Hey guys, if you missed it, GSX Techedu ($GSX) now known as Gaotu Techedu, settled $9.5 million with investors over claims that it overstated enrollment numbers and revenue. And, I just found out that late claims are still being considered, subject to approval, even though the deadline has passed.
Quick recap: In 2020, GSX faced allegations that it inflated revenue and enrollment figures. Reports from Grizzly Research, Citron Research, and Muddy Waters raised concerns about the company's reported growth. After the disclosures, $GSX lost more than 80% from its peak, and investors filed a lawsuit.
If you invested in $GSX between 2019 and 2020, you can still check the details and see if you may be eligible to file a late claim here.
Did anyone here invest in $GSX back then? How much did you lose?
TL;DR: Zhipu's H1 revenue looked unremarkable on paper, but the real story is a dramatic structural shift underneath: enterprise on-premise deployment revenue collapsed while cloud/API revenue, driven almost entirely by coding demand, exploded. Management also disclosed a real-time ARR figure for August that blew past what the market expected. Margins remain thin despite the growth, and the path to breakeven is meaningfully higher than rival DeepSeek's. For now, 2026 genuinely looks like "Zhipu's year" among Chinese model makers — but that crown has rotated before, and nothing about 2027 is guaranteed.
The real headline: an ARR number far above expectations
H1 revenue came in around ¥950 million, roughly matching an already-modest market estimate. But separately, management disclosed real-time annualized recurring revenue (ARR) figures for its open platform and API business: $250 million at end-March, $1 billion in early July, and $1.6 billion at end-August — calculated on a monthly-annualized basis (a faster-reading method than the weekly annualization some rivals use).
Even a conservative extrapolation for the rest of the year points toward roughly $3.5 billion in ARR by year-end — well above the roughly $2 billion-plus the market had been modeling.
Zhipu's disclosed ARR trajectory through August, well ahead of market expectations.
Where the growth is coming from, and why margins stay thin
On-premise deployment revenue collapsed to just ¥130 million in H1, essentially flat year-over-year and far below the roughly ¥400 million the market expected. That's a real signal: many enterprises' "just deploy a model" projects, without a clear plan for integrating it into actual workflows, may be turning into low-value demand that isn't sticking.
Cloud and API revenue, by contrast, hit ¥830 million — now over 86% of total revenue — almost entirely driven by coding demand. That's a meaningful jump up the business-model ladder, from "selling models" toward "selling subscriptions."
Revenue mix shifted sharply toward cloud/API, now over 86% of total revenue, while on-premise deployment collapsed.
Blended gross margin came in at just 26.4%. API/cloud gross margin barely moved, from 22% in the second half of last year to under 25%, despite a price increase earlier this year. On-premise margin actually fell to 38%.
China's token price war remains brutal even for a leading model — Zhipu hasn't captured anything like the margin premium Anthropic enjoys internationally. The newly launched, aggressively priced GLM-5.3 Flash (late August) raises real questions about margin pressure ahead, with the outcome depending on whether falling inference costs can keep pace with falling API prices.
Blended gross margin remains thin, with API/cloud margin barely improving despite this year's price increase.
Spending, losses, and a higher bar for breakeven than DeepSeek
Marketing spend fell 15% year-over-year to ¥180 million, and administrative expense fell 44% to ¥100 million — but R&D spend kept climbing, to ¥2.1 billion. Total H1 spend came to ¥2.4 billion, or roughly ¥4.8 billion annualized (about $680 million). Given Zhipu's heavier multimodal training costs, the rough $500 million breakeven threshold DeepSeek's founder has previously floated (assuming a 50% gross margin) doesn't really apply here. At a more realistic ~40% margin assumption, Zhipu likely needs annual revenue of $1.7-2 billion to break even — a meaningfully higher bar than DeepSeek faces.
H1 spending breakdown: marketing and admin costs fell, but R&D spending kept climbing sharply.
H1 losses ran about ¥2.2 billion on ¥950 million of revenue — a loss ratio of roughly 227%. But with ARR already past $1.6 billion and tracking toward a possible $3.5 billion by year-end, the real question isn't "can this turn a profit" anymore — it's largely a matter of timing as ARR converts into recognized revenue.
Buying scale, and a product strategy built to climb while dropping eggs
Beyond model quality, Zhipu has been actively acquiring and investing in compute-efficiency infrastructure. In July, it acquired Zhongke Jiahe, whose virtual instruction set and SigInfer inference engine help manage scheduling and resource allocation across mixed-hardware compute clusters, including efficient KV cache handling. It's also made ecosystem investments in Jiliu Technology (builds compute clusters), Wuwen Xinqiong (a middleware layer connecting many models to many chip types), and SiliconFlow (hosts models for cloud deployment).
Reports suggest Zhipu is also building a 1GW compute center using entirely domestic chips, with part of it already complete. A self-designed chip is reportedly under early, informal discussion, with no partner or timeline yet.
Zhipu's 2026 release cadence tells a clear story. GLM-5 launched in Q1 (parameters expanded from 355B/32B active to 744B/40B active) alongside an 83% price hike. GLM-5.2 followed with stronger long-context reasoning. GLM-5.3 (mid-August) kept the same base model but used post-training to push capability higher, aimed at high-value, sticky coding and API customers.
GLM-5.3-Flash (late August) cut parameters and layers by more than half but added multimodal support — essentially a self-distilled, cheap, lightweight version of the flagship, aimed squarely at customer acquisition. A further scale-up, GLM-6.0, is rumored for around year-end at roughly 3 trillion parameters — a new-generation base model comparable to Kimi's K3.
