--- title: "KUAISHOU's counterattack has just begun?" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/266719192.md" description: "KUAISHOU's e-commerce business achieved a year-on-year growth of 15.23% in the third quarter of 2025, becoming the main driver of the company's revenue, despite the live streaming business growing only 2.53%. KUAISHOU successfully hedged the weakness in its live streaming business by strategically directing traffic and budget towards general merchandise e-commerce. The company's overall revenue grew by 14.21%, and adjusted net profit increased by 26.29% year-on-year. In addition, KUAISHOU enhanced advertising efficiency through AI-driven systems and optimized content distribution algorithms to reduce costs" datetime: "2025-11-20T10:59:32.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/266719192.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/266719192.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/266719192.md) --- > Supported Languages: [简体中文](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/266719192.md) | [繁體中文](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/266719192.md) # KUAISHOU's counterattack has just begun? When the live streaming business only achieved a unit growth rate of 2.53%, **KUAISHOU-W (01024.HK)** was pulled back by its e-commerce business. In the third quarter of 2025, Kuaishou's e-commerce GMV continued to maintain double-digit growth, increasing by 15.23% year-on-year to CNY 385.044 billion, but the growth rate has fallen below the previous quarter's 17.57% and the first quarter's 15.36%. The share of general merchandise e-commerce exceeded 32%, and the number of active merchants increased by 13%—this business, once regarded as an "appendage to live streaming," has now become a ballast for revenue. Behind this is a fierce strategic tilt: Kuaishou has directed most of its traffic support and marketing budget towards general merchandise, maintaining continuous e-commerce growth under the strong pressure from Douyin through multiple subsidies, directly driving core commercial revenue to increase by 19.21% year-on-year, perfectly offsetting the sluggish growth of the live streaming business and keeping overall revenue at a steady growth rate of 14.21%. In contrast, the live streaming business, which once contributed the main revenue, shows signs of fatigue. Affected by weak macro consumer sentiment and a marginal decline in user willingness to pay, live streaming revenue increased only slightly by single digits year-on-year, growing by 2.53% to CNY 9.574 billion, far below its overall revenue growth rate. **Adjusted profits accelerate release, profitability steps up** More noteworthy is the improvement in profit quality. In the third quarter of 2025, its gross profit margin increased by 0.33 percentage points year-on-year to 54.66%, while sales and marketing expenses were controlled to a year-on-year increase of 0.54%, and administrative expenses even decreased by 13.57%, which somewhat alleviated the impact of the 17.74% increase in R&D expenses (especially for AI investments). The adjusted EBITDA profit margin increased by 3.6 percentage points year-on-year to 21.53%; adjusted net profit grew by 26.29% year-on-year to CNY 4.986 billion, with a growth rate higher than its revenue growth, reflecting an improvement in profitability. This may be attributed to its dual efforts in operations and cost control: on one hand, the AI-driven intelligent placement system improved advertising conversion efficiency; on the other hand, the optimization of content distribution algorithms may have reduced ineffective traffic consumption, leading to a continuous decline in the sales and management expense ratio. It is worth noting that Kuaishou repurchased 3.4516 million Class B shares for HKD 256 million during the period, which is another measure to reward shareholders following the distribution of a special dividend of HKD 2 billion in the second quarter. This move not only demonstrates the management's confidence in cash flow and long-term value but also stabilizes market sentiment to some extent **Overseas business shifts from profit to loss, globalization strategy faces headwinds** However, not all segments have brought good news. KUAISHOU-W's overseas business fell back into losses in the third quarter, and although the operating loss narrowed year-on-year, it failed to maintain the brief profitability seen in the second quarter. Data shows that its overseas revenue in the third quarter of 2025 decreased by 13.30% year-on-year to 1.154 billion yuan, with a segment operating loss of 640 million yuan, compared to a loss of 153 million yuan in the same period last year, while the previous quarter had a profit of 190 million yuan. Against the backdrop of fierce competition in the global short video market, TikTok firmly occupies a dominant position with its first-mover advantage and ecological closed loop, making it difficult for KUAISHOU-W's "second curve of going overseas" to see breakthroughs in the short term. **AI commercialization progresses steadily, but has yet to form an explosive point** In the AI field, KUAISHOU-W's progress can be described as "steady progress." Its self-developed Kling AI large model has been widely applied in various scenarios such as advertising material generation, short drama production, and intelligent customer service. According to previous disclosures, Kling AI achieved revenue of over 250 million yuan in the second quarter of this year, and is expected to double for the whole year. In the third quarter, the revenue of KuaLing AI exceeded 300 million yuan. Based on this, along with its successful trials in short drama AIGC and the increasing penetration rate of AIGC tools on the merchant side, the path to AI commercialization is gradually becoming clearer. However, compared to **Baidu (09888.HK)**'s "Wenxin Yiyan" or **Alibaba (09988.HK)**'s "Qianwen" with their full-stack layouts, KUAISHOU-W's AI focuses more on content creation and marketing efficiency, failing to achieve more monetization methods, making it difficult to become a new profit pillar in the short term. **Stock price rises in response, market recognizes "endogenous resilience"** After the quarterly report was released, KUAISHOU-W's stock price rose more than 4.4% during intraday trading on November 20, closing up 2.28%. On the same day, the Hang Seng Tech Index (HSTECH.HK) fell 0.58%, while the Hang Seng Index strengthened slightly. Investors clearly value the stability of its domestic fundamentals—amidst macroeconomic pressures and intensified industry competition, KUAISHOU-W's "moat" built through e-commerce + AI + efficient operations demonstrates strong risk resistance. **"Dislocated competition