Z.AI Co., Ltd. (Z.AI) released its unaudited 2026 interim results showing a decisive pivot to cloud-based large-model services and a sharp improvement in capital structure.
Financial Highlights (Six months ended 30 June 2026):
• Revenue surged 399.7% year on year (YoY) to RMB 953.89 million, driven by a 2,735.7% jump in cloud-based deployment sales to RMB 825.18 million. Cloud now accounts for 86.5% of total revenue, up from 15.2% a year earlier.
• Gross profit increased 163.7% YoY to RMB 251.61 million, although the gross margin declined to 26.4% from 50.0% as the business mix shifted toward cloud services.
• Net loss narrowed 12.1% to RMB 2.07 billion; loss per share improved to RMB 4.67 from RMB 6.23. Adjusted net loss (non-IFRS) was RMB 1.96 billion versus RMB 1.75 billion in H1 2025.
• R&D spend rose 33.6% to RMB 2.13 billion, underpinning accelerated model iterations (GLM-5.3, GLM-5.3-Flash) and infrastructure investment.
• Selling & marketing costs fell 14.8% to RMB 177.67 million; G&A expenses dropped 44.2% to RMB 103.35 million.
Balance-Sheet Developments:
• Successful January 2026 Hong Kong IPO (HK$4.90 billion net proceeds) and conversion of investor instruments lifted total equity to RMB 4.43 billion from a RMB 8.11 billion deficit at end-2025.
• Cash and cash equivalents rose to RMB 3.99 billion (31 December 2025: RMB 2.26 billion).
• Bank loans expanded to RMB 2.22 billion, mainly to fund infrastructure expansion.
Operational Metrics:
• MaaS platform users exceeded 5.8 million by 30 June 2026; paid daily active users up 603% since January.
• Average API pricing increased 101% alongside a more than 40-fold rise in token volume.
• Computing Power Multiplier—revenue generated per RMB invested in compute—improved 14-fold YoY.
Post-Period Financing:
• July 2026 placement raised HK$31.41 billion via 19.78 million new H shares.
• September 2026 placement added HK$15.66 billion through 21.97 million H shares; concurrently, US$3.01 billion (RMB 20.14 billion) zero-coupon convertible bonds were issued.
Outlook:
Management targets extending large-model capabilities from task completion to end-to-end business process execution, with emphasis on long-horizon tasks, multi-agent collaboration and autonomous system training. Continued investment in R&D, infrastructure and controlled expansion of higher-value vertical use cases remain strategic priorities.