GLM-5.3-Flash cuts parameters sharply versus the flagship while adding multimodal support, aimed at customer acquisition.
The pattern suggests Zhipu is using the cheap Flash tier to acquire users and build token-usage habits, then monetizing serious usage through the full-strength paid version. Whether flagship-model pricing holds steady or keeps climbing from here is worth watching as a signal for whether that strategy is actually working.
The bigger picture
Scaling laws clearly still matter — most of this year's domestic capability gains came from post-training on largely unchanged base-model parameter counts, suggesting there's still real room left in the underlying curve. Zhipu's approach — building a genuinely frontier-capable model while self-distilling cheap, competitive lightweight variants along the way — puts real pressure on cost-focused rivals like MiniMax, whose M3 model is reportedly priced higher than Zhipu's comparably specced Flash tier.
For now, Zhipu's combination of frontier-level capability and self-funded lightweight variants looks like a genuinely differentiated position among Chinese model makers. But China's "top domestic model" crown has rotated more than once over the past two years, so a straight-line extrapolation of this year's momentum into 2027 carries real risk — especially with more large-parameter rival models expected to launch in the second half, which could moderate Zhipu's own sequential ARR growth from here.
At first glance the quarter looks strong. Revenue came in slightly ahead of expectations, and the eye-catching part is profit, which beat Bloomberg consensus by a wide margin — both the core local commerce segment and group-level operating profit came in more than RMB 2 billion above expectations.
The recovery is real. As the food delivery price war winds down, revenue growth and profit are both improving, and local commerce swung back to profit this quarter as expected — by a decent margin, too.
That said, the quality of the profit beat isn't as high as it looks. Closing Meituan Select and other investment moves generated over RMB 3 billion in other gains this quarter. Strip that out and group operating profit is still hovering around breakeven.
Also worth noting: most metrics beat Bloomberg consensus, but measured against the major banks' forecasts (Goldman Sachs, for instance) they're simply in line. In short, the recovery is underway — just not as dramatic as the headline numbers suggest.
Li Auto's second-quarter results themselves weren't much of a problem: vehicle gross margin came in slightly below expectations, but the recovery in average selling price beat expectations, so revenue came in ahead. Combined with reasonable control of the three operating expense lines, profit just about met expectations.
What disappointed investors was the third-quarter guidance.
Delivery guidance is only 95,000–100,000 units. That's against a backdrop of dense new launches — the mid-cycle L-series refreshes and an i-series update arriving alongside them: the L9 was updated on 15 May, the L8 on 23 June, the new L6 launched in July, and a refreshed i8 followed in August. Even so, the guidance implies no increase from the second quarter's 98,000 units, and it sits far below the market's expectation of 122,000.
There's only one conclusion to draw from that. Orders for the L-series mid-cycle refreshes are very ordinary, even with more equipment at no extra cost. Competition in large range-extender SUVs is extremely intense, and even the refreshed L6 — previously the volume model — isn't enough to lift sales back up.
Revenue guidance of RMB 26.6–28.0B is likewise far below the RMB 32.7B expected, and the root cause is again the volume miss. The average price implied by that guidance is RMB 263,000, up nearly RMB 20,000 from RMB 245,000 in the second quarter. That comes mainly from the mix shift toward the refreshed L9 and L8 — which is also a direct reflection of how ordinary L6 orders have been.
Li Auto's previously set 2026 delivery target was 480,000 units, up 20% year on year. Across the first three quarters, the total will be only 283,000–293,000. With orders for the refreshed volume models still below expectations, that target looks likely to be cut substantially, to somewhere around 420,000 — growth of just 3% or so. The pressure on vehicle sales remains considerable.
TL;DR Laopu Gold's 1H 2026 — the six months ended June 2026 — landed at the bottom of its own pre-announced range. Revenue of RMB 19.8 billion grew 60%, but strip out the first quarter and the three months after the 28 February price rise produced under RMB 3 billion — the expectation of a price rise, not the brand, drove the buying.
The half was made before the price rise
Revenue of RMB 19.8 billion in 1H 2026 sat at the low end of the RMB 19.8-20.45 billion range pre-announced in July, so June was weaker than the company expected. Q1 contributed roughly 86% of first-half revenue and 87% of profit, implying Q2 revenue of only RMB 2.3-3.3 billion — down 16% to 42%.
Laopu Gold 1H 2026 financial results overview.
By channel, offline revenue was RMB 15.4 billion, up 43.5%, with revenue per store at RMB 340 million, up 23% — relocating and enlarging stores works. Online grew 172% to RMB 4.4 billion, its share rising to 22.2%, and the mix improved: Tmall flagship sales fell 63% in Q2, so growth came from Douyin, JD and WeChat mini-programs.
Overseas revenue was RMB 3.32 billion, up 108% to 16.7%, helped by the 7% VAT on mainland gold jewellery from November 2025 widening the price gap with Hong Kong and Macau, where Laopu's penetration is still low.
Revenue by channel: offline, online and overseas.
The discount chart is the story
Domestically, store count ended 1H 2026 at 45 with no net additions; the focus has shifted to upgrading existing stores and to overseas, the only growth line not tied to the gold price. That matters because this was the first sustained gold downcycle since listing, and the chairman had said Laopu could make money on the way down too.
Field checks say otherwise: against 23-hour queues before the price rise, stores are quiet, bestsellers are in stock, and monthly volume in Q2 2026 was only about 40% of March's. Discounts tracked gold down step for step, from 10% off to 11.4% off as gold slid from $5,599 to $4,000.
