As one of the most closely watched listed companies in the AIGC film and television sector, Mango Excellent Media Co.,Ltd. (SZ: 300413) has yet to generate quantifiable performance growth from its AI content business.
On October 27, Mango Excellent Media disclosed its third-quarter report for 2026. In the third quarter, the company achieved revenue of 3.158 billion yuan, up 1.87% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was only 11.5519 million yuan, down 95.42% year-on-year.
For the first three quarters, the company's revenue reached 9.351 billion yuan, up 3.18% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 213 million yuan, down 79.01% year-on-year.
The performance stands in sharp contrast to the recent stock price trend.
As concepts such as AI film and television and short dramas attracted market attention, Mango Excellent Media's stock price began to rebound from the end of August, hitting the 20% daily limit on October 9. As of October 27, the company's stock closed at 23.48 yuan, up about 38% from mid-September.
The capital market has begun to pay attention to Mango Excellent Media's AI content business, but the profit pressure on its traditional operations has not eased.
The company attributed the profit decline in the first three quarters to factors including declining membership revenue, rigid content costs, and fair value changes in investment targets.
Among these, the membership business is an important factor affecting profitability.
Mango Excellent Media explained that adjustments to cooperation models on some channel ends, as well as changes in the scheduling rhythm of key film and television dramas, led to a year-on-year decline in membership revenue.
For long-form video platforms, membership revenue is closely tied to the supply of premium content, but film and television procurement and self-produced content investment carry a certain rigidity. Even if revenue declines, related costs are difficult to reduce in tandem.
This pressure has already been reflected in the income statement.
In the first three quarters, Mango Excellent Media's operating costs increased 11.8% year-on-year, significantly exceeding revenue growth, with the comprehensive gross margin falling from about 26.9% in the same period last year to 20.8%.
Although the third-quarter gross margin improved 5.45 percentage points quarter-on-quarter from the second quarter, it has not changed the cumulative profit pressure.
Investment operations further amplified the profit decline. In the first three quarters, the company recognized approximately 126 million yuan in fair value change losses on investment projects and approximately 88.31 million yuan in credit impairment losses.
During the same period, the company's total profit turned to a loss of 21.49 million yuan. Due to the recognition of approximately 237 million yuan in income tax benefits, it ultimately achieved a net profit attributable to shareholders of 213 million yuan.
The sharp profit decline has also made the urgency for Mango Excellent Media to find new content production methods more prominent.
For a long time, long-form video platforms have relied on continuous investment in premium dramas and variety shows to attract members and advertisers, but production cycles are long, costs are high, and the commercial returns of individual works carry significant uncertainty. When membership revenue growth slows and content costs are difficult to compress in tandem, the traditional business model faces greater pressure.
Generative AI offers a new approach to this dilemma. By reducing costs in certain production, filming, and post-production stages, AI is expected to enable platforms to produce more content with lower investment and reduce dependence on high-cost projects.
Mango Excellent Media is elevating this exploration to a strategic level.
In this third-quarter report, the company devoted considerable space to introducing its AIGC business and regards it as an important direction for exploring a second content supply curve.
Since the beginning of this year, Mango Excellent Media has established an AIGC Innovation Content Center and an AI Industrialization Center, relying on the Mango large model and the Mango Lingchuang AIGC content production platform to drive artificial intelligence into the entire process of content planning, creation, and production.
Among these, the AI long-form drama "Post-Journey to the West" has already aired in prime time on satellite television. Mango Excellent Media stated in its financial report that the project has completed a viable commercialization pathway, marking the company's zero-to-one breakthrough in the field of AI premium content.
On this basis, Mango TV launched the AIGC content label "Lingchuang Theater," focusing on three directions: premium female-oriented medium and long dramas, rejuvenation of classic Chinese-style IPs, and children's animation, attempting to expand AI content from single-project exploration to serialized supply.
This layout means that Mango Excellent Media hopes AI will not only serve traditional content production but also form a new content production system.
However, there is still a distance from technological exploration to sustainable commercial growth.
Currently, Mango Excellent Media has not separately disclosed the revenue, profit, and production costs of its AIGC business, nor has it provided specific data on how AI improves the overall content cost structure.
At the same time, traditional content investment continues. The third-quarter report shows that the company's drama reserves are close to one hundred titles, with inventory increasing 31.92% from the beginning of the year, mainly due to an increase in film and television drama reserves.
AIGC has become an important strategic direction for Mango Excellent Media, but whether it can develop from a commercialization attempt of a single project into a new business that continuously contributes revenue and profit remains to be verified.
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