On April 23, Col Group Co.,Ltd. released its 2025 performance report. The financial results show the company achieved annual revenue of 1.657 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 42.92%. However, the net loss attributable to shareholders reached 671 million yuan, significantly widening from the net loss of 243 million yuan recorded in the same period last year.
Analyzing the business structure, Col Group's operations are primarily divided into three segments: online literature and related services, short dramas and IP derivatives, and other businesses. The online literature segment, once the company's main revenue source, has seen its contribution gradually decline in recent years. In 2025, revenue from this segment decreased slightly by 1.83% to 673 million yuan, accounting for 40.65% of total revenue. In contrast, the short drama and IP derivatives business experienced explosive growth, becoming the core driver pulling the company's revenue upward. In 2025, revenue from this segment surged by 125.02% year-on-year to 896 million yuan, increasing its share of total revenue from 34.35% the previous year to 54.09%.
Despite this rapid growth, the short drama business has not yet delivered significant profit returns and remains in a mode of "spending for growth." Addressing the performance loss, Col Group explained in its financial report that the period saw large-scale strategic investments in its overseas short drama operations and AI-related businesses, which are still in early-stage investment phases, leading to the year-on-year decline in net profit attributable to shareholders.
Specifically, in 2025, the company's sales expenses soared to 953 million yuan, more than doubling from 465 million yuan a year earlier. These expenses constituted 57.51% of the annual total revenue. Simultaneously, R&D expenses increased by 16.38% year-on-year to 71.6602 million yuan. Col Group attributed the sharp rise in sales expenses primarily to increased promotional costs for its overseas operations. The change in R&D expenses was due to an increase in R&D personnel and their compensation, as well as higher consulting service fees. Notably, the 953 million yuan in sales expenses for the reporting period was over 13 times the amount spent on R&D.
As one of the earliest Chinese companies to focus on exporting short dramas overseas, Col Group operates three major overseas micro-short drama platforms: Sereal+, UniReel, and the newly launched FlareFlow. It also holds an indirect stake in ReelShort, owned by Maple Interactive, which now operates independently and has been deconsolidated from its financial statements. Since 2025, Col Group's Chairman, Tong Zhilei, has emphasized an "International First" strategy in multiple public appearances, identifying "short drama出海 (going global)" as the group's core development direction.
Driven by this strategy, the overseas short drama application FlareFlow was officially launched in April 2025, becoming a new centerpiece of Col Group's overseas short drama business map. According to data from DataEye-ADX's overseas short drama section, following its launch in April 2025, FlareFlow deployed a total of 317,000 advertising creatives throughout the year. The average daily deployment exceeded 5,000 creatives in the second quarter and rose to over 10,000 creatives starting from the third quarter, indicating a continuously intensifying marketing effort.
The annual report shows that by the end of 2025, FlareFlow had expanded its coverage to over 200 countries and regions worldwide, supporting more than 14 languages. It accumulated over 33 million registered users, and the platform featured more than 5,200 short drama series, including over 700 self-produced series. However, this rapid user growth could not mask the reality of deepening losses. The annual report revealed that while FlareFlow generated operating revenue of 350 million yuan for the year, it recorded a net loss as high as 473 million yuan.
Founded in December 2000, Col Group specializes in digital content production, copyright distribution, and IP derivative development. It is known as the "first stock in digital publishing" and was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's ChiNext board on January 21, 2015. A review of its development path post-listing reveals Col Group as a company keen on chasing trends. However, the outcomes show that its frequent shifts in focus have failed to create sustained and stable growth momentum, instead casting a shadow over its financial performance.
Specifically, Col Group began chasing the "二次元 (ACG - Anime, Comics, Games) trend" in 2016, spending 1.7 billion yuan to acquire mobile game publisher Chen Zhi Ke, only to sell it at a significant loss for 324 million yuan in 2020. In 2021, with the emergence of the metaverse concept, the company quickly positioned it as "the direction for Col Group for the next ten years," but this vision is now rarely mentioned. Subsequently, the company swiftly pivoted to the AIGC field in 2023, releasing the first version of its large AI model, "Zhongwen Xiaoyao," that same year. By 2025, the company began venturing into the currently popular AI-manhua (comic) drama sector.
Now, Col Group has chosen "AI +出海 (going global)" as its core strategy. Nevertheless, its constant pursuit of trends has led to highly unstable financial results. Public data indicates that in the ten years since its listing from 2015 to 2025, Col Group recorded losses in five of those years, with cumulative net losses attributable to shareholders reaching 3.369 billion yuan.
It is noteworthy that as the first digital publishing enterprise listed on China's A-share ChiNext board, Col Group finds itself at another strategic crossroads. On February 27 of this year, the company formally submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, seeking a dual-primary listing structure ("A+H"). This move repositions the company from the "first stock in digital publishing" towards an "AI-driven digital entertainment platform."
However, a critical issue remains: for the heavily invested short drama and AI sectors, if Col Group cannot escape the "burning cash for market share" model, its secondary listing might simply evolve into a new round of capital-intensive competition.
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