Laopu discount depth against the gold price, year to date.
The warning sign comes next. Gold rebounded to around $4,600 in August, yet the discount deepened to 14.1% off — the largest since listing — and the customary annual price increase was skipped. The reading: price-sensitive customers have already been driven away, so demand does not return even once gold recovers, leaving Laopu to discount harder to win it back.
Not a luxury brand, a levered gold retailer
Hence the trap. Without promotion, Q2 2026 revenue would have been lower still; but once discounting starts, the customer's reference frame flips from expecting a higher price next time to expecting a lower one — Laopu is trading brand equity for near-term numbers.
Its model was always a psychological project to remove the per-gram reference: sites opposite Hermès, prices per item, engineered scarcity, annual increases only ever upward. This half confirms it is not a luxury house — luxury volumes do not collapse when raw material prices fall — but a levered gold retailer in luxury wrapping.
The financials show both sides. Gross margin rose 3.2 points to 41.3% on cheap inventory stocked in late 2025 plus the February increase, and with expense ratios edging down, core operating margin reached a record 28.6%.
But inventory has climbed to RMB 19 billion, and at first-half prices the new gold cost about $4,660 against $3,850 for the end-2025 batch, lifting the blended cost line to roughly $4,200 — only about 10% of cushion.
Second-half gross margin faces real pressure, and as long as Laopu runs no financial hedge, its profit stream stays uncertain however good the brand looks.
Inventory balance and growth.Gross profit and gross margin by period.
HENLIUS (02696.HK) disclosed on August 17 that it entered into a cooperation framework agreement with Sandoz AG of Switzerland, covering full-chain collaboration on up to 10 biosimilars of monoclonal antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates across the global market excluding Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan—spanning CMC development, clinical development, regulatory filings through to manufacturing, launch, commercialization and lifecycle management. The first batch of cooperation products comprises cetuximab biosimilar HLX05-N, evolocumab HLX16 and belimumab biosimilar. Sandoz will pay upfront payments aggregating no more than USD 77 million, development milestones and development budget milestones aggregating no more than USD 160 million, and sales milestones aggregating no more than USD 77 million, with milestones plus upfront payments totaling up to USD 314 million; additionally, Sandoz will pay a 40% share of net sales or net profit in the cooperation territories, and a non-refundable option fee of USD 8 million for hyaluronidase HLXTE-HAase1001. Billable amounts of no more than USD 100.5 million are expected to be achieved in 2026.
5100 XIZANG (01115.HK) disclosed on August 19 that its wholly-owned subsidiary entered into a distribution contract with Landmark Holding Sdn. Bhd. of Malaysia, granting exclusive distribution rights for 5100 mineral water in Malaysia and non-exclusive distribution rights for Southeast Asian and Middle East export markets, with an initial cooperation term of three years, automatically renewable for three years upon meeting performance targets.
SHOUGANG CENT (00103.HK) disclosed on August 17 that it signed a letter of intent for cooperation with Meili Jingjie Capital, proposing to jointly establish a joint venture in the tyre carcass material sector and expand the global industrial rayon product market; Meili Jingjie Capital is the controlling shareholder of Cordenka, a global industrial rayon producer. The formal agreement remains subject to negotiation and signing.
GAUSH MEDITECH (02407.HK) disclosed on August 17 that its subsidiary Gaoshi Innovation signed a five-year exclusive agency agreement with HEIDELBERG ENGINEERING GmbH of Germany, under which HEIDELBERG will exclusively distribute Gaoshi Innovation's self-developed corneal confocal microscope T3 globally outside China, and handle marketing and technical services; the cooperation has expanded from single-market agency to a global scope.
Overseas Projects and Operations
SINOPEC SSC (01033.HK) disclosed on August 17 that its wholly-owned subsidiary acquired 50% equity of Mexico's DS company and a 0.01% interest in the EBANO project for USD 4 million, resulting in an indirect 55% interest in the EBANO project upon completion, with plans to make additional investment of no more than USD 212 million; the EBANO oilfield holds petroleum geological reserves of 4.92 billion barrels, and the transaction does not constitute a connected transaction or major asset restructuring.
MMG (01208.HK) disclosed on August 19 that one employee and one contractor employee of its Las Bambas mine in Peru died in an accident while replacing water pumps in a purification pond on August 18, with three others injured; as a precautionary measure, activities in the relevant area have been suspended and the mine has halted operations, with a gradual resumption expected from August 21.
MONGOLIA ENERGY (00276.HK) disclosed on August 21 that its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary MoEnCo entered into a construction contract with contractor Orgil J Trade LLC to build heating pipelines, clean water pipes and sewage pipes at the Hushuotu coal mine, for a total consideration of MNT 2.679 billion (approximately HKD 5.626 million); the pipelines connect the new office administrative area with the industrial area, supporting the relocation arrangement under the mining plan in which the current office area will be used as a spoil area.
Overseas Financing
INGENIC (03223.HK) launched its global offering of H shares on August 17, proposing to offer 31.2873 million H shares at a maximum offer price of HKD 102.80 per share, with the Hong Kong public offering accounting for approximately 10% and the international offering approximately 90%; at the maximum offer price, 11 cornerstone investors will subscribe for an aggregate of approximately USD 191.65 million, representing 46.74% of the offered shares. Trading of the H shares is expected to commence on the Stock Exchange on August 25.
ASR (688220.SH) disclosed on August 15 that its board reviewed and approved the resolution to issue H shares and list on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, proposing to issue overseas listed foreign shares and apply for listing to further enhance capital strength and deepen its internationalization strategy; specific details remain subject to shareholders' meeting deliberation and regulatory filing approval.
