Following the May Day holiday in 2026, the Hong Kong stock market experienced a strong opening. Bolstered by a 300 billion yuan reverse repo operation from the central bank, the three major indices collectively advanced. However, while the market spotlight intensely focused on the explosive rallies in 'hard tech' sectors like AI computing power, semiconductors, and liquid cooling servers, a 'hidden trend' within the AI industry chain was quietly emerging—the application layer. As computing power becomes as commoditized as "water, electricity, and coal," who is defining the real value?
On May 6th, MARKETINGFORCE (02556.HK), a representative company in Hong Kong's AI application layer, saw its share price retreat after digesting pre-holiday profit-taking. Despite this short-term technical adjustment, a longer-term view reveals a significant climb in its share price from HKD 31.26 at the start of April to a mid-month peak of HKD 50.60, representing a maximum intra-month gain of over 60%. The stock still recorded a monthly increase of more than 19%.
Driving this performance was not merely a resonance of market sentiment, but a series of strategic signals intensively released by the company in April, which are reshaping its valuation logic.
**Four Key Signals in April: From 'Product Launch' to 'Strategic Elevation'** A detailed breakdown of MARKETINGFORCE's activities in April reveals a clear logical progression: 1. Launch of KnowForce AI Knowledge Middle Office: In enterprise AI implementation, the biggest obstacle is often not insufficient model capability, but rather corporate knowledge being scattered across various systems with blurred permission boundaries. KnowForce aims to solve this "last mile" problem. Its strategic significance can be likened to providing the brain of enterprise AI with both a "memory area" and a "firewall." 2. Zhenke AI CRM Passes Authoritative Assessment by CAICT: Unlike general-purpose applications like writing assistants or customer service Q&A, CRM manages a company's most critical asset—its customers. AI passing an authoritative certification in this domain signifies it has moved beyond an "assistive" role into an "executive" stage. 3. Ranked First as a "GEO Service Leading Enterprise": As users increasingly obtain information through AI-generated answers, how brands are mentioned and recommended within these responses represents a全新的 strategic gateway, with importance comparable to search engine optimization a decade ago. 4. Inclusion in IDC's China AI Agent Market Map across Three Modules: Being featured in the core modules of "Marketing & Sales," "Data Analytics," and "Intelligent Agent Development Platform" presents a complete product capability map to the market. This signals that the company is neither a large language model vendor nor a single SaaS tool, but an AI application platform connecting models, data, and business processes.
**'Scenario Token': An Underestimated Value Anchor** Stringing these signals together reveals a strategic narrative with greater depth. Recently, Volcano Engine announced that its Doubao large model will officially begin charging on May 13th, marking the domestic AI industry's entry into a period of commercial value realization. Concurrently, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei issued a stern warning: the era of relying on "software complexity" as a moat is over.
These external signals point to the same trend: the competitive focus of the AI industry is shifting from "whose model is stronger" to "who can enable real enterprise adoption." As the cost of general-purpose large models plummets and computing power tokens become commoditized utilities, the true value anchor shifts towards "scenario tokens" that can transform cheap computing power into high-value business outcomes.
This is the core logic behind MARKETINGFORCE's frequently mentioned concept of a "Full-Stack Token Factory." Data from Q1 2026 provides strong evidence: revenue from its AI application business grew approximately 110.5% year-over-year, while its traditional precision marketing services saw only a marginal 0.9% increase. This structural divergence clearly indicates the company's strategic pivot is accelerating from traditional marketing services towards an AI application platform. Meanwhile, continued penetration into large enterprise accounts and ongoing optimization of the client structure provide a foundation for the scaled growth of the AI business.
Behind these numbers lies a fundamental transformation of the business model—from "selling software licenses" to "selling business results."
**Is the Re-rating Just Beginning?** Of course, the other side of the story warrants equal attention. Looking at the April share price volatility, the retreat after hitting HKD 50.60 mid-month indicates lingering market divergence regarding the valuation of AI application layer companies. Some investors still tend to evaluate MARKETINGFORCE using traditional SaaS PE frameworks, overlooking the fundamental change in its business model.
Furthermore, key metrics requiring validation in subsequent quarters include the sustainability of the 110.5% Q1 growth rate, the cross-selling effectiveness between the knowledge middle office and existing products, and whether large customer penetration can continue to accelerate.
Nevertheless, it is undeniable that in 2026, a pivotal year where AI transitions from a "toy" to a "tool," the application layer is becoming the segment with the highest value density in the industry chain. Just as in the cloud computing era, enterprises stopped caring about servers and only cared about computing metrics; in the era of AI-native applications, what enterprises will ultimately care about is not the model itself, but "how much my business has grown."
In this sense, the capital market's re-rating of MARKETINGFORCE may have only just begun.
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