Who Still Cares About the Fate of Zhihu (知乎)?

Profit on paper, shrinkage in practice

Zhihu (知乎) reported a milestone: the company posted a full-year non‑GAAP profit of RMB 37.9 million (3,790万元) for 2025, its first annual Non‑GAAP profit since listing. But the headline masks a sharper picture — full‑year revenue fell to RMB 2.75 billion (27.5亿元), down 23.6% year‑over‑year, and all three core business lines contracted: marketing services -32.3%, paid memberships -12.7%, and other revenues (including education and licensing) -37.9%. It has been reported that a sizeable part of the apparent bottom‑line improvement came from RMB 231.9 million (2.319亿元) of investment gains tied to fair‑value revaluation of unlisted holdings, rather than operating cash flow.

Cost cutting buys breathing room — but for how long?

Zhihu’s quarterly numbers underscore the fragility: Q4 showed a net loss of RMB 211 million (2.11亿元), an adjusted net loss of RMB 39.4 million (3940万元) and an operating loss of RMB 264 million (2.64亿元). The company sharply reduced personnel, sales and R&D spending to engineer profitability. Can cost cuts buy time? Yes. Solve the structural decline in user engagement and monetization? Not necessarily. Cost compression has limits, and relying on one‑off investment gains leaves sustainability in question.

A late pivot to IP and AI, with mixed hope

Once China’s leading Q&A community and a reservoir of high‑quality long‑form content, Zhihu’s monthly active users have slipped from a 2021 peak of roughly 103 million to around 80 million. Competitors — Xiaohongshu (小红书), Douyin (抖音), Kuaishou (快手) and Bilibili (哔哩哔哩) — have turned short‑form video and full‑stack commerce into durable monetization engines while Zhihu wrestled with community tone and commercialization tradeoffs. Its only clear bright spot is paid reading and IP: Q4 paid‑reading revenue became the largest single line, driven by Salt Story (盐言故事) adaptations that reportedly hit big streaming numbers on short‑video platforms. But that IP windfall comes after the industry’s golden window for rapid expansion has passed.

Strategy ahead: AI short dramas and data services

For 2026 Zhihu plans to accelerate AI commercialization — focusing on AI short dramas/manga and AI data services — leveraging a dense network of subject‑matter experts and millions of users who discuss tech and AI. Against a backdrop of China’s tighter content regulation and an intensifying national AI race, Zhihu’s content quality and expert community are assets — if the company can translate them into repeatable, scalable revenue. The question remains: will Zhihu be able to turn a late pivot into lasting growth, or is this a stopgap that merely delays further decline?