strength, high-quality content, a respected expert network and advanced AI capabilities, coupled with disciplined capital allocation, including share repurchases. These actions will reinforce our financial resilience and support sustainable long-term value creation.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will take our first question. Your first question comes from the line of Xueqing Zhang from CICC.
Xueqing Zhang: [Foreign Language] Thanks management for taking my question. And my question about your financial outlook. So firstly, what's the earnings outlook in 2026 and how to balance the investment with the cash flow and the profitability?
Wang Han: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] This is from Zhihu CFO, Wang Han. So first, 2025 demonstrated that Zhihu can achieve profitability. But more importantly, we believe, given our unique assets and positioning Zhihu's opportunity set in the AI era is meaningfully larger than what we current scale reflect. So we are not pursuing a single path of delivering profitability this year, more profitability next year. And then turning to dividends. At our current scale, that would not generate a particular meaningful level of returns for our shareholders. So what we want to do instead is stay focused on the opportunities created by AI and invest behind them. At the same time, this does not mean we will abandon the bottom line discipline that we worked hard to achieve or return to the old model of burning significant cash for growth. We will be disciplined in selecting new initiatives concentrating our investments on areas with visible ROI potential and a strong fit with Zhihu's core strength. In other words, we want to deliver growth in new AI-driven revenue stream. At the same time, to keep the overall bottom line on a healthy and responsive track. Thanks for the question.
Operator: Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Daisy Chen from Haitong International.
Kewei Chen: [Foreign Language] I'll translate it myself. As of current stage, what is your strategy in terms of our commercialization? And what are the company's core priorities for 2026?
Wang Han: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] So thanks for your question. I will get started with my answers. This is from Zhihu CFO, Wang Han. So in terms of the priority and the strategy in 2026, these are mainly centered on 2 tracks. First of all, in our core community business, we want to continue using AI to improve efficiency and deliver a better product experience for our users and the content creators. At the same time, to maintain stable revenue and a healthier level of operating profitability. In other words, we want to -- our core business to maintain steady, while becoming increasingly AI-enhanced and financially stronger over time.
Wang Han: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] At the same time, we want to fully leverage Zhihu's unique assets to develop new AI businesses. As I mentioned earlier, the new initiatives we choose will not be built around aggressive cash burn. We will focus on areas where we can see a path to a healthy cash flow. Right now, we are mainly focused on 2 areas.
Wang Han: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] The first is AI-enabled short-form drama and comic adaption. As text to video and image to video models continue to evolve. The production chain is becoming increasingly streamlined. In that process, the scarce asset is high-quality upstream IP, and that is not something that can be acquired overnight, simply by spending heavily. Zhihu's advantage is not only that we have accumulated a large library of high-quality copyrighted content, but also that we have a highly active creator ecosystem that continue to generate new ideas and new IPs. More importantly, AI-generated short drama and the comic style content have already shown that users are willing to pay for this type of AI content. So we believe this is one of the most promising areas where focused investment could generate meaningful and scalable AI revenue for us.
Wang Han: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] The second area is data -- AI data services. At a time when many AI applications are still operating with heavy cash burn, there are only a few categories in the ecosystem that can capture structurally attractive economies. One, of course, is represented by companies like NVIDIA. Another on a relatively smaller but still very attractive scale is high-quality data area. In U.S. companies such as Scale AI, Surge AI and McClure has grown rapidly within just a few years by providing high-quality data services to leading LLM developers, while also demonstrating a healthy cash flow characteristics. So with our strong export network and depending on understanding of high-quality model data, we believe Zhihu is well positioned to provide differentiated data solutions for all of these AI developers. At the same time, our community can continuously service new areas of expertise, emerging knowledge, and involving capabilities that LLMs have not yet fully covered. This gives Zhihu a very differentiated advantage in this field. And we believe this is also a business with a clear opportunity to generate positive cash flow.
