QINGSONG HEALTH Group recently released its full-year 2025 results, marking its first annual report since going public. The figures appeared robust at first glance.
On one hand, the company demonstrated substantial growth in both revenue and gross profit. Revenue increased by 32.9% from 945 million yuan in 2024 to 1.256 billion yuan. Gross profit rose by 20.3% from 362 million yuan to 435 million yuan. Adjusted net profit grew by 9.0% from 84.4 million yuan to 92 million yuan.
However, the company reported an annual loss of 379 million yuan, a stark contrast to the profit of 10.398 million yuan recorded in the same period of 2024. Furthermore, revenue from insurance-related services reached 327 million yuan, a slight increase of just 1.6% year-over-year, accounting for 26% of total revenue.
Although the company attributed the loss to "fair value changes of convertible redeemable preferred shares," its stock price fell by 7.99% to 143.9 HKD by March 26. More profound challenges loom. Amid a tightening regulatory environment for online insurance, intense competition from industry giants, plateauing user growth, and declining gross margins, QINGSONG HEALTH faces numerous complaints involving automatic fee deductions and allegations of诱导老年人 (inducing elderly individuals) to purchase insurance. Having been previously penalized by regulators, the company was recently cited in a Fudan University report as a典型违规案例 (typical case of违规) in online insurance marketing. Despite betting on AI, its research and development growth remains weak, casting doubt on the sustainability of its growth.
**01** **Surge in Health Revenue Masked by Sharply Contracting Margins Raises Questions on Business Transformation** A closer look at the seemingly positive financial report quickly reveals a critical issue for QINGSONG HEALTH: a dramatic contraction in its gross profit margin over the past two years.
Between 2022 and 2023, the company's gross margin was as high as 82.6% and 79.9%, respectively. However, it sharply narrowed to 38.3% in 2024 and declined further to 34.6% in 2025. This shift is linked to a business transformation initiated in 2023, when QINGSONG HEALTH launched "science education services." Consequently, low-margin digital marketing services associated with this initiative have become a major revenue driver.
Examining the revenue structure, health service revenue reached 926 million yuan in 2025, a 50.2% increase year-over-year, accounting for 73.7% of total revenue. This compares to 65.3% in 2024 and a mere 15.2% in 2022. This business segment primarily consists of four parts: digital marketing services, digital hospital research support services, comprehensive health service packages, and early disease screening promotion and consultation.
The financial report indicates that the gross margins for these four business branches were only 13.6%, 20.5%, 36.7%, and 35.9%, significantly lower than the margins for its second-largest revenue pillar, insurance-related services. The latter includes insurance brokerage services with a 49.7% margin and insurance technology services with a remarkably high margin of 97.0%.
The extremely low margins of the health services business stem from its role as a "traffic intermediary." Simply put, health services primarily cater to B-end clients such as pharmaceutical companies and insurance institutions, fulfilling their outsourced needs for health科普 content planning, online promotion, and user outreach. In this process, QINGSONG HEALTH purchases traffic from external channels, packages it with content, filters users, and then delivers the final user reach or conversion results to its clients, profiting from the difference between acquisition cost and selling price.
The core of this model lies in the ability to control traffic acquisition costs. However, giants like Alibaba Health possess their own traffic inlets and closed-loop scenarios, leaving QINGSONG HEALTH with little bargaining power in traffic procurement, forcing it to acquire traffic resources through market bidding. On the sales side, facing clients like pharmaceutical companies and insurance institutions, numerous competitors offering similar services engage in fierce price competition, further squeezing the profit margin.
This has led to a持续暴涨 (continuous sharp increase) in QINGSONG HEALTH's marketing expenses. In 2025, its sales and marketing expenses surged to 213 million yuan, a 34.81% increase from 158 million yuan in the same period of 2024, far outpacing revenue growth. This implies that the marketing cost incurred for each additional yuan of revenue has risen significantly, raising questions about the sustainability of such spending.
