Profits Surge + Global Breakthrough + AI Empowerment: QINGCI GAMES (06633) Anticipates a New Chapter of High-Quality Growth

On August 27, QINGCI GAMES (06633) announced its mid-2026 performance report, indicating that the company achieved revenue of 170 million yuan (RMB, same unit hereafter); profitability surged, with net profit attributable to the parent company climbing to 316 million yuan, a substantial year-on-year increase of 335.07%, demonstrating strong operational resilience. This not only reflects the company's refined operations and forward-looking strategic investments but also signifies a reconstruction of value during the industry's transitional phase. Through this financial report, we can see not only the financial resilience exhibited by QINGCI GAMES amid cyclical fluctuations but also gain a clear insight into the underlying logic enabling its success across cycles. This article will deeply dissect how QINGCI GAMES solidifies its foundation and begins a new chapter of high-quality growth amid challenges, examining three dimensions: financial fundamentals, existing and incremental operations, and future technology product layouts. Profit Surge Highlights Operational Resilience and Strategic Foundations It appears that the leap in profitability is primarily attributable to the company's robust asset management and financial safety net. The financial report shows that the substantial profit growth partly stems from a significant increase in fair value gains from short-term investments. In the face of intensified macroeconomic fluctuations, ample cash flow and a considerable safety margin provide solid foundational support for the execution of the companys long-term strategy. More crucially, the profit growth is a result of the companys proactive strategy adjustments and forward-looking preparations. In an industry where the focus has shifted to existing competition and structural differentiation, diminishing marginal returns on customer acquisition and rising costs have become shared pain points across the sector. Acknowledging the natural progression of its main products entering maturity, QINGCI GAMES has refrained from short-sighted actions that would overextend its future; instead, it has demonstrated strong strategic determination by reallocating resources toward more globally competitive key reserve projects. The financial report explicitly indicates that the company is currently in a phase of consolidating its efforts on major strategic-level reserve projects, with an increase in R&D expenditures year-on-year. This boldness in enhancing R&D investment during the transitional phase is the best testament to its operational resilience. By optimizing internal governance, accurately targeting the market, and significantly reducing inefficient marketing expenditures, QINGCI GAMES successfully realized cost reductions while enhancing efficiency. As the company solidifies its foundational base, it is developing a high-standard R&D pipeline for the next phase, laying a solid foundation for the next product cycle's explosive growth. From the perspective of capital market valuation logic, the core value of game companies often lies not in short-term revenue fluctuations but in their ability to continuously produce high-quality content with long life cycles. QINGCI GAMES' current financial performance essentially reflects a strategic concession of "exchanging short-term revenue for long-term growth potential." With the gradual materialization of its R&D pipeline and the ongoing release of AI efficiencies, the company is expected to experience both valuation and performance recovery in the next product cycle. Long-Term Deep Farming Activates Existing Value; Global Expansion Broadens Growth Landscape As traffic dividends reach their peak and the industry enters the deep waters of existing competition, QINGCI GAMES has successfully established a business landscape with strong risk resistance through the dual-driven approach of "deepening existing value" and "global breakthroughs." This transformation from "traffic-driven" to "value-driven" is the core code for its success across cycles. On one hand, long-term refined operations are continuously activating the deeper value of existing users. The flagship self-developed product, "The Strongest Snail," celebrates its sixth anniversary and has revitalized its user ecosystem by introducing new character Yaya, adding new gameplay features such as Paradise Management, and launching a new country, Ross. Financial data shows that despite a natural decline in average monthly active users (MAU) and monthly paying users (MPU) due to product lifecycle, the willingness to pay and payment depth among core users have significantly improved. During the sixth anniversary event, the payment depth among core existing users saw a notable increase, with ARPU and ARPPU recording double-digit growth compared to the same period last year. The overall monthly ARPPU rose to 314 yuan, up 8% year-on-year. This "high ARPPU" financial characteristic fully demonstrates QINGCI GAMES' profound capability in managing long life cycles for mature products, effectively transforming its vast registered user base into a steady stream of cash flow. From the financial model perspective, the trend of "decreasing total number of users but increasing payment depth" signifies a substantial optimization of the company's profit quality. In the current environment of high customer acquisition costs, relying on acquiring new users to maintain cash flow has become difficult. By shifting focus to high-net-worth core users through precise content iteration