Zhihu's Q2 revenue reached 690 million yuan: IP operation drove a quarter-on-quarter revenue rebound, while AI commercialization is still in the validation phase.

On August 26, Zhihu released its unaudited financial results for the second quarter of 2026.

In the second quarter, the company achieved revenue of 690 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of approximately 4%, but an increase of 5.9% compared to the first quarter. Looking at the first half of the year, Zhihu maintained adjusted profitability. In the first six months of 2026, the company's revenue was approximately 1.342 billion yuan, a decrease of approximately 7% compared to 1.447 billion yuan in the same period of the previous year; adjusted net profit was 6.906 million yuan, significantly lower than 98.28 million yuan in the same period of the previous year.

The improved revenue in the second quarter was mainly driven by paid content and IP operations. This business generated revenue of RMB 426 million, a year-on-year increase of approximately 4%, accounting for more than 60% of total revenue; marketing service revenue was RMB 199 million, a year-on-year decrease of approximately 11%; and other revenue was RMB 65.2 million, a year-on-year decrease of approximately 24%, which the company attributed primarily to adjustments in its vocational training business.

It's worth noting that the average monthly subscribers in the second quarter were 13.1 million, compared to 13.2 million in the same period last year, and were basically flat compared to the first quarter of this year. Therefore, the growth in revenue from paid content and IP operations came more from IP operations than from an increase in the number of subscribers.

Since the first quarter of this year, Zhihu has been disclosing its original paid membership revenue and IP operation revenue, which was previously included in other revenue, together. The latter mainly includes copyright licensing and content distribution.

This change is also related to Zhihu's AI investment direction this year. During the first-quarter earnings conference, management stated that AI is being applied to the IP development process of short dramas, comics, etc., including storyboarding, image generation, scriptwriting, and distribution, to improve the efficiency of content adaptation.

The year-on-year growth in IP operation revenue in the second quarter indicates that this path has begun to contribute to revenue. However, the company has not disclosed the revenue scale brought by AI-generated content separately, so it is still difficult to judge its actual impact on the overall business.

Another path to AI commercialization is data services for large model manufacturers. Zhihu's expert data solution, launched this year, leverages the platform's professional creators and content accumulation to provide data services for model training, evaluation, and other processes.

The company disclosed that it had completed project implementations in areas such as code, search and deep research, visual reasoning, and intelligent agents in the first half of the year; in the second quarter, the relevant businesses initially ran smoothly from understanding customer needs to large-scale delivery. Zhihu's current data open platform also provides Zhihu Search, full-network search, and API, MCP, and other interfaces.

However, this business is still in its early stages. Zhihu does not disclose revenue from its expert data solutions separately, but instead includes it in "other revenue," which includes businesses such as vocational training.

Management also defined the new business, including AI, as a "commercialization validation phase," and subsequent resource investment will depend on market demand, customer value, and return on investment.

The pressure on profitability stems from both gross margin and non-operating income. In the second quarter, Zhihu's gross margin was 57.0%, a decrease of 5.5 percentage points compared to the same period last year, mainly due to increased content-related costs; operating costs increased from RMB 269 million to RMB 297 million during the same period. On the other hand, investment income decreased from RMB 141 million in the same period last year to RMB 16.4 million, which is one of the important reasons for the shift from profit to loss on a GAAP basis.

Meanwhile, cost control continued. In the second quarter, Zhihu's operating expenses decreased by 13% year-on-year to RMB 469 million, with R&D expenses decreasing by approximately 25% to RMB 109 million and sales and marketing expenses decreasing by approximately 5%. Operating loss narrowed from RMB 91 million in the same period last year to RMB 75.9 million. As of the end of June, the company held approximately RMB 4.424 billion in cash and cash equivalents, time deposits, restricted funds, and short-term investments.

For Zhihu, the current operational focus is no longer just on further cost reduction, but on finding new sources of growth while revenue stabilizes. Second-quarter revenue showed continuous sequential improvement and IP operations began to grow, but a decline in gross margin and a return to losses after adjustments in the single quarter also indicate that the foundation for profitability still needs to be strengthened.

Whether expert data services can generate sustainable and scalable revenue, and whether the efficiency improvement of AI in content IP development can ultimately be reflected in profits, will be indicators worth observing in the coming quarters.

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