**02** **Struggling Premium Growth After Self-Imposed Traffic Cut, Accusations of Targeting Elderly, and Designation as违规典型** QINGSONG HEALTH's current predicament is largely a result of its own strategic decisions.
In June 2024, to meet listing compliance requirements, QINGSONG HEALTH spun off its well-known critical illness crowdfunding platform, Qingsong Chou. While this move cleared regulatory hurdles and potential reputational risks for its IPO, it also amounted to voluntarily severing a major source of traffic.
Under its previous business model, the group used critical illness assistance and mutual aid as core traffic entry points. Through user outreach and emotional connection, it naturally funneled users to businesses like Qingsong e-Bao and Qingsong Gongyi, forming a complete business loop of "pre-event protection + post-event assistance." The key to this model was that the critical illness assistance scenario itself was characterized by high frequency, strong emotional resonance, and high trust, leading to greater user acceptance of insurance products recommended by the platform. This resulted in industry-leading active user numbers and insurance conversion rates, creating the most valuable closed-loop, proprietary traffic source within QINGSONG HEALTH's business model.
After cutting off this traffic source, the company's business suffered a significant impact. Firstly, active users dropped from 71 million in 2022 to 50 million by the end of the first three quarters of 2024, and further shrank to 23 million in the first half of 2025.
Moreover, user attrition has severely impacted the company's operations, particularly its insurance business, which relies on volume for commission-based earnings. In 2022, digital comprehensive insurance services contributed 320 million yuan in revenue, accounting for a high of 81.5% of total revenue. By 2025, the growth rate of related revenue had shrunk to just 1.6%, with its share of total revenue falling to 26%, nearly stagnating. Meanwhile, the gross margin for insurance services has consistently remained above 90%, far exceeding that of the current primary revenue driver, health services.
An even more严峻的挑战 (severe challenge) lies in the sustained pressure QINGSONG HEALTH faces from both public opinion and regulators.
Regarding consumer complaints, on the Hei Mao投诉 platform, complaints against Qingsong Bao exceed 1,900, while those against Qingsong Chou surpass 1,000.
Issues with Qingsong Bao primarily involve恶意扣费 (malicious fee deductions), unauthorized automatic payments, and诱导老年人投保 (inducing elderly individuals to purchase insurance). One user reported that their father was charged four automatic renewal fees of 59.9 yuan each within a single month via WeChat without his knowledge, totaling 239.6 yuan. The elderly person was deeply distressed, demanding a refund and policy cancellation from Qingsong Bao, but found the customer service hotline impossible to reach.
Another user stated that their elderly father, unfamiliar with insurance, was allegedly lured by a "first month for 1 yuan" offer in August 2022. Without clear notification, adequate explanation, or confirmation from the individual or family, the platform enrolled him in insurance and set up automatic renewals. From August 2022 until recently, Qingsong Bao deducted approximately 119.6 yuan monthly, accumulating over thousands of yuan for more than three years. The elderly person was reportedly unaware of, did not agree to, confirm, or sign for this insurance, characterizing it as forced automatic deduction. The user also reported instances of duplicate charges within the same month, alleging恶意乱扣费 (malicious and arbitrary charging). Upon discovery, requests for a full refund were met with excuses, with the platform claiming it was "just a platform, not an insurance company," and refusing full repayment, offering only to refund unexpired portions, which severely infringed upon consumer rights.
Complaints against Qingsong Chou mainly involve insurance being inexplicably activated after clicking links and automatic deductions without prior communication.
These违规操作 (non-compliant practices) by QINGSONG HEALTH, as described by users, were previously penalized by the former China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission as early as July 2022. Penalty information showed Qingsong Bao was fined 1 million yuan for misleading consumers with "first month premium 0 yuan" offers.
