Giant Network Group (002558.SZ) 2024 interim report: achieved a net profit of 7.18 billion yuan, with mini-games driving additional growth.

On August 29, Giant Network Group (002558.SZ) released its 2024 semi-annual report. During the reporting period, the company achieved operating income of 1.427 billion yuan, basically flat year-on-year; achieved a net profit attributable to the parent of 718 million yuan, an increase of 8.16% year-on-year; achieved a non-net profit attributable to the parent of 884 million yuan, an increase of 27.92% year-on-year. The mini-game "King's Journey" performed well after its launch, with mature product lines operating steadily, and AI productivity empowering research and development comprehensively. At the same time, Giant Network Group disclosed its profit distribution plan for the first half of 2024, proposing to distribute a cash dividend of 1.40 yuan for every 10 shares to all shareholders, with a cash dividend amount of 265 million yuan. Since its listing in 2016, the company has distributed dividends for 8 consecutive years, totaling 2.65 billion yuan, reflecting the company's responsible and actively rewarding shareholders' operating philosophy. The mini-game drove growth, and the core track continued to deepen During the reporting period, multiple mini-games of the Journey IP track were launched or entered the testing phase, bringing new user vitality and growth momentum to the entire track. Among them, the cumulative new users of "King's Journey" exceeded 8 million, and revenue continued to increase month-on-month for 5 consecutive months after its launch in February, becoming a benchmark for successful transformation of heavy MMO games to mini-games. The mini-game "Primitive Journey" entered the user testing phase and will increase advertising investment in the second half of the year based on the test results. The report shows that "Agar.io" continued the trend of revenue growth since the second half of 2023, with active ARPU during the Spring Festival reaching a new historical high, and revenue during the Spring Festival period hitting a new five-year high. "Space Kill" continued to deepen its presence in the domestic market, continuously enhancing product features, consolidating its leading position in the niche market of space werewolf killings through new content updates such as new characters and innovative gameplay. In the first half of 2024, the overseas version of "Space Kill", "Super Sus", continued to make efforts in overseas markets. During the reporting period, this product was launched globally on the App Store and Google Play, topping the charts in the Thailand App Store and game charts in Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, and other regions. DAU continued to grow steadily, reaching a new high for the year. At the same time, commercialization methods such as advertising integration were incorporated into the game, doubling summer revenue year-on-year, consolidating the game's competitive advantage in the overseas social deduction category track. Continuously improving AI productivity, empowering research and development comprehensively Focused on the layout of "Game + AI", Giant Network Group actively explored the practical application of AI technology, and made significant progress in AIGC production capacity and driving gameplay innovation. During the reporting period, the company continued to improve the core capabilities of AIGC, realizing the advancement from infrastructure to upper-layer applications. In terms of infrastructure, Giant Network Group's AI Laboratory newly created an intelligent distribution platform and intelligent audio management system. At the same time, the all-in-one AI art production platform iMagine was fully upgraded, further enhancing the ability of AI to reduce costs and increase efficiency. In terms of practical application, the company innovatively applied different AIGC technologies to self-developed products, such as large model-driven humanized question and answer systems, companion AI NPCs, and UGC script creation tools, effectively reducing the barriers for newcomers, helping to improve product retention, and increasing the efficiency and quality of content creation. In terms of AI gameplay innovation, the AI laboratory worked with the "Space Kill" project team to develop the "AI Endgame Challenge" gameplay, the first AI-native gameplay based on Multi-Agent LLM (Multi-Agent Large Language Model) in the industry. The self-developed Multi-Agent game technology framework is the core support for this AI gameplay, marking an important step for the company in promoting gameplay innovation through AI. In the first half of 2024, the AI laboratory also developed the first TTS (Text-To-Speech) large model Bailing-TTS that supports mixed speaking of various Mandarin dialects, reaching a level of robustness, generation quality, and naturalness close to that of humans in Mandarin and various dialects. In the future, the company will continue to focus on the research and application of AI technology, promote the innovative combination of more AI technologies and gameplay, and create new game fun and player experiences.