Farewell to blind spending! MiniMax’s first financial report “wows” Wall Street: Achieves 131% high growth with low R&D costs, profitability exceeds expectations

Farewell to blind spending! MiniMax’s first financial report “wows” Wall Street: Achieves 131% high growth with low R&D costs, profitability exceeds expectations

MiniMax's first financial report after its Hong Kong IPO delivered results far exceeding expectations, with explosive growth in API demand and efficient R&D investment emerging as the biggest highlights. On March 2, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs both released research reports interpreting MiniMax's 2025 Q4 and full-year financial results, the Chinese AI large model company. JPMorgan wrote: > We did not see any particularly adverse data. Revenue grows strongly, API business becomes the biggest engine In Q4 2025, MiniMax achieved net income of $26 million, a year-over-year increase of 131%. This figure exceeded JPMorgan's forecast of $19 million by 32% and Bloomberg's consensus estimate of $18 million by 43%. Goldman Sachs pointed out that this strong growth mainly benefited from the dual momentum of AI-native products and the API platform. Among them, AI-native product revenue reached $15 million, up 82% YoY, mainly thanks to the launch of Hailuo 2.3/Speech 2.6 in October and the upgrades to Hailuo AI's internal functions. Even more striking was the explosion of the API platform business. In Q4, revenue from open platform and other enterprise services reached $11 million, up 278% YoY, accelerating further from the 160% growth in the previous three quarters. Goldman Sachs believes this was mainly driven by the launch of the M2, M2.1, and M2-her models during the quarter. Farewell to “cash-burning” model, R&D efficiency far exceeds expectations In the AI large model industry, high R&D costs have always been a heavy burden for enterprises. However, MiniMax has shown astonishing R&D efficiency. The financial report shows that MiniMax’s Q4 R&D expenses were $72 million, much lower than JPMorgan's expectation of $107 million. Goldman Sachs pointed out that this kept the company's total R&D expenditure for fiscal year 2025 at $253 million, fully demonstrating its high R&D efficiency. This efficient input-output ratio directly improved the company’s profitability. In Q4, MiniMax's gross margin reached 29.7%, up 6.4 percentage points from the first three quarters of 2025 (23.3%). JPMorgan believes this may be due to scale expansion and optimization of the product mix. Meanwhile, the company's losses also improved significantly. Q4 adjusted net loss was $68 million, much better than JPMorgan's expected loss of $122 million and Goldman's expected loss of $130 million. 2026 demand continues to explode, broad commercialization prospects The most exciting aspect of the financial report for the market was the strong demand data MiniMax disclosed for early 2026. According to the company, in February 2026, daily token consumption by the M2 series text models increased more than six-fold compared to December 2025, while token consumption generated by coding solutions increased more than ten-fold. JPMorgan believes that such strong API demand momentum brings extremely high visibility to potentially doubling revenue in 2026. The bank forecasts MiniMax’s 2026 revenue will grow 159% YoY. Goldman Sachs also emphasized MiniMax's competitiveness in the global market. Data show that in the past month, MiniMax's M2.5 model ranked first on the OpenRouter platform. Based on the average token usage over the past four weeks, Goldman estimates MiniMax’s annual recurring API revenue (ARR) on OpenRouter will reach about $40 million. Institutional ratings: JPMorgan bullish to HK$1,000, Goldman maintains neutral Based on strong performance and broad commercialization prospects, JPMorgan gives MiniMax an “overweight” rating and sets a target price of HK$1,000 by December 2026. JPMorgan believes MiniMax combines technical strength, multimodal commercialization potential, and global expansion capability in the foundational AI model space, making it a rare asset. Its full-spectrum models help achieve dual commercialization in both B2B and B2C, reducing dependence on a single monetization path. Goldman maintains a “neutral” rating, with a 12-month target price of HK$1,018. Goldman believes MiniMax is one of the best-positioned AI model companies in China, capable of capturing massive global TAM growth in text/coding, multimodal, and agent/collaborative work (digital workforce) fields. This is thanks to its comprehensive multimodal products, strong commercialization capability, per-token AI model cost advantage, and high organizational efficiency. Goldman also pointed out future focus areas, including 2026 revenue outlook, the latest model roadmap (such as potential M3 launch), pricing strategies (considering rising inference demand and costs, and peers’ recent price hikes), competitive landscape, and investment intensity in To-C companion apps (Talkie/Xingye). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The above wonderful content is from "Zhuifeng Trading Desk". For more detailed interpretation, including real-time analysis and frontline research, please join [Zhuifeng Trading Desk · Annual Membership]. Risk Warning & Disclaimer The market has risks; investment requires caution. This article does not constitute individual investment advice, nor does it take into account specific users' investment goals, financial situation, or needs. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article suit their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly at your own risk.