However, old issues persist. Recently, a Chinese Consumer News report highlighted findings from a Fudan University insurance team's "2026 Insurance Industry Consumer Rights Protection Work Report." The report, which systematically evaluated marketing across full consumer scenarios for 25 core insurance entities and 89 mainstream products, identified multiple instances of违规宣传 (non-compliant promotion) in online insurance marketing,涉嫌误导消费者 (potentially misleading consumers). Among these, Qingsong Bao Yanxuan was listed as one of six typical违规 "套路" (tricks), specifically for a "客服黑洞" (customer service black hole) that blocks consultation channels.
The report indicated that for several products on platforms like Qingsong Bao Yanxuan, the entire insurance process lacked any contact channels such as online客服 or客服电话. Consumers were unable to obtain immediate assistance before, during, or after purchasing insurance, making it difficult to communicate and protect their rights promptly after suffering losses.
Ongoing regulatory scrutiny, combined with the accumulation of consumer complaints, is eroding the foundation of trust in the QINGSONG HEALTH brand. For consumers, the platform's compliance controversies and complaint handling attitude directly affect user stickiness, creating obstacles for both new user acquisition and existing user retention. For B-end partners, such as pharmaceutical companies and insurance institutions, clients are becoming more cautious in selecting合作 platforms, preferring those with clear compliance records and robust complaint resolution mechanisms. Consequently, QINGSONG HEALTH's bargaining power in business development and the associated trust costs are negatively impacted. Against this backdrop, the foundation for the company's sustainable growth faces a fundamental test.
**03** **Betting on AI, Promoting 'Lobster' Tech, but R&D Spending Shows Meager Increase** Confronted with these challenges, QINGSONG HEALTH is placing its bets on the AI sector.
According to its financial reports, the company is attempting to position AI capabilities as a core driver of growth. Over the past two years, it has frequently showcased its proprietary AI technology stack, "AIcare," and in the latest report, detailed its five core modules, claiming they are applied in specific businesses and directly generating revenue. For example, its "Magellan" medical digitalization platform is used to provide pharmaceutical companies with full-lifecycle services covering research design, physician education, clinical studies, and post-market research. Revenue from this exceeded 41 million yuan in 2025, a 29.5% increase.
In March of this year, an intelligent agent named OpenClaw (colloquially known as "Lobster") gained attention in the Chinese internet sphere. QINGSONG HEALTH has integrated OpenClaw technology into its operations, attempting to build a narrative around "AI + health services" in the capital market.
However, there is a noticeable gap between its technological vision and actual investment. In terms of R&D spending, QINGSONG HEALTH's R&D expenses in 2025 were 75.589 million yuan, a mere 5% year-over-year increase. More importantly, the proportion of R&D investment to revenue decreased from 7.6% in 2024 to 5.4%. Meanwhile, sales and marketing expenses soared to 213 million yuan, nearly three times the R&D spend, and increased by 34.81% year-over-year.
This contrast highlights a degree of "emphasizing marketing over R&D" at QINGSONG HEALTH, with more financial resources allocated to traffic acquisition rather than technological breakthroughs. Under the dual pressure of technology and traffic dominance from industry giants, QINGSONG HEALTH's AI narrative appears to remain largely conceptual, lacking the investment intensity and moat-building needed to match its technological claims. The purported technology-driven growth has not effectively translated into sustainable competitive barriers, instead revealing that growth remains heavily reliant on external traffic purchases and marketing drives.
In summary, while the digital health sector offers vast opportunities, QINGSONG HEALTH's current growth relies heavily on the short-term爆发 (surge) of its digital marketing business and high-investment marketing drives. As traffic红利 (dividends) fade, compliance costs rise, and technological barriers prove difficult to establish, the sustainability of this growth model is being fundamentally challenged. For QINGSONG HEALTH, the ability to build genuine core competitiveness amidst industry consolidation depends on whether it is willing to make substantial, tangible investments in technology, compliance building, and restoring user trust.
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