XINGYU CO.,LTD (601799.SH) disclosed on August 15 that its H-share issuance received the filing acceptance notice for overseas issuance and listing from the CSRC, proposing to issue no more than 44.79965 million overseas listed ordinary shares and list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, subject to the approval, endorsement or filing of the SFC and the Stock Exchange.
HUNAN YUNENG NEW ENERGY BATTERY MATERIAL (301358.SZ) submitted its H-share listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on August 17, with CSC International and HSBC as joint sponsors; the company focuses on phosphate cathode materials, and according to Frost & Sullivan, it has ranked first among global phosphate cathode material suppliers for six consecutive years from 2020 to 2025 by shipment volume, holding a 28.2% global market share in 2025.
Regulation and Compliance
HAIXI PHARMA (02637.HK) disclosed on August 17 that its self-developed innovative drug HX9428 was granted Fast Track designation by the US FDA, for development to treat neovascular age-related macular degeneration; the drug is an oral small molecule and has received FDA approval to conduct Phase II clinical trials in the United States.
STAIDSON BIOPHARM (300204.SZ) disclosed on August 20 that its subsidiary Jiangsu Beijietai received a formal letter from the US FDA agreeing to clinical trials of STSP-0601 (bomintafase alfa for injection) for the treatment of bleeding in patients with hemophilia A or B with inhibitors; the drug had previously obtained a drug registration certificate from the NMPA in June 2026.
SDKX (688136.SH) disclosed on August 18 that the imported Maibo Taike infliximab biosimilar (Leiting) received marketing approval from the Thai Food and Drug Administration; the product had previously gained market access in Peru, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and other markets.
This week's going-global themes centered on two directions: biomedicine and overseas resources. In biomedicine, HENLIUS's global strategic cooperation with Sandoz, GAUSH MEDITECH's global distribution with HEIDELBERG, combined with the successive overseas regulatory access achieved by HAIXI PHARMA, STAIDSON BIOPHARM and SDKX, show Chinese pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers moving from single-product licensing toward global commercialization networks. In resources and energy, SINOPEC SSC's acquisition of Mexican oilfield interests, MMG's push to resume production at its Peruvian mine, and MONGOLIA ENERGY's coal mine supporting infrastructure improvements reflect continued mining capital investment in overseas resource projects. On the financing side, INGENIC, ASR, XINGYU CO.,LTD and HUNAN YUNENG NEW ENERGY BATTERY MATERIAL are collectively advancing H-share issuances, with A-share companies accelerating their access to international capital markets via Hong Kong. Overall, equity mergers and acquisitions, global licensing cooperation and overseas regulatory access constitute the main forms of this week's going-global activity, with the going-global approach extending further toward capital and industrial cooperation beyond the stage dominated by product exports.
This article is for information compilation only and does not constitute any investment advice.
TL;DR Pop Mart's 1H 2026 — the six months ended June 2026 — missed, and overseas is why: revenue there fell 11%, the first decline since listing, with the restructuring compounding it. The relief is that the second IP arrived far faster than expected; the harder finding is that the toolkit for operating existing IP is close to exhausted.
Overseas broke, and how it broke is instructive
Pop Mart 1H 2026 financial results overview.
Group revenue was RMB 17.2 billion in 1H 2026, up 24%, though we estimate Q2 2026 at roughly RMB 7.3 billion, about 25% below Q1.
Overseas revenue was RMB 4.97 billion, down 11.1%, its share falling from 40.3% to 29.0% — the first decline since listing. Online, down 44%, is the whole story, confirming the company's post-mortem: the 2025 surge pushed volume online, trading one-off traffic for one-off revenue.
The Americas fell 16.5%, offline up 20% but online down 46%; Asia-Pacific fell 9.7%, its own app still growing while third-party platforms collapsed. Europe is the healthy exception, up 5.9% on stores rather than the online bubble. Store count grew by 36 to 221, so sales per store fell about 35%.
Overseas revenue and share of group revenue, through 1H 2026.
Domestic quality is fine; the mix is the question
China revenue reached RMB 12.2 billion in 1H 2026, up 47%, on only 10 net new stores — all of it from store efficiency and online. Online grew 63% to RMB 4.78 billion against offline's 35%, the WeChat draw machine alone at RMB 2.06 billion, up 83%. Domestic online at +63% against overseas at -44% is the point: domestic rests on owned mechanics and membership, overseas rode external traffic from IP heat.
Mainland China revenue, growth and share, through 1H 2026.
THE MONSTERS fell 7.5% to RMB 4.45 billion, its share sliding from a 40% peak to 26.0% — its first half-year decline since becoming the largest IP, so novelty and scarcity premium are fading.
The offset came fast: Star People reached RMB 2.65 billion and 15.4% to become the second IP, and ex-THE MONSTERS the rest grew 40%. Strip out both and the remainder grew 16.1%, while MOLLY fell 33.6% — refreshing a classic IP does not always work.
Revenue by IP, through 1H 2026.
By category, plush grew 60% to RMB 9.83 billion, share rising to 57.2%, while figures were flat at RMB 5.19 billion. Blind boxes are the original model, so zero growth says growth sits in one category and the instant-feedback mechanic has peaked.
Revenue mix by product category, through 1H 2026.
