MEITU (01357) saw its shares rise close to 8% in early trading. At the time of writing, the stock was up 5.76% to HK$4.77, with a turnover of HK$247 million.

On the corporate action front, MEITU conducted a share repurchase on May 18, buying back 2.241 million shares for approximately HK$10.0022 million. Data shows that since the beginning of the year, the company has executed 12 buyback transactions, repurchasing a total of 37.5355 million shares with a cumulative value of about HK$174 million.

In other significant developments, MEITU recently disclosed that as of March, its number of paying subscribers for imaging and design products surged 30.2% year-over-year to over 17.9 million, setting a new historical record. Revenue primarily from these paid subscriptions reached 852 million yuan, marking a 34.3% increase compared to the same period last year. The company's other business segments remained generally stable.

Notably, MEITU introduced a new key performance indicator for the first time: the Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) from its AI-powered productivity applications. As of March, the ARR for these AI applications was approximately 580 million yuan, reflecting a robust year-over-year growth of 56.2%.