Tongdao Liepin (06100) released its first-half 2026 financial report on August 21, posting revenue of RMB 989 million, a 5.6% year-on-year increase that reverses the previous decline. This growth is primarily attributed to resilient business expansion under comprehensive AI enablement, alongside four consecutive quarters of positive growth in cash collections. On the profitability front, the company achieved a gross profit of RMB 781 million, up 7.4% year-on-year, with net profit attributable to shareholders reaching RMB 88 million, a 9.6% increase, supported by ongoing product mix optimization and AI-driven efficiency gains.
The company's BHC ecosystem remains a formidable moat, with its proprietary large language model and AI products deployed across all three user segments. User scale continues to grow steadily, while both willingness to pay and user stickiness have strengthened significantly. During the reporting period, the platform's verified enterprise base grew 5.4% year-on-year to 1.5116 million companies, verified headhunters increased 6% to approximately 231,300, and registered job seekers reached 122 million, up 9.6% year-on-year. Both primary business models maintained steady growth, with enterprise talent service revenue rising 6.7% to RMB 820 million and individual user talent service revenue inching up 0.2% to RMB 169 million.
Seizing the opportunities of the AI era, Tongdao Liepin advanced its "AI + Recruitment" strategy throughout 2026. By leveraging AI products and its proprietary model system, the company has built a precise and efficient intelligent job-matching pipeline, effectively connecting supply and demand channels within the BHC ecosystem. This creates a seamless feedback loop between data and application scenarios under AI enablement, driving a flywheel effect on business performance.
On the B-side (enterprises), key AI products include the platform AI account (including the AI Pro tier), intended candidate selection, and the "Duomian" AI interview tool. In the first half of 2026, the client coverage rate for AI accounts, including AI Pro, approached nearly 100%. Since its launch in Q4 last year, AI Pro penetration has rapidly risen to nearly 40%, with over 70% coverage among newly acquired clients. For AI-driven intended candidate selection, nearly 60% of job orders now see delivery time reduced from two hours to one hour, with monthly repeat initiation rates climbing to 76%. Order volume and resume downloads both grew over 70% year-on-year. The "Duomian" AI interview platform enables precise quantitative assessment of multi-dimensional candidate capabilities, creating an integrated talent evaluation solution. These AI products have progressively penetrated B-end scenarios, earning widespread client recognition due to scarce industry supply and high product efficiency. Enterprise client numbers grew year-on-year, with effective job postings rising 6% in the first half of 2026.
On the H-side (headhunters), the "Duolie" delivery and management platform integrates the AI Agent "Xiaoyi," which covers the full recruitment workflow for both internal and external headhunters. Combining the capabilities of a general large model with the proprietary "Tongdao Huicai" model, Xiaoyi has accelerated delivery speeds and significantly improved per-capita efficiency. The H-side remains an indispensable part of the ecosystem, with verified headhunters' candidate reach increasing 10.6% year-on-year in the first half.
On the C-side (job seekers), the "Zhiban AI" product continues iterative upgrades, leveraging a multi-skill chaining architecture to build integrated job-seeking solutions. This effectively extends user interaction paths, strengthens usage habits, and continuously optimizes the overall terminal experience. By the first half of 2026, registered C-end users reached 122 million, maintaining growth momentum, with core talent recall accelerating year-on-year and monthly active users (MAU) hitting a record high.
Within the BHC ecosystem, Tongdao Liepin's comprehensive AI product cash collections grew nearly 100% year-on-year in the first half. The continuous conversion of AI technology investment into revenue contribution has made AI the company's most prominent new growth engine. More importantly, the company stands among the few industry players that combine proprietary AI large model development (Tongdao Huicai) with a recruitment ecosystem, where the closed-loop application scenarios effectively feed back into business AI transformation and drive ecosystem evolution.
Notably, AI enablement has also boosted profitability across the board. On one hand, AI products have driven product structure optimization, lifting gross margins; on the other, AI-powered operations have achieved effective cost reduction and efficiency gains. In the first half of 2026, gross margin reached 79%, up 1.4 percentage points year-on-year, while the comprehensive operating expense ratio declined 0.5 percentage points to 72.2%.
Looking at industry prospects, 2026 marks the opening year of China's 15th Five-Year Plan, presenting policy opportunities amid structural industry adjustments. The recruitment market is exhibiting a K-shaped divergence, with strategic emerging sectors such as the AI industry chain and high-end manufacturing continuing to expand with rising prosperity. Tongdao Liepin is closely tracking these trends and deepening its focus on strategically important industries. Meanwhile, AI's comprehensive application is reshaping the recruitment ecosystem. According to Huajing Industry Research Institute, the AI recruitment market reached RMB 12.2 billion in 2025, maintaining high growth. Aligning with structural industry opportunities and leveraging its BHC ecosystem advantages, the company has fully deployed AI products, precisely targeting high-prosperity tracks. New job postings on the Liepin platform continued their growth trajectory, up 14% year-on-year, with positions requiring AI skills surging significantly.
"AI + Recruitment" has become the industry mainstream, and as a leader in mid-to-high-end recruitment, Tongdao Liepin leverages its brand positioning—"AI talent on Liepin, AI recruitment with Liepin"—to cement its competitive edge in this segment, positioning it as one of the biggest beneficiaries in the AI recruitment era.
In summary, Tongdao Liepin's revenue recovery in the first half stems from its hard-to-replicate BHC ecosystem moat. With AI products fully deployed across all three segments, the company has further solidified its ecosystem advantages, driving sustained growth in both enterprise and individual client metrics alongside increased willingness to pay. Under comprehensive AI enablement, profitability has improved substantially, with further upside as scale expands. The company maintains a strong commitment to shareholder returns: it distributed a special dividend in 2025, executed share buybacks achieving a shareholder return rate exceeding 10%, and completed its 2025 final dividend of HKD 0.20 per share in 2026. Additionally, the company committed in 2025 to annual dividend distributions of no less than 50% of adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders over the next three years, while exploring various shareholder return mechanisms. With ample cash reserves, a PB ratio of just 0.33 times, low valuation, and high dividend yield, the company is well-positioned for future growth amid structural opportunities, poised for a dual re-rating of both performance and valuation while continuously sharing development dividends with shareholders.