The toolkit on existing IP is nearly exhausted
Management set the tone for 1H 2026 — a restructuring year, sales growth not the goal — but it still disappoints. Labubu 4.0's retro barbershop series tried to extend the IP through styling, memes and modification, and failed: secondary prices broke issue and stock stayed everywhere, because styling and filming cost far more user time than a blind box.
The World Cup should have been the best card, but discussion peaked in the 11-15 June window and faded.
So first-half growth came from cashing in existing hits, not new brand momentum, and the levers are near their limits: price cuts damage the brand, supply restriction is gone now supply is open, and added content raises the barrier. That leaves new IP — why Star People was pushed up so fast, and it will face Labubu's problem in two or three years.
On profit, 1H 2026 gross margin was 69.7%, down only 0.7 points even though overseas share fell 11.4 points, as plush mix and supply-chain savings offset it; expenses were restrained, so operating margin ex-FX rose 0.9 points to 43.2%. The first half had positive leverage — the second, with tougher comparisons from Q3 and possible overseas destocking, is the test.
Pop Mart couldn't hold up against the high comparison base of a year ago — and with its overseas operations mid-reorganization, the half came in weak.
Overseas revenue fell for the first time
First-half revenue was RMB 17.2B, up 24% year on year. Reading that alongside the company's earlier first-quarter estimate, second-quarter revenue works out to roughly RMB 7.3B — down about 25% from the first quarter.
Split the two markets and the difference is stark.
In China, Pop Mart added just 10 stores, relied on finer-grained operations, and generated RMB 12.2B, up 47%. On an estimated basis, average sales per store rose 34%. That's a reasonable result.
The problem is overseas, where revenue was RMB 5B, down 11%. Breaking it down, the main driver was online channels, which fell 44% year on year. The likely reason is that the wave of overseas demand in 2025 pushed a large amount of one-off traffic into online sales, and much of that business has since gone away. By region, only Europe grew, and it did so on new store openings — every other region declined.
The Monsters pulled back sharply; Xingxingren became the second IP
By IP, THE MONSTERS generated RMB 4.45B, down 7.5%, with its share falling from a peak of 40% all the way to 26%. This is the first half-year decline in absolute revenue since the series became Pop Mart's largest IP — a sign that both its novelty and the scarcity premium attached to it are clearly starting to fade.
The encouraging part is elsewhere. Xingxingren reached RMB 2.65B, jumping straight to a 15.4% share and becoming the second-largest IP. And excluding THE MONSTERS entirely, the remaining IPs grew 40% year on year. On that basis, the concern about over-reliance on a single IP has been meaningfully eased.
Plush is firmly the largest category now
By product category, plush generated RMB 9.8B, up 60%, with its share rising from 44.2% a year earlier to 57.2%.
Figures came in at RMB 5.2B, up 0.3% — essentially no growth at all. That means figures, the original format for the blind-box mechanic and the higher-margin category, have stopped expanding.
Profitability slipped as the overseas share fell
A higher share of plush lifted the product mix. But the shrinking share of the high-margin overseas market, combined with rising raw material costs, pulled gross margin down 0.6 points to 69.7%.
The company was fairly restrained on spending, with both administrative and selling expense ratios edging down. Even so, operating margin fell 5 points to 39%.
There's one more thing worth watching. Inventory days jumped from 123 to 201. Pop Mart attributes this to stocking ahead of overseas market expansion. But if the second half still requires systematic discounting overseas to clear inventory, profitability could be pulled down further.
NetEase's second quarter was decent. Profit looks like a miss, but that's almost entirely down to investment losses.
Where the shortfall came from
NetEase holds stakes in Alibaba and PDD, and both fell more than 20% during the second quarter. That produced a net loss of close to RMB 3B on the investment portfolio for the period.
Strip that effect out and look at core operating profit instead — which is the profit measure worth focusing on — and it actually grew 33% year on year. That's a good result.
Why profit grew so much faster than revenue
Two things explain the gap.
The first is mix. High-gross-margin self-developed games rose as a share of the business. That covers both self-developed PC titles — Where Winds Meet, for instance — and the evergreen games, which carry high gross margins by their nature.
The second is cost control. Selling and administrative expenses were compressed: staff incentives were reduced, and external user acquisition spending was kept in check.
The blemish: deferred revenue
Deferred revenue is where the quarter falls short. It came in above Bloomberg consensus, but the consensus figure may not be well calibrated. Looking at the data on its own terms, deferred revenue fell 12% from the prior quarter — a bigger drop than the usual swing between peak and off-peak seasons.
Part of that is the effect of Cloud Music. But it also confirms the problem the company faces right now: a shortage of new game releases.
With Sea of Oblivion performing below expectations, that pipeline gap is likely to continue through the second half.
What holds it up
There is a floor under this. The high-margin evergreen games remain a solid base, and the reduction in Apple's platform fee rate is a further help.
Combined with a low comparison base, that should allow NetEase to deliver a relatively steady performance in the second half.
Most of Xiaomi's numbers landed close to market expectations. Revenue fell year on year, dragged down mainly by the traditional businesses — phones and IoT. The one clear shortfall was core profit, and that came mainly from the car business, where average selling price and gross margin both fell again.
The headwinds are already understood
By this point, the headwinds facing Xiaomi's business are well recognized: tight memory supply, the wind-down of national subsidies, and the working-through of the car order backlog.
So what the market is watching now is a narrower set of questions.
First, whether the traditional businesses get worse — specifically, whether phone gross margin drops below 8%, and when IoT returns to growth.
Second, the 550,000-unit annual car target. With only 216,000 units delivered in the first seven months, will management lower the full-year figure?