Wang Han: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] So in a word, what we want to deliver is a stable core business that continue to upgrade through AI with improving product capability and a healthy financial profile. Alongside new AI revenue streams that can grow in a disciplined way. The goal is not to pursue growth through excessive spending, but also -- but to build a new AI business with visible monetization potential and a path to positive cash flow. Thank you for the question.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will take our next question. The question comes from the line of Vicky Wei from Citi.
Yi Jing Wei: [Foreign Language] So could management share some data that will help us better understand the impact of AI on the Zhihu community? And additionally, with regard to product upgrades and user experience enhancement in the coming year, what new initiatives does Zhihu have in place?
Yuan Zhou: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] Thanks for your question. I will take this question. This is from Zhihu CEO, Zhou Yuan. So first of all, the impact of AI on our community has not been passive. Over the past few quarters, we have been actively driving this accelerating and deeper integration between AI and the Zhihu community with a clear focus on improving such as content consumption, creator experience and so on. Broadly speaking, the positive changes from AI adoption can be seen across 2 groups: our core retained users and our new users.
Yuan Zhou: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreted] Starting with our core retained user, AI is helping users and creators better understand and connect with each other, which further strength the social nature of a real human interaction on our platform. In 4Q, both the coverage and frequency of the positive user interactions on the platform increased year-over-year. We are also seeing users actively call on AI capabilities, aka Zhida. In the comments section for things like fact checking, explaining professional topics and the following training discussions. Importantly, this is happening without disrupting the community atmosphere. Instead, it is helping drive -- is helping drive more interaction and the follow-on discussion among real users. More recently, we launched AI reading panel on PC, with features such as one-click summaries and explanations of professional terms. It has meaningfully improved the reading efficiency of long-form content and significantly enhance the deep reading experience for our core users.
Yuan Zhou: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: As we mentioned earlier, daily newly added high-quality content in the community grew by over 20% year-over-year in 4Q. But beyond content volume, while we are more -- what we care more about is a positive shift in user and the creators' behaviors. So through like AI capabilities, such as intelligence editing and multi-model associated creation, we're continuing to lower the barrier. So we can see like in the per user's interaction improved significantly in this quarter.
Yuan Zhou: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreter] For new users entering the community, AI is also lowering the barrier to content discovery, joining discussions and participating in interactions. In 4Q '25, the direct MAUs of Zhihu Zhida continued to grow by more than 260% year-over-year, while next month's retention improved by about 83% year-over-year. In February '26, average daily search queries per DAU increased by more than 16% compared with November '25.
Yuan Zhou: [Foreign Language]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreter] As we shared previously, we mentioned that we completed another upgrade of AI capability within Zhihu's main search to further integrate Zhida with our broader search experience and making it a new entry point for high-quality content for our users. So we see this happened in December. And after this upgrade, search can present more suitable answer formats based on different types of queries. Since launch, user coverage of a AI Zhida cards have increased meaningfully. CTR, click-through rate saw double-digit improved and average AI searches per user also increased noticeably.
Yuan Zhou: [Foreign Language]
Operator: Continue to standby, the conference will resume shortly. [Technical Difficulty]
Unknown Executive: [Interpreter] Okay. I will continue to deliver answers from our CEO, Zhou Yuan. So for the looking forward perspective, our plans are focused on 2 areas. First, we will continue investing in the experience gains we are already seeing from AI, both in terms of enabling more social interaction and efficiency for core return users and new users. So this direction here is already quite clear, and we have been building toward it step-by-step. On top of that, we are preparing to upgrade the Zhida's core capability from AI search towards an agent-based experience. We believe this could bring broader product experience upgrades to users across community. Although there is still an innovation and execution process ahead of us, and we will continue to work through that rollout. So this is from Zhihu CEO, Zhou Yuan. Thanks for your question again.
Operator: Thank you. That concludes today's Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Yolanda for additional or closing remarks.
Yolanda Liu: Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have any further questions, please contact our IR team directly or Christensen Advisory. Thank you. Thank you all.
Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]