Analysis of MiniMax's C-end Revenue Structure and User Growth Ceiling

Based on information obtained from search data and financial analysis tools, I will conduct an in-depth analysis of MiniMax’s C-end revenue structure and user growth ceiling issue.

MiniMax’s C-end revenue accounts for 71% of total revenue, a structure that is unique among Chinese AI large model enterprises. Details are as follows [1][2][3]:

• AI-native Products (First Three Quarters of 2025):
  Contributed $38.02 million, accounting for 71.1%
  • Talkie/Xingye: $18.75 million (mixed monetization via advertising + subscriptions + in-app purchases)
  • Hailuo AI: $14.147 million (subscription-based monetization, with an ARPPU of $56)
• Open Platform (First Three Quarters of 2025):
  $15.42 million, accounting for 28.9%, with a gross profit margin of 69.4%

• Cumulative Users: 212 million (covering over 200 countries and regions)
• Paying Users: 1.7716 million (only 119,700 in 2023, representing a 14.8x growth)
• Monthly Active Users (MAU): Talkie/Xingye reached 27.64 million
• Payment Conversion Rate: Less than 1%, relying on high-frequency, high-paying users

---

Data from the prospectus shows that multiple core metrics have reached a growth inflection point [4][5]:

Metric	Performance in the First Three Quarters of 2025	YoY Change
New User Growth Rate of Main Application	Growth rate declined	-46.36%
New User Growth Rate of Talkie/Xingye	Growth rate declined	-7.4%
MAU of Main Application	Decreased	-34.03%
User Count Growth vs MAU Growth	Gap widened	124.35% vs 61.71%

China’s C-end AI application market shows a clear head effect [6][7]:

Application	MAU	Market Position
Doubao	155 million	Leader
DeepSeek	80 million+	Strong Challenger
Tencent Yuanbao	22 million	Second Tier
MiniMax Talkie/Xingye	27.64 million	Key Player
Hailuo AI	5 million	Emerging Product

Doubao ranks first with 155 million weekly active users, while MiniMax’s core products face encirclement by tech giants, resulting in significant pressure [6].

---

: Despite having over 200 million cumulative users, the number of paying users is only 1.77 million, with a conversion rate of less than 1%. This means that the expansion of C-end revenue relies more on a small number of high-frequency, high-paying users rather than a broad user payment base [4][5].

: 93% of sales costs come from cloud computing services. The gross profit margin of AI-native products remained negative in 2024, and the overall gross profit margin only turned positive to 4.7% in the first three quarters of 2025, which is far lower than the 69.4% gross profit margin of B-end business [4].

• Marketing expenses peaked at $86.995 million in 2024
• Decreased to $39.325 million in the first three quarters of 2025, but still accounted for over 10% of revenue
• A total of over 100,000 marketing materials have been launched, and user expansion still relies on paid user acquisition [4]

• Declining Activity of Existing Users: MAU of the main application decreased by 34.03% YoY
• Growth Rate Gap: User count grew by 124.35%, but MAU only increased by 61.71%, indicating that the expansion of user scale has not been converted into higher usage frequency [5]

---

• Overseas revenue accounts for over 70% (first three quarters of 2025)
• The Singapore market contributes 24% of revenue, while the US market contributes 20%
• Talkie has established a differentiated positioning in overseas markets [3]

• The video generation model Hailuo-02 ranks second globally in authoritative evaluations
• The Speech-02 speech model is recognized as a top global model
• A total of over 590 million videos and 220 million hours of voice content have been generated [2][3]

• The open platform has a gross profit margin of 69.4%, providing stable cash flow
• Clients include leading enterprises such as Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and Xiaomi
• B-end revenue grew 160% YoY [1]

• Hailuo AI Model
  : Focuses on high-value tool-type paying users, with an ARPPU of $56, which is 11.2 times that of Talkie
• Agent Layout
  : MiniMax Agent is positioned against Manus-like products, seizing a foothold in the agent track in advance
• Technology Iteration
  : The open-source MiniMax M2 model ranked top 5 globally and first among open-source models upon its release [3]

---

Dimension	Assessment
User Scale Ceiling	Visible in the medium term (200-300 million user level)
Revenue Growth Space	Depends on improvement of payment conversion rate and ARPPU
Competitive Moat	Multimodal technology + first-mover advantage in overseas markets

1. Tech Giant Pressure
   : ByteDance’s Doubao, Alibaba’s Qianwen, and Tencent’s Yuanbao continue to ramp up efforts
2. Technology Homogenization
   : Competitors such as DeepSeek are catching up rapidly
3. Copyright Disputes
   : Multiple copyright disputes in 2025 have not been fully resolved [4]
4. Profitability Pressure
   : The gross profit margin of C-end business is only 4.7%, and there is doubt about whether B-end business can continue to provide support

MiniMax’s 71% C-end revenue share is both an advantage (solid traffic base) and a risk (visible growth ceiling). In the short term, the arrival of the growth ceiling can be delayed by increasing payment conversion rates through Hailuo AI, deepening overseas market presence, and expanding high-margin B-end business. However, in the medium to long term, it needs to build new growth engines through technological differentiation (such as Agents) or scenario expansion (such as AI hardware, AIoT) [3][7].

: Whether MiniMax can establish absolute technological barriers in the video generation and Agent tracks in 2026, and whether it can break through the 1% payment conversion rate bottleneck, will determine whether it can break the C-end growth ceiling.

---

[1] Cailianshe - MiniMax Surges 78% on Debut
[2] Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily - MiniMax Passes HKEX Hearing
[3] Wall Street CN - In-depth Disassembly of the Prospectus of AI Large Model Unicorn MiniMax
[4] EBrun - Is MiniMax’s Hundred-Billion Valuation a Victory for AI 2.0 or a New Capital Illusion?
[5] The Paper - Analysis of MiniMax’s Hundred-Billion Valuation
[6] 36Kr - In-depth Review of 2025 C-end Positioning Battle
[7] 36Kr - 2025 AI Application Boom
[8] Sina Finance - From DeepSeek to Doubao, China’s Internet Enters the “Tiger Transformation” Era
[9] Zhihu Column - MiniMax IPO Analysis