and community management, QINGCI GAMES has effectively enhanced the lifetime value of individual customers. This endogenous growth momentum not only significantly reduces reliance on external traffic but also builds a strong competitive moat and a stable profit foundation for the company. On the other hand, globalization has become the core engine for QINGCI GAMES to broaden its growth boundaries. During the reporting period, overseas revenue accounted for as much as 43.29%, highlighting the increasing strategic importance of international markets. In June 2026, "Cardcaptor Sakura: Memories Key" was officially released in Japan, quickly rising to the top of the local iOS free game chart. Following its launch in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Vietnam, the success in the Japanese market not only validates the global appeal of this IP but also signifies a substantial step forward for QINGCI GAMES in localized distribution and long-term operational capabilities overseas. In summary, from a deeper perspective of business model evolution, QINGCI GAMES current operating strategy signifies that it has completely freed itself from the traditional reliance of game companies on the buy users - wash users model and successfully transitioned to a refined operational path focused on maximizing user lifetime value. In the context of rising external customer acquisition costs, reallocating resources to enhance the ARPPU of existing users represents the optimal solution for optimizing the unit economics model. The data showing a "decline in user scale and an increase in single customer value" in the financial report robustly corroborates the effectiveness of this high-value business model. At the same time, the 43.29% proportion of overseas revenue has significant valuation premium implications in the capital market. This not only signifies the company's successful navigation of the policy and regulatory risks of a single market but also marks its research and operational systems as possessing global reuse capabilities. The topping of the Japanese market further proves QINGCI GAMES' strong capacity for localized distribution and long-term monetization in a highly competitive and culturally challenging mature market. This dual-driven structure of high user stickiness + high overseas proportion greatly enhances the certainty of the companys future cash flows, laying a solid foundation for achieving higher valuation multiples in the next product cycle. AI Empowerment Reshapes Research and Operational Efficiency; Matrix Prepares to Launch a New Growth Chapter If long-term deep farming and global breakthroughs are the foundational cornerstones for QINGCI GAMES' current stability, then the deep application of AI technology and the dynamic preparation of a diversified product matrix are its core engines toward the future. In the wave of technological change, QINGCI GAMES is comprehensively promoting the upgrade of its AI system, deeply embedding it into every lifecycle of product R&D, distribution decisions, and operational management. From content production and data analysis to version management and market insights, the comprehensive empowerment of AI technology is reshaping the efficiency of the company's research and operations. This not only greatly enhances content production efficiency but also provides strong data support for refined game version management and optimized distribution operational decisions, enabling the company to respond more nimbly and accurately to rapidly changing market conditions. Furthermore, the extensive application of AI technology fundamentally optimizes the company's cost structure by enhancing productivity and R&D efficiency, providing greater flexibility for future profit releases. Regarding the product matrix, QINGCI GAMES is entering a new phase of preparation. In addition to concentrating resources on refining the strategic self-developed SLG game "Project E," actively advancing domestic licensing applications, and preparing multi-platform versions for Steam, the company is also actively seeking high-quality external products for licensing to enrich its PC game ecosystem. QINGCI GAMES is reshaping its profit model through technological efficiency and product matrix strategies. The deep application of AI technology not only enhances operational efficiency but also subtly lowers the marginal costs of R&D and distribution, establishing a long-term competitive advantage for the company. Meanwhile, a diversified product matrix effectively mitigates the risks associated with fluctuations in the lifecycle of individual products, enhancing both performance certainty and risk resistance. From the operational resilience highlighted by the surge in profits to the dual-driven approach of long-term deep farming and global breakthroughs, and finally to the AI empowerment and readiness of the product matrix, the mid-2026 financial report from QINGCI GAMES presents not just an impressive financial performance but also the clarity and foresight of a mature enterprise navigating through the industrys transition period. At this crucial crossroads of transforming from "scale expansion" to "high-quality growth," QINGCI GAMES traverses cycles with strategic determination, solidifies its foundation through value reconstruction, and embarks on a new chapter through technological innovation. With the gradual deployment of strategic reserve projects and the continuing release of AI efficiencies, we have reason to believe that QINGCI GAMES will advance into a new journey of high-quality growth with even greater strength in the next industry cycle.