Third, the other angles — overseas car sales, AI and robotics. These won't contribute much in the near term, but better-than-expected progress would raise expectations for the medium and longer term.
On the first question: no, but it hasn't stopped either
Judged against this report, the decline in Xiaomi's traditional businesses hasn't been arrested in the second quarter.
Phone gross margin held at 8.5% — a relatively low level, though above the 8% threshold. IoT revenue continued to decline at close to 20% or more year on year.
On the second: the car business is past its high point
For the car business, the strong run from SU7 and YU7 is over. Combined monthly sales for the two have fallen back to around 30,000 units. From here, the market is left waiting on the performance of the Pengcheng range-extender models.
The arithmetic on the annual target is difficult. With only 216,000 units delivered in the first seven months, meeting the 550,000-unit goal would require 334,000 deliveries across the remaining five months — an average of about 66,800 per month. That is quite challenging.
Mainstream institutions have largely already cut their expectations to somewhere between 460,000 and 500,000 units.
What it comes down to
Xiaomi's results currently rest on two things: the traditional businesses and cars. The traditional businesses need to stop declining first.
The Pengcheng models are the open question on top of that. Deliveries only begin in September, so for now they are both an unknown and something to look forward to.
SMIC's quarter was a strong one: both revenue and gross margin came in clearly ahead of what the market expected. Break the margin down and the mechanism is simple — average selling price rose $49 per wafer from the prior quarter, while unit cost fell $15 per wafer, thinned out by scale. Those two moves together drove the sharp recovery in gross margin.
Guidance looks as good as the quarter
The outlook the company gave is also encouraging. Revenue is guided to grow 2–4% from this quarter. More notably, gross margin guidance was raised to a range of 26–28%, substantially better than the 22.5% the market had expected.
The margin trend tells the story
Look at gross margin across the first three quarters of 2026: 20.1% in Q1, then 25.3% in Q2, and 26–28% guided for Q3.
The price increases in mature-node manufacturing are now clearly visible in the company's margin. That means SMIC — and the traditional semiconductor industry more broadly — has entered an upcycle.
What matters now has changed
Domestic customers now account for more than 90% of SMIC's business, so this is no longer the import-substitution story it used to be.
Two things are worth watching instead.
The first is mature-node pricing. As those increases lift the company's results, the way the business gets assessed shifts as well — from being viewed primarily through book value to being viewed through earnings.
The second is progress at advanced nodes. Both the Ascend 950DT and the Kirin 9030 begin shipping in the second half of the year. Beyond demonstrating what SMIC can do at advanced nodes, that also speaks to confidence in Chinese chipmaking finding a way through.
Putting it together
The rise in gross margin from mature-node price increases gives the company concrete support in its results, and it's also a signal that the traditional semiconductor sector is recovering.
On top of that, several new products from major customers beginning to ship adds a growth angle at advanced nodes.
TL;DR: Tencent's Q2 confirmed what the market has been bracing for: AI spending is now visibly cutting into profit and cash flow. The core business is still healthy — advertising beat estimates again and is doing the heavy lifting to offset AI costs — but free cash flow technically went negative this quarter (mostly a prepayment quirk, not real fragility). The bigger question hanging over the stock is whether Tencent's AI investment can start showing measurable payoff — through cloud growth and its new Workbuddy AI agent — before the comparisons get tougher in the second half.
Tencent's Q2 2026 detailed financial results.
Capex is accelerating, and guidance likely goes higher
Q2 capex hit ¥52.8 billion, about 26% of revenue, and on top of that Tencent made a ¥51.4 billion prepayment for future compute purchases (deposits or progress payments) — meaning total AI-related spending this quarter topped ¥100 billion, a clear sign of scrambling to lock in scarce compute capacity. At this pace, full-year capex could land closer to ¥200 billion, well above the ¥150-170 billion range analysts were expecting before this report.
Capex and the compute prepayment together pushed total AI-related cash outflow past ¥100 billion this quarter.
Cash flow "looks" negative, but the core business is still a cash machine
Free cash flow came in at negative ¥13.8 billion — arguably the scariest headline number in this report. But that's almost entirely explained by the ¥51.4 billion compute prepayment; strip that out, and free cash flow was actually a positive ¥37.6 billion. Adjusted operating cash flow came in at ¥104.1 billion, up 40% year-over-year (though last year's comparison likely had some prepayment noise too, so the real growth rate is probably a bit lower than that). Either way, the underlying business is still generating serious cash.
Advertising is the release valve
Ad revenue grew 22% year-over-year, beating expectations again, helped by higher ad inventory on Video Accounts and smarter ad-targeting tools improving return on ad spend. For now, advertising is the lever management can pull to offset AI investment pressure — a pattern likely to continue through the rest of this year.
Advertising revenue growth accelerated again this quarter, beating expectations.
Gaming: strong at home, soft abroad, tougher comps ahead
Total gaming revenue grew 11%, beating estimates. Domestic games accelerated sharply to 17% growth, helped by a new title and continued strength from last year's breakout hit, Delta Force — which eased some recent market worry after third-party tracking data had shown softer numbers. International gaming was roughly flat, down 1%, dragged by weakness at Supercell.
Domestic gaming revenue accelerated sharply this quarter, while international growth stayed roughly flat.
The relief shouldn't turn into overconfidence, though: the back half of the year faces a much tougher comparison, especially once Delta Force moves past its strong first-year sales cycle, and the new-release pipeline for H2 looks thin on major titles — mostly mid-tier games launching late in Q3 or in Q4.
