From single-quarter to full-year profitability, Zhihu ushers in a revaluation of its valuation.

Author | Huang Yida

Editor | Zhang Fan

On March 25th, Zhihu (Stock Code: ZH.N; 2039.HK) released its full - year financial results for 2025.

The most significant highlight of Zhihu's 2025 financial report is that it achieved full - year non - GAAP profitability for the first time, with the corresponding full - year adjusted net profit reaching 37.9 million yuan. Looking at it quarterly, from Q4 2024 to Q2 2025, Zhihu achieved single - quarter non - GAAP profitability for three consecutive quarters. Among them, Q2 2025 showed the best performance, achieving single - quarter profitability for the first time, with a net profit of 72.48 million yuan and a non - GAAP net profit of 91.34 million yuan in the same period.

It can be seen that the good performance on the performance side in the first half of 2025 was the key to Zhihu's non - GAAP net profit in 2025. The core logic behind this lies in the steady improvement of both operating efficiency and operating quality, combined with the continuous empowerment of the company's core business by AI, which ultimately drove Zhihu to achieve full - year non - GAAP profitability for the first time.

So, while Zhihu achieved profitability, what were the important highlights of the company's business during the reporting period? And how should Zhihu be valued?

01 AI Continuously Strengthens the Underlying Logic of Zhihu's Operation

As a content community, the underlying logic of Zhihu is based on the positive cycle between creator incentives and the output of high - quality content. Nowadays, AI capabilities are becoming an important supplement to this core logic:

As a tool to empower creators, AI can not only improve the production efficiency and quality of high - quality content but also continuously generate more original high - quality content, which in turn feeds back into the training of large models, further enriching and strengthening this positive cycle system. Moreover, in the AI era, high - quality content has a higher weight, which is not only a natural advantage for Zhihu but also further consolidates Zhihu's moat.

During the reporting period, the most significant progress Zhihu made in the AI field was upgrading the Zhihu Direct Answer function from traditional AI search to an agentic intelligent assistant and promoting it to the first - level entrance of the Zhihu APP. Against the backdrop of a significant increase in the usage volume and penetration rate of Zhihu Direct Answer, this upgrade is expected to further improve the reach and user usage depth of AI functions in the Zhihu community.

In terms of content production and operation, as the synergistic effect among high - quality content, expert networks, and AI technology continues to strengthen, AI effectively empowers content production, promotes the improvement of distribution efficiency, and also significantly optimizes internal operation efficiency. The corresponding results are reflected in the business data of Q4 2025: continuous output of high - quality in - depth content, further improvement in user activity and usage depth, and a significant increase in new user retention.

According to the information disclosed in the annual report, Zhihu will continue to increase its investment in AI technology and accelerate the commercial exploration related to AI in 2026. Attention can be focused on the relevant layout in AI comic dramas and the growth of the number of associated IPs.

02 How to Value Zhihu?

Based on Zhihu's current business composition, the paid reading business is its revenue pillar, accounting for as high as 56% of the revenue in 2025. The core highlight of the paid reading business is the prominent potential of IP monetization. Financial data shows that the IP copyright revenue in Q4 2025 increased by more than five times year - on - year. It is worth noting that the number of authors who obtained copyright revenues from Zhihu throughout the year increased by six times year - on - year, indicating that while Zhihu's IP assets are gradually starting to release value, the reservoir of the IP ecosystem is also expanding simultaneously, with broad growth potential in the future.

The marketing business is Zhihu's second - largest revenue source, accounting for approximately 31% of the revenue in 2025. The core highlight of this business during the reporting period is the accelerated recovery of revenue in the fourth quarter on a quarterly basis. The annual performance of Zhihu's marketing business was affected by the downward trend of the market. The core driver of the marginal improvement in the fourth quarter mainly came from the optimization of the customer structure and product upgrades.

From the perspective of Zhihu's current revenue structure, both the paid reading and marketing core businesses have shown obvious marginal improvements and positive expectations, which strongly support Zhihu's overall profit expectations. Zhihu's transition from single - quarter profitability to full - year profitability is mainly driven by high - quality content and expert networks, while AI mainly plays the role of a catalyst and lubricant, further strengthening the underlying logic of Zhihu's operation.

Looking forward, with the support of AI, Zhihu will release stronger growth potential. Coupled with the continuous implementation of cost - reduction and efficiency - improvement measures, the expectation of Zhihu's performance improvement is highly certain. In terms of valuation, Zhihu's current valuation level does not fully reflect its AI capabilities and the expectation of performance improvement. In the future, catalyzed by share repurchases, Zhihu is expected to experience a re - valuation market.

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