According to a report, at the close on October 21, Duiba (01753) settled at HK$1.05, up 40.94% in a single day, having touched an intraday high of HK$1.13, with turnover of nearly HK$79 million. By comparison, the Hang Seng Index fell 0.90%, while the A-share short drama and interactive gaming sector rose 1.28%. Measured from HK$0.137 on August 21, this company has risen nearly ninefold in two months; on October 14, it jumped 37.5% in one day after announcing that its AI short dramas had been profitable for three consecutive months, and just five trading days later came another long bullish candle. The market is no longer merely "paying attention" — it is repricing the stock.
The foundation of this rally is not the lingering heat of concept speculation, but the fact that a commercialization model has finally generated profits, and that foundation is rooted in three recent announcements. In the August interim report, Duiba's AI short dramas had generated RMB223 million in revenue within half a year of launch, accounting for 51.2% of the group's total revenue; in September, the controlling shareholder transferred existing shares equivalent to 11.21% of total share capital, free of charge, into an employee incentive platform. For a Hong Kong-listed founder to donate such a large proportion of shares to AI business talent sends a very clear signal — the company is betting its future on an AI-Native content platform. The third announcement on October 14 tore the mask off further: 6.8 billion views in July, 12.6 billion in August, and 26.4 billion in September, with 45.8 billion new views in the third quarter — more than nine times the 5 billion in the first half — and a maximum breakout hit rate of 5.7%, compared with an industry average of just 0.47%. More critically, it recorded "net profit for three consecutive months" — AI short dramas have moved from "able to produce" to "able to earn," and Duiba has written this story into its income statement earlier than many A-share peers.
Today's Toutiao uses information feeds, Douyin uses short videos and livestreaming, and Hongguo uses free short dramas. In essence, they are all the same algorithm — turning attention into advertising inventory. Hongguo's daily active users surged to 200 million in September, with 166 minutes of daily time spent per user, and WeChat's "Green Bubble" has entered the fray personally. Short dramas are no longer a marginal part of the content ecosystem, but a platform-level track in which the major giants are heavily invested. What is truly scarce in the industry is no longer "tools that can make shows," but systematic capabilities in "understanding topic selection, distribution, and monetization." Duiba happens to be the type of company that welds together advertising operation genes, AI workflows, a self-developed Agent matrix, and a closed traffic-investment loop: about 80% of production stages are generated by workflows, a single person can produce three 70-minute long dramas per month, and the scriptwriting Agent multiplies human efficiency several times over. Breakout hits are not stumbled upon — they are generated through a cycle of production, distribution, feedback, and optimization. The capacity side is also being rewritten: about 80% of production stages are connected to AI workflows, one producer can steadily output three long dramas of about 70 minutes each per month, and the self-developed scriptwriting AI Agent boosts writing efficiency by about five times. This means output no longer grows linearly with headcount — which is also the premise for daring to pledge 11.21% of shares to talent.
So the October 21 surge came from three forces stacking together: first, Hongguo, WeChat, and Kuaishou raised the industry ceiling for AI short dramas, and after the AI hardware retreat, capital went looking for AI applications with "revenue, scale, and signs of profitability"; second, Duiba itself delivered a three-stage progression from revenue validation to equity strengthening to profit validation, washing away its "concept stock" label and turning it into a "performance stock"; third, there is a mismatch in valuation anchors — as of the October 14 close, its market value was about HK$710 million, and based on full-year 2026 revenue of RMB1.2 billion and a current market value of about HK$1.1 billion, its static PS remains far below that of Chinese Online, China Literature, Zhangyue, and Mango Supermedia, while net assets per share are about RMB1.09, with the share price at one point still hovering near net asset value. The market used to price it as a "loss-making SaaS" company, but now it is starting to recalculate it as an "AI content platform": if second-half revenue is no less than RMB800 million, the full year reaches breakeven or profitability, and the audited net margin reaches 6%–8% in 2027, then the current price reflects not a concept premium, but an inflection-point discount.
But beyond the impact, one must stay calm. Three months of profitability is a preliminary assessment under management accounts, not an audited financial statement; traffic-investment costs, platform revenue-sharing rules, and the breakout-hit cycle in the short drama industry can all backfire; overseas theaters, WeChat Green Bubble, and the APP short drama alliance are still at the "edge of being proven" rather than at "stable cash flow." Duiba's real test is not whether monthly views can exceed 30 billion in a given month, but whether, when Hongguo, Tencent, and ByteDance all treat AI short dramas as a main battlefield, it can rely on full-chain efficiency to keep its breakout-hit rate, versus the industry's 0.47%, steadily above 4%–5%.
The tide has already risen. The HK$1.05 price on October 21 is neither the endpoint nor a safety cushion, but a deposit the market is paying for "the first full-chain platform in AI short dramas to present evidence of consecutive profitability." Whether the stock price continues to squeeze shorts next depends on whether fourth-quarter capacity can reach 1,000 titles per month, whether per-title costs can be pressed below RMB10,000, and whether Green Bubble and overseas markets can turn from "significant growth" into "profit contribution." From concept to cash, Duiba has already crossed the hardest bridge; but from cash to compounding, it has only just set out.
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