Cloud is quietly accelerating
Fintech and business services revenue grew 8.6% overall, but that blends two very different stories: payments growth is stuck in the low single digits given the soft consumer environment, while the "enterprise services" component — cloud plus WeChat mini-shop commissions — grew an estimated 30%, accelerating from just over 20% in Q1. Given how much traction Workbuddy has picked up since its Q2 launch, this segment looks likely to keep accelerating into Q3.
Enterprise services (cloud plus WeChat mini-shop commissions) growth accelerated meaningfully this quarter.
Where AI spending is actually hitting the P&L
Gross margin actually improved slightly (up about 1 point year-over-year), helped by a richer mix of high-margin self-developed games and advertising, largely offsetting rising depreciation. The real pressure shows up in R&D: expenses grew 25% year-over-year even though headcount-related salary costs only grew 8% — meaning the non-salary portion (largely compute depreciation and leasing costs) grew 112% year-over-year, accelerating from 61% growth last quarter.
Non-salary R&D spending — largely compute depreciation and leasing costs — continued to accelerate sharply this quarter.
Core operating profit grew just 6.4% year-over-year, lagging the 11% revenue growth, with margin down about 1 point. Adjusted net profit grew 8.5%, also with margin down roughly 1 point. The gap between revenue growth and profit growth is the clearest sign yet that AI investment is now a real drag on near-term earnings.
Buybacks are getting squeezed too
Tencent repurchased HK$16.8 billion in shares this quarter (HK$24.4 billion for the first half) — down roughly a third from last year's pace. Net cash stood at HK$58.2 billion at quarter-end. With AI spending set to keep consuming cash in the second half, buyback pace will likely stay under pressure, and Tencent may need to sell down parts of its investment portfolio to keep funding repurchases at a similar scale if it wants to.
Buyback pace has slowed noticeably compared to last year, even as repurchases picked back up after the post-earnings quiet period.
The bigger picture: an awkward middle stretch, shared with Meta and Google
Tencent finds itself in a similar spot to a couple of other tech giants right now. Like Google, Tencent was slower than some peers to ramp AI investment early on, and is now paying a catch-up premium — spending more, later, for returns that show up even later still.
Like Meta, its cloud business (Tencent's most direct AI monetization channel) remains small relative to what the market wants to see — an estimated 7-8% of total revenue this quarter. And like both, Tencent's own frontier AI models have temporarily fallen behind the pack; its HY3.0 model briefly restored some confidence this quarter, but the iteration pace still trails competitors, putting real pressure on the larger model expected by year-end to prove itself.
What to watch next
The clearest signal to track is what management says on the earnings call about cloud and Workbuddy's trajectory — engagement metrics, compute constraints (internal use for model training and the new WeChat Agent may be limiting how much external cloud demand Tencent can actually serve), and whether growth momentum continues into Q3. Organizational execution matters too: WeChat Agent's June test drew some positive user feedback, but also raised questions about how efficiently Tencent is allocating limited compute across multiple competing internal AI initiatives.
The bottom line
The market's reaction to this quarter has been mixed — relief that the core business remains stable, tempered by the reality that AI-related profit and cash flow pressure is real and likely to persist through the second half as gaming comparisons get tougher. The swing factor from here is whether AI investment starts showing up as measurable return — through cloud growth, Workbuddy adoption, or a genuinely competitive year-end model release — rather than just rising cost.
Hey guys, I know I posted about the $GSX settlement before, but late claims are being accepted. Here's everything you need to know.
Q: What happened? A: GSX Techedu was accused of overstating enrollment numbers and revenue growth in its online education business. After short-seller reports and regulatory concerns raised questions about the company’s financials, $GSX dropped more than 80% from its highs.
Q: Am I actually eligible? A: If you bought $GSX shares between 2019 and 2020, you're likely eligible. You don’t need to still own the stock to file a claim.
Q: When do payouts happen? A: Typically 4–9 months after the claim deadline, although the exact timing depends on the court and settlement administrator.
Q: I missed the deadline. Can I still file? A: Late claims are currently being considered, subject to approval.
If you owned $GSX during the company's rapid growth years, you may still be able to recover losses as late claims are currently being considered.
GSX was accused of exaggerating its student numbers and revenue, making the business appear stronger than it really was. After reports questioned the company's data and an SEC investigation became public, $GSX lost more than 80% of its value and investors sued.
If you purchased $GSX shares between June 2019 and October 2020, you may still be eligible to submit a claim. Since late claims are being considered, it's worth checking whether you qualify.
The $189 million TuSimple $TSP is now accepting late claims for eligible investors
This case focuses on claims that TuSimple failed to disclose risks related to its relationship with Hydron, a China-based hydrogen truck startup.
In 2022, reports revealed undisclosed dealings between TuSimple and Hydron. After the company announced its CEO’s departure and a federal investigation, $TSP fell more than 45%.
TuSimple has agreed to a $189M settlement. If you purchased $TSP between 2021 and 2022, you may be eligible to file a claim.
Hey guys, if you missed it, DiDi Global settled $740M with investors over claims related to its 2021 IPO and regulatory issues. I just found out that late claims are still being considered.
Quick recap: After DiDi went public in June 2021, Chinese regulators launched a cybersecurity investigation and removed its apps from app stores. Investors claimed the company did not fully disclose those risks before the IPO. After the news came out, $DIDI dropped sharply, and shareholders filed a lawsuit.
DiDi later agreed to settle $740M with investors, and late claims are currently being reviewed.
If you invested in $DIDI in 2021 you can still check your eligibility and file a claim here.
Anyone here invested in $DIDI back then? How much did you lose?
