Giant Network Group (002558.SZ) 2024 Annual Report: Net profit increased by 31.15% year-on-year, AI innovation has been very effective.

On April 24th, Giant Network Group (002558.SZ) released its 2024 annual report. The report shows that in 2024, the company achieved operating income of 2.923 billion yuan, staying flat compared to the previous year; achieved a net profit attributable to shareholders of 1.425 billion yuan, an increase of 31.15% compared to the previous year; achieved a non-recurring net profit attributable to shareholders of 1.623 billion yuan, an increase of 18.23% compared to the previous year. The company's game product line maintained stable operations throughout the year, and the mini-game business saw explosive growth. At the same time, the company disclosed its profit distribution plan for 2024, proposing to distribute a cash dividend of 1.40 yuan per 10 shares to all shareholders, with an estimated total cash dividend of about 265 million yuan. Combined with the interim dividend for the first half of 2024, the company's total cash dividend for the year is approximately 530 million yuan, marking the 9th consecutive year of dividends since its listing. Mini-game contributions saw an increase in incremental revenue, with new products in development. During the reporting period, the "Journey to the West" IP matured and expanded its user base, achieving a breakthrough in mini-games. The popular new game "King's Journey" has successfully attracted over 25 million new users since its launch on the mini-platform in February 2024, contributing 6 billion yuan in revenue for the year. In addition, the mini-game "Primitive Journey" began buying volume promotion in January 2025, also contributing significant incremental revenue. In the casual competition category, "Battle of Balls" as a benchmark in the casual competition category, saw significant revenue growth during the reporting period, with core user retention reaching a new high in recent years, ARPU and payment penetration rate increasing significantly year-on-year, and monthly revenue reaching a five-year high. The mini-game version of "Battle of Balls" accumulated over 3 million registered users throughout the year and had a DAU of 200,000, attracting a large number of potential users for the app side. During the reporting period, the space werewolf killer game "Space Kill" fully utilized IP collaboration to maintain its leading position in the category. In addition, the overseas version of "Space Kill", "Super Sus", saw revenue reach a new high in 2024, with a year-on-year growth of over 50%, consolidating its position as a leading social deduction game brand in Southeast Asia and South America, and steadily expanding into the United States and Europe. The strategy card game "Night of the Full Moon", following its transition from independent offline to online gameplay last year, continued to iteratively commercialize and explore monetization potential, with the revenue share of online modes continuing to increase significantly year-on-year. The game is currently researching new gameplay modes for both offline and online, with testing expected to begin in the first half of 2025. The company is actively developing new games in-house, expanding its product matrix, and creating new growth points. Among them, the multiplayer team game "Supernatural Action Group" began non-deleting paid testing in early 2025, with plans for official launch and promotion in 2025. Creating a "Gaming + AI" ecosystem, AI gameplay innovation has been effective The report shows that Giant Network Group was the first in the industry to fully embrace the AI wave. After two years of accumulation, the company has built a comprehensive AI basic capability centered around self-developed large models, demonstrating leading technological penetration in technology, scenarios, and ecosystems. The company has established efficient AI production chains in image, video, voice, code, text, strategy, and other areas, achieving industrialized pipelines and multi-modal matrix layout. In the implementation of AI technology in gaming scenarios, Giant Network Group has shown a clear evolution logic - focusing on R&D efficiency improvement in the early stage, breaking through experience optimization in the middle stage, and ultimately aiming for gameplay innovation. The company has successively developed a series of internal AI tools platforms since 2023, which have been extensively applied to various business departments' R&D pipelines, significantly improving R&D efficiency and reducing development and operation costs. At the same time, with improved model capabilities and reduced inference costs, the company is accelerating the promotion of AI-driven game gameplay innovation and experience optimization. "Space Kill" is one of the earliest games to deeply explore AI-native gameplay, introducing features like "Reasoning Theater," "Endgame Challenge," and "Mole Challenge," with millions of players participating in these experiences; "Primitive Journey" continues to explore using AI technology to enhance user experience, with the full-blooded DeepSeek-R1 being fully integrated in March 2025, upgrading the core AI intelligent NPC "Little Sister" to provide a more intelligent and humanized interactive experience. Building on in-house development, Giant Network Group continues to expand its cooperation and investment layout in the industry's upstream and downstream. The company deepened its AI cooperation with Alibaba Cloud, strengthened the application of AI in game scenarios and ecosystem construction, and participated in the latest financing round of the star startup company LiblibAI in the AI image generation track, becoming a key investor in this round and establishing a closer partnership with the Liblib community. Actively practicing social responsibility, exploring new paths for sustainable development Today, Giant Network Group released its 2024 annual social responsibility report, showcasing the company's beliefs and practices in the field of sustainable development. The report shows that Giant Network Group's Party Branch actively explores new paths for corporate party building, conducting a series of themed party activities in 2024, gradually creating a party building brand with distinct company characteristics - "Giant Heart Towards the Party, Creating a New Journey". In terms of social welfare, the company actively responded to the call for rural revitalization and education revitalization, focusing on the education sector in ethnic regions and key counties for national rural revitalization, striving to make more contributions to improving educational resources in impoverished areas. In 2024, the Giant Network Group's Party Branch participated in public welfare donation activities such as "Education Leads the Revitalization Road, Join Hands to Build the Rural Dream" and "Pomegranate Seed Plan", providing strong support for the learning and growth of local young people. In terms of game empowerment, Giant Network Group has been continuously creating high-quality content with cultural significance and social value in recent years, empowering the inheritance and development of traditional culture with digitalization. In 2024, the "Journey to the West" IP collaborated with the national intangible cultural heritage, Shaanxi Huaxian Shadow Play, and "Battle of Balls" I.The cooperation between P and Jingdezhen Ceramic Factory in China was selected in the "2024 Game Public Welfare Typical Case Collection" by People.cn Co., Ltd.In addition, Giant Network Group values the sustainable development of talents, innovates talent training, and promotes school-enterprise cooperation. The company has established deep cooperation relationships with universities such as the Communication University of China around production, learning, and research, jointly exploring and cultivating game creative talents with original ideas, and creating outstanding game works.