Introduction: 2024 has been widely recognized in the industry as the breakout year for AI applications, with AI expected to become a basic service empowering various industries like utilities. As the first half of 2025 reports conclude, how have A-share AI application targets performed? Have related AI businesses formed positive commercial cycles? What is the actual value of these AI businesses?
Core Viewpoint: Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd.'s stock price surged dramatically with AI momentum, while its controlling shareholder engaged in high-premium asset shuffling on one hand and high-position selling on the other. Notably, the company's high-premium acquisition targets appear to have close relationships with the controlling shareholder. Is there a capital arbitrage scheme by the controlling shareholder behind these operations? Additionally, the company's gaming business has declined significantly, Opera's monthly active users have decreased, and does the company's over 5 billion yuan in goodwill pose potential risks?
Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd. was established in 2008 and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2015. Initially, the company's main business focused on gaming. Due to bottlenecks in the gaming business, the company subsequently expanded through external acquisitions.
According to public information, its major core acquisition events include:
In October 2020, Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd. spent 500 million yuan to acquire Opera, a veteran Norwegian browser company that primarily provides search engine and news information services as a social media platform;
In February 2021, Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd. acquired StarGroup, a US audio social platform, for nearly 1.4 billion yuan and renamed it StarX. Its flagship product StarMaker serves as an online karaoke entertainment platform, providing interactive entertainment scenarios including voice rooms, live streaming rooms, and casual games;
In June 2023, the company acquired Singularity AI, forming Kunlun SkyworkAI, building six major AI business matrices: AI large models, AI gaming, AI search, AI music, AI social, and AI animation. It launched China's first AI search engine - SkyworkAI Search and the AI agents development platform "Skywork skyagents."
From the current official website, the company emphasizes its position as an artificial intelligence company. According to the website claims, as China's leading artificial intelligence technology company, Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd. has completed the full industry chain layout of "computing infrastructure - large model algorithms - AI applications" and built a diversified AI business matrix consisting of AI large models, AI search, AI gaming, AI music, AI social, AI short dramas, and more.
Why does the company emphasize AI so strongly? What is the actual value of its AI business?
Controlling Shareholder's Arbitrage Game Behind AI Business?
ChatGPT burst onto the scene in 2023, igniting the A-share secondary market.
On February 9, 2023, Kunlun Tech Group also announced on its official WeChat public account a collaboration with Singularity AI, planning to release an open-source Chinese version of ChatGPT-like code within the year to prevent large companies' technology monopolies. According to public information, Singularity AI had already started developing Chinese GPT-3-like models in October 2020, completed training of a 14 billion parameter Chinese GPT-3-like model in March 2021, and released the 14 billion parameter Chinese GPT-3 API in June of the same year.
In April 2023, the company announced that through joint efforts with the Singularity AI team, it would launch "SkyworkAI" 3.5, a dual-trillion parameter large language model benchmarking ChatGPT, with invitation testing scheduled to begin on April 17.
Subsequently, the company's stock price exploded, with gains exceeding 200% in the first half of 2023.
While Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd.'s stock price was ignited by AI, it simultaneously engaged in high-premium asset shuffling and selling for cash.
On the evening of June 14, 2023, Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd. announced that its controlling subsidiary StarGroup planned to issue shares to acquire all equity of SingularityAI Technology Limited (hereinafter "Singularity AI"). The entire equity of SingularityAI was valued at $160 million (approximately 1.145 billion yuan). After this transaction, SingularityAI shareholders or their designated affiliates would receive 25% equity in StarGroup. Upon completion, the company's wholly-owned subsidiary Kunlun Group Limited planned to invest $400 million in StarGroup to create a globally leading AGI platform.
According to the asset evaluation report (consolidated basis), as of March 31, 2023, Singularity AI had total assets of 4.5597 million yuan, total liabilities of 39.1722 million yuan, and net assets of -34.6125 million yuan. After market approach evaluation, the total equity value of Singularity AI was 1.714 billion yuan (approximately $240 million), representing an evaluation premium of 1.748 billion yuan.
Could such high-premium acquisitions involve interest transfers?
The transaction counterparty was SingularityAI Holdings Limited, with natural person WANG Liwei holding 90% and natural person WANG Chaoqun holding 10%, with WANG Liwei as the actual controller. WANG Liwei previously worked at Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd. but has not been employed by the company since July 2020.
SingularityAI Technology Limited has agreement control over Beijing Singularity AI Technology Co., Ltd. assets. Notably, controlling shareholder Zhou Yahui also appeared in Beijing Singularity AI Technology Co., Ltd.'s shareholder registration list.
In January 2022, Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd.'s controlling shareholder Zhou Yahui and his controlled Xinyu Canjin Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership) (hereinafter "Xinyu Canjin"), along with natural persons Liu Jia and Wang Chaoqun, became new investors in Beijing Singularity AI Technology Co., Ltd., appearing in the shareholder registration change list the following month. Zhou Yahui apparently exited in November 2022.
Besides high-premium asset shuffling, the company also saw major shareholders' high-position "creative" selling for cash.