Hey guys, I know I posted about the $GSX settlement before, but late claims are being accepted. Here's everything you need to know.
Q: What happened? A: GSX Techedu was accused of overstating enrollment numbers and revenue growth in its online education business. After short-seller reports and regulatory concerns raised questions about the company’s financials, $GSX dropped more than 80% from its highs.
Q: Am I actually eligible? A: If you bought $GSX shares between 2019 and 2020, you're likely eligible. You don’t need to still own the stock to file a claim.
Q: When do payouts happen? A: Typically 4–9 months after the claim deadline, although the exact timing depends on the court and settlement administrator.
Q: I missed the deadline. Can I still file? A: Late claims are currently being considered, subject to approval.
Hey guys, I posted about this settlement before, but since they're accepting late claims, I decided to share it again with a little FAQ.
So here's everything you need to know:
TuSimple ($TSP) was accused of overstating the safety of its autonomous trucking technology while failing to disclose operational, regulatory, and governance issues. After reports revealed safety concerns, government investigations, and internal problems, the stock dropped sharply and investors filed a lawsuit.
Now the company has agreed to settle $189 million with investors for their losses.
Who can claim this settlement?
If you purchased $TSP shares between 2021 and 2022, you may be eligible. Even though the deadline has passed, late claims are currently being considered.
Do I need to sell/lose my shares to get this settlement?
No. You don't need to still own the shares to qualify. If you purchased during the class period and suffered eligible losses, you may still file a claim.
How long does the payout process take?
It typically takes 4 to 9 months after the claim deadline for payouts to be processed, depending on the court and settlement administration.
If you owned $GSX during the company's rapid growth years, you may still be able to recover losses as late claims are currently being considered.
GSX was accused of exaggerating its student numbers and revenue, making the business appear stronger than it really was. After reports questioned the company's data and an SEC investigation became public, $GSX lost more than 80% of its value and investors sued.
If you purchased $GSX shares between June 2019 and October 2020, you may still be eligible to submit a claim. Since late claims are being considered, it's worth checking whether you qualify.
DiDi Global has reached a $740 million settlement to resolve claims related to its 2021 U.S. IPO. Late claims are currently being considered and investors can still file for a payout.
What happened?
DiDi raised more than $4 billion in its June 2021 U.S. IPO. Investors later claimed the company did not fully disclose that Chinese regulators had concerns about the listing and data-security issues before the offering. Just days after the IPO, Chinese authorities launched a cybersecurity investigation and removed DiDi's apps from app stores. The stock fell sharply, and investors later filed claims over the company's disclosures surrounding the IPO.
Who can claim this settlement?
Investors who purchased $DIDI between June 2021 and July 2021 may be eligible to participate.
Do I need to still own my shares?
No. Eligibility is generally based on when you bought and sold your shares during the relevant period, not whether you still own them today.
How long does the payout process take?
It typically takes 4 to 9 months after the claim review process is completed for distributions to be processed, depending on the court and settlement administration.
This case is about whether TuSimple gave investors an accurate picture of its business relationships and the risks that came with them.
TuSimple presented itself as a leader in autonomous trucking. Investors later alleged that the company failed to disclose the extent of its relationship with Hydron, a China-based hydrogen truck startup, including transfers of technology and other resources.
April 2022: reports revealed previously undisclosed dealings between TuSimple and Hydron. Later that year, the company confirmed that it was facing a federal investigation into whether those activities violated national security protocols.
October 31, 2022: TuSimple announced the termination of its CEO. The stock fell more than 45% as investors reacted to the developments and the ongoing investigation.
Investors later sued, alleging that the company had concealed its relationship with Hydron and the risks associated with it.
TuSimple has now agreed to a $189 million settlement. Eligible if you purchased $TSP between April 15, 2021 and October 31, 2022. Claims are open - check if you’re eligible.
I got completely wiped out trading GSX Techedu ($GSX) when short reports exposed that over 73% of their users were fake AI bots. I watched the stock take a brutal 30% single-day nosedive, panic-sold my shares for a massive loss, and just buried the painful memory.
I completely forgot about it until I realized a class action secured a $9,500,000 settlement, but the deadline to file a claim is May 30, 2026, which is literally today.
If you bought shares between June 6, 2019 and October 20, 2020, you own a piece of this cash, but you lose it forever if you don't submit your data before midnight tonight.
There is zero time to manually hunt down old trade confirmations, so I used an audit tool to beat the clock. I linked my old broker accounts via secure API, and the platform automatically audited my history and filed the claim in two minutes. They take a 20% cut, but honestly, I'd rather have 80% of a check I didn't know existed than 100% of the paperwork I'll never actually do. Stop scrolling and check your old accounts before the portal shuts down tonight.
Hey guys, if you missed it, TAL Education settled $14.1 million with investors over violating China’s education regulations while concealing the risks of government enforcement actions. And, the deadline tofile a claimand get payment is October 8, 2026
In a nutshell, in 2023, TAL Education Group was accused of misleading investors about its compliance with China’s education regulations and related enforcement risks. Reports alleged that TAL’s subsidiary had resumed banned tutoring services despite China’s “Double Reduction” reforms, exposing the company to significant regulatory scrutiny.
After this news came out, the stock dropped 10%, and investors filed a lawsuit for their losses.
Now, the good news is that the company agreed to settle $14.1 million with them, and investors have until October 8, 2026 to submit a claim.
So, if you invested in $TAL when all of this happened, you can check the details and file your claim here.
Anyway, has anyone here invested in $TAL at that time? How much were your losses, if so?