NetEase, Inc. released its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025. The report indicates robust performance, with Q4 revenue reaching 27.5 billion yuan and total annual revenue hitting 112.6 billion yuan. Non-GAAP net profit for the year stood at 37.3 billion yuan. Annual research and development expenditure reached 17.7 billion yuan, marking the sixth consecutive year it has exceeded 100 billion yuan. Adhering to a philosophy of AI pragmatism, NetEase has established a new quality productive forces system centered on artificial intelligence, integrating it across all business chains including gaming, music, and education, thereby driving long-term, stable growth.
In 2025, NetEase deepened its AI applications, achieving large-scale deployment of AI-native pipelines in areas such as art, planning, programming, animation, and quality assurance. AI-native gameplay features were steadily implemented across several flagship products. Revenue from games and related value-added services for 2025 totaled 92.1 billion yuan, with online game net revenue accounting for 89.6 billion yuan, an 11% year-over-year increase, signaling a return to double-digit growth. Multiple long-standing hit titles reached new revenue peaks, while promising evergreen products continued to make breakthroughs in mainstream global markets.
Driven by its "AI-native" strategy, NetEase's Youdao unit reported annual revenue of 5.9 billion yuan, achieving positive annual operating profit and cash flow for the first time. NetEase Cloud Music reported 2025 revenue of 7.8 billion yuan, with its membership subscription business showing steady growth. Through initiatives like the million-yuan prize AI music creation competition, it has deepened "AI music industrialization," continuously solidifying its leading position in the music AI industry. Benefiting from increased net revenue from NetEase Yanxuan and advertising businesses, the Innovation and Others segment reported Q4 revenue of 2.0 billion yuan, a 42% sequential increase, with full-year revenue reaching 6.8 billion yuan. NetEase Yanxuan strengthened its positioning as a lifestyle consumption brand, leveraging technological innovation and a youth-oriented strategy to create 11 blockbuster product series exceeding 100 million yuan in sales, including cat food, dog food, and air fragrances, leading in multiple sectors such as pet supplies, home cleaning, and家居.
NetEase Zhiqi has built an enterprise service matrix centered on Agents, serving thousands of well-known companies cumulatively. Its self-developed agent development platform and multiple agents passed the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology's Trusted AI Agent assessment, receiving the highest rating. NetEase Media drives content ecosystem development through "human-machine co-intelligence," increasing high-quality creators on its news app by 5% and boosting daily content volume by 19%.
William Ding, CEO of NetEase, stated that artificial intelligence has become a fundamental core capability for the company's R&D and operations. NetEase has systematically applied AI to game development and gameplay innovation, achieving significant results in production efficiency improvement and interactive experience innovation. Looking ahead, NetEase will continue to focus on creating enduring, high-quality products. By building an innovative talent ecosystem and deepening cooperation with global partners, the company will steadily advance its AI application capabilities to create greater value for users and shareholders.
NetEase's AI Industrialization: Deploying AI-Native Pipelines and Gameplay, Boosting Efficiency by 300% in Some Areas NetEase places high importance on and holds a long-term optimistic view of AI technology's prospects. Guided by AI pragmatism, it has deeply invested in frontier areas such as AI-native R&D pipelines and AI-native gameplay. Simultaneously, it leverages the social value of gaming technology, shifting from the virtual to the real, and continuously extends services to实体 sectors like engineering machinery and human-machine intelligent collaboration.
Regarding AI-native R&D pipelines, NetEase has coverage across full-process production scenarios including concept art, modeling, animation, audio, level design, and testing. Efficiency has improved by 300% in certain segments, building an industry-leading AI industrialization barrier. Multiple self-developed AI tools comprehensively empower content production. CodeMaker elevates AI programming from "intelligent code completion" to providing "agent"-level services, enabling development teams to accomplish "complete development tasks," fundamentally changing work habits. Art tools like DreamMaker and Danqing Yue support "minute-level" delivery of创意 and exponential expansion of asset libraries, significantly enhancing the production efficiency of high-quality content.
As one of the earliest and most extensive pioneers in AI-native gameplay, NetEase uses AI as a core driver to pioneer and scale a series of AI-native features, including intelligent NPCs, intelligent character customization, AI teammates, and "AI Director Mode," deploying them across multiple flagship products and sparking explosive growth in UGC creation ecosystems. In the realm of intelligent NPCs, "Justice Online" mobile game was among the first in the industry to implement a large language model-based intelligent NPC system in a live game environment, representing one of the earliest commercial applications. In Q4, this intelligent NPC system received national recognition, winning the "2025 First Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress" from the China Society of Image and Graphics, based on its reinforcement learning-powered intelligent decision-making technology. "Where Winds Meet" utilizes technologies like natural language processing, speech synthesis, and emergent narrative generation to deploy tens of thousands of vivid, realistic intelligent NPCs, enriching the gaming experience while significantly increasing content supply.