On the evening of June 20, Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd. announced that shareholder Li Qiong, holding more than 5%, planned to reduce holdings by no more than 35.8686 million shares, not exceeding 3% of total share capital. The selling shareholder was Li Qiong, Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd.'s third-largest shareholder and former wife of controlling shareholder Zhou Yahui, holding approximately 132 million shares, accounting for 11.06% of total share capital. Based on the announcement day's stock price, the maximum planned cash-out amount would exceed 2.2 billion yuan. Additionally, to support the company's long-term AGI and AIGC business development, Li Qiong agreed to lend more than 50% of the after-tax proceeds from this share reduction to the company at an annual interest rate of 2.5% for three years.
AI Business Value Assessment
In the 2025 interim report, the company stated it continued deepening AI business layout, comprehensively promoting "computing infrastructure - large model algorithms - AI applications" full industry chain collaborative development. For large models, the company focused on core areas like multimodal reasoning and spatial intelligence, open-sourcing multiple industry-leading large models; for applications, SkyworkAI Super Agent was officially released, reshaping AI office and content creation methods. AI video and AI music businesses developed rapidly, with platform influence and commercialization capabilities significantly enhanced. AI gaming and AI social products continued optimization, creating stronger immersion and interactive experiences. The company is accelerating the construction of full-stack capabilities from models to products, consolidating leading advantages, and promoting high-quality development of AGI and AIGC businesses.
In the first half of this year, Kunlun Tech Co.,Ltd. achieved operating revenue of approximately 3.733 billion yuan, up 49.23% year-on-year; corresponding net profit attributable to shareholders was approximately -856 million yuan, compared to -389 million yuan in the same period last year, with expanded losses; corresponding non-recurring net profit attributable to shareholders was approximately -859 million yuan, compared to -407 million yuan in the same period last year, with expanded losses.
How much does the company's AI business actually contribute?
Taking Beijing SkyworkAI Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd. as an example of artificial intelligence development technology, 2024 revenue was 16.72 million yuan, while the first half of 2025 was only 8.71 million yuan.
From R&D investment perspective, the company's R&D shows an increasing trend, but sales expenses far exceed R&D. From 2023 to the first half of 2025, the company's R&D expenditure was 1 billion yuan, 1.598 billion yuan, and 832 million yuan respectively, while sales expenses for the same periods were 1.62 billion yuan, 2.304 billion yuan, and 1.828 billion yuan respectively.
In the interim report, the company claimed that its independently developed SkyworkAI large model reached globally leading levels in multiple authoritative evaluations. Relying on the SkyworkAI large model, the company's AI intelligent assistant, AI video, AI music, AI gaming, AI social and other vertical applications steadily advanced, firmly positioned in the industry's first tier. Puzzlingly, while the company's AI business is thriving, the chairman's compensation decreased rather than increased. In 2023, chairman Fang Han's compensation decreased by 660,000 yuan to 3.27 million yuan; in 2024, it further decreased by 1.93 million yuan to 1.33 million yuan.
Two Major Risk Areas? Goodwill and Investment Business
In fact, the company's investment business scale is quite large. The company's investment business scale peaked at nearly 10 billion yuan; currently, the company's investment business stands at 7.753 billion yuan.
Notably, the company's fair value changes have been consistently negative in recent years. It should be noted that the company's other non-current assets and trading financial assets are measured at fair value changes. Could this consistently negative signal indicate losses in the company's related investment businesses? Might it further impact company performance in the future?
In the 2025 interim report, the company stated that during the reporting period, affected by escalating global trade disputes and intensified capital market volatility, some of the company's holdings experienced periodic stock price declines, resulting in certain investment business losses.
Meanwhile, due to external acquisitions, the company has also accumulated significant goodwill assets on its books. As of the end of the 2025 interim reporting period, the company's goodwill was 5.146 billion yuan, with Opera being the largest at over 3 billion yuan, and SkyworkAI Intelligence and Xianglai Interactive Entertainment nearly 2 billion yuan.
First, regarding Xianglai Interactive Entertainment, 2024 performance has already shown significant decline. Does the remaining goodwill pose potential impairment risks?
Second, Opera, with the largest goodwill, faces user decline risks.
According to Opera's Q2 2025 report, in the first half of 2025, Opera achieved operating revenue of $286 million, up 35% year-on-year; achieved adjusted EBITDA of $64 million, up 25% year-on-year. As of Q2 2025, Opera's global monthly active users reached 289 million, with annualized ARPU rising to $1.97, up 35% year-on-year.
From three-year data, its global monthly active users have been continuously shrinking.
In 2022, the company's annual report stated that after years of development, the company has built a platform-level application product matrix with nearly 400 million global monthly active users. Opera is a globally renowned internet brand and a top traffic portal in Europe, America, and Africa, with global average monthly active users reaching 324 million.
In 2023, the annual report stated that since its establishment, Opera has always started from user needs, adhering to the ultimate pursuit of innovation and experience. It has now developed into a globally leading AI-driven information distribution and metaverse platform, with businesses covering advertising, search, information distribution, metaverse and other fields, with over 300 million global monthly active users.
In 2024, the company's annual report stated that since its establishment, Opera has always started from user needs, adhering to the ultimate pursuit of innovation and experience, bringing efficient, secure, and intelligent digital experiences to global users. Opera has now developed into a globally leading AI-driven information distribution and metaverse platform, with businesses covering advertising, search, information distribution, metaverse and other fields, with nearly 300 million global monthly active users.
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