Notably, AI is demonstrating value in user companionship and UGC ecosystems. "Naraka: Bladepoint" mobile game pioneered an AI teammate feature with real-time voice chat. Leveraging the latest AI large model inference technology, it provides players with AI teammates that are almost indistinguishable from humans, capable of全能 multimodal interaction and real-time voice communication, making hardcore PvP gameplay accessible to a broader audience and significantly improving new player retention. The "AI Director Mode" in "Justice Online" mobile game allows players to generate actors, recreate scenes, and choreograph shows with one click, attracting millions of players to create tens of millions of UGC works, with dissemination exceeding 10 billion views. "Eggy Party" has drastically lowered the barrier to 3D creation through "model AIGC," enabling "command-based generation," empowering over 50 million creators. In-app purchase revenue from UGC maps increased 40% quarter-over-quarter, with top-performing single maps generating monthly revenues exceeding one million yuan.
NetEase continues to promote the application of its game AI technology capabilities in实体 industries. In 2025, NetEase Lingdong launched the world's first embodied intelligent unmanned loader, "LingZai," designed for all-scenario use. It has established partnerships with companies like China Railway 20th Bureau Group and Sinohydro Bureau 5, achieving scaled application in scenarios such as construction material mixing stations, open ports, storage yards, and power plants across China, improving operational efficiency by 30% and reducing operating costs by 20%, effectively driving the intelligent upgrade of traditional industries and creating significant social and economic value.
AI Commercialization Accelerates: Youdao AI Subscriptions Hit Record High, Zhiqi's AI Content Security Serves Over 90% of Top-Tier Model Vendors NetEase is steadfastly advancing its "AI pragmatism," accelerating the deep integration of AI technology from point-based empowerment to full business chains. It has established AI-centric new quality productive forces systems in its education, music, and enterprise service businesses, significantly enhancing the R&D efficiency and commercial potential of its entire product matrix.
Driven by the "AI-native" strategy, NetEase Youdao has deeply revolutionized the learning experience and operational efficiency using AI technology, being among the first to validate the feasibility of large model scenario deployment and sustainable profitability. AI subscription services performed exceptionally well, with Q4 sales exceeding 100 million yuan for the first time, setting a historical record. Sales for AI simultaneous interpretation services grew over 100% year-over-year. Through the intelligent transformation of the entire advertising process by AI, marketing efficiency has greatly improved. Notably, advertising net revenue from the gaming and AI application sectors both grew over 50% year-over-year, demonstrating strong endogenous growth momentum.
While achieving continuous breakthroughs in AI applications, Youdao is also expanding the boundaries of AI implementation through Agent products. Recently, Youdao officially launched the desktop-level Agent "LobsterAI," positioned as a "7x24 hour personal assistant that helps you work across all scenarios," now open for internal beta applications on its official website.
NetEase Cloud Music utilizes AI to drive the creation ecosystem and enhance user experience, improving music discovery and listening. On the product side, it upgraded the "Heartbeat Mode" and launched features like "AI Mastering" and "AutoMix." The ratio of daily active users to monthly active users on the mobile端 remained above 30%, and average daily listening time on mobile continued to climb, indicating增强 user stickiness. Within the ecosystem, it initiated a million-yuan prize AI creation competition, accumulating over 50,000 AI music tracks and building a highly active AI content ecosystem. Technically, its self-developed recommendation large model "Climber" won the Best Paper Award at the top international conference CIKM 2025 and has been fully integrated into core recommendation scenarios like Heartbeat Mode and Daily Recommendations. Its benchmark engineering paradigm has been adopted by several industry platforms, further consolidating NetEase Cloud Music's technological leadership in the AI music field.
NetEase Zhiqi has made Agent its core strategic direction, building a multi-scenario Agent matrix covering intelligent development, customer service, data analysis, sales, and knowledge application. It currently serves thousands of知名 enterprises and empowers hundreds of thousands of employees. Its CoreAgent development platform and DataAgent passed the CAICT's Trusted AI Agent Platform and Tool assessment, receiving the industry's highest rating. Its full-chain AI content security and risk control services are used by over 90% of top-tier large model manufacturers, and it is deeply involved in formulating multiple AI safety standards. NetEase Zhiqi aims to unleash enterprise productivity with stable and reliable "AI employees," driving a new era of intelligent growth.
Classic Evergreen Games Set New Records; Potential Evergreen Titles Achieve Multiple Breakthroughs In the fourth quarter, under the strategy of focusing on high-quality evergreen titles, NetEase continued to refine its diversified product portfolio, with several long-standing games demonstrating strong vitality and growth resilience.
Classic evergreen IPs continued to show vitality, driving revenue to new highs through gameplay and model innovation. As "Fantasy Westward Journey" PC version celebrated its 23rd anniversary, its Q4 revenue reached a new quarterly record, pushing full-year revenue to a new peak. The introduction of "Casual Servers" and optimizations to player experience continued to consolidate its core user base and ecosystem vitality. "Fantasy Westward Journey" mobile game launched "Lite Servers," achieving a record high in annual revenue. "Westward Journey Online" mobile game officially launched "Free Trade Servers" this quarter, driving player engagement to a new high. The peak concurrent users for "Tian Xia" PC version reached its highest level in nearly a decade, and user payment rates hit a historical record. Its cross-platform upgraded version, "Tian Xia: Universe," topped the App Store Role-Playing chart on its launch day. The flagship original Chinese Three Kingdoms SLG mobile game "Involution" pioneered a new gameplay mode called "Enjoyable Edition," effectively attracting new users and driving continuous DAU growth.
New-generation potential evergreen titles maintained strong growth momentum based on high-quality content and continuous innovation. "Where Winds Meet" launched its "Unseen Mountain" version and its first anniversary update in Q4,刷新 daily active users and revenue records, achieving performance exceeding expectations with multiples of previous highs, topping and maintaining the top spot on the iOS grossing chart. Its recent Spring Festival event performance again exceeded expectations, setting new records for user activity and revenue规模 compared to similar events. "Eggy Party" continued to innovate its gameplay, with average online time per user reaching a new high, firmly holding the top spot among domestic party games. "Justice Online" PC version launched "Ten-Day Servers," building upon the near two-year highs in user count and付费 for its established servers. "Justice Online" mobile game maintained high levels of activity and revenue. "Naraka: Bladepoint" and "Identity V" continued to expand player community ecosystems and enhance product influence by deepening their esports layouts and strengthening high-quality content supply, consolidating their leading positions in their respective niches.
Leveraging rich content and localized operations, NetEase's代理 games achieved further success, with the Blizzard game series setting a new annual revenue record in China. The China-exclusive "Titan Reforged" server for "World of Warcraft" was widely praised by players; "StarCraft II" reached a new high for daily active users in China.
From "Product Globalization" to "Cultural Globalization": "Where Winds Meet" Surpasses 80 Million Global Users NetEase's globalization efforts are accelerating, with several core products achieving breakthrough progress in key markets, strongly validating the effectiveness of its "Evergreen Globalization" strategy.
"Where Winds Meet" has become the most successful globally launched Chinese martial arts game, achieving a global breakthrough for an Eastern-themed title. As the first major wuxia open-world title led by Chinese technology, conveying Chinese culture, and successfully popular in Europe and America, it reached #2 on the Steam global best-sellers list after its global launch, achieving success in both user scale and口碑. Global users surpassed 80 million. It won the PlayStation Monthly Players' Choice award, topped the iOS download charts in over 60 markets, and received praise from the Chinese Ambassador to the US and the Chinese Embassy in Belarus for "showcasing stunning Chinese aesthetics and sweeping the globe."
"Marvel Rivals,"凭借高频 content updates and the strong appeal of the Marvel IP, entered Steam's annual Platinum best-sellers list and won multiple industry awards, including "Time" magazine's Game of the Year. Its Discord community members exceeded 4.2 million, ranking #1 among game-specific communities on the Discord platform globally, demonstrating极强的 community stickiness and brand appeal, confirming market recognition of NetEase's capability in operating top global IPs.
Several NetEase products topped charts in key overseas markets. The international version of "Justice Online" topped the free charts on the App Store in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, and other countries. In mainstream Western markets, it consistently ranked among the top role-playing games, signifying overseas market acceptance of NetEase's AI-driven, high-quality MMOs. "Knives Out" continued to show vitality in the Japanese market, with its 8th-anniversary update pushing it to #6 on the Japanese iOS grossing chart, with subsequent IP collaborations further elevating its rank to #4, demonstrating stable localized operations. "All-Star Streetball Party" won the Google Play Best Multiplayer Game award in multiple regions, further broadening the global product portfolio.
NetEase has a strong pipeline of new games expected to continue driving performance growth. Among them, the oceanic adventure RPG "Sea of Forgetfulness" has begun technical tests in multiple markets, attracting attention for its unique art style and highly free world. The original urban open-world project "Project: Infinite" is under steady development, aiming to meet global player demand for high-quality original content. The cosmic life simulation game "Starlight: Friends & Sunshine" showed excellent data in its PC version's first test, with a cross-platform mobile and PC version expected to launch officially within 2026.
In 2026, NetEase will continue to promote AI industrialization. Driven by the dual engines of "technology + content," it will use AI to empower creativity, lead change pragmatically, and achieve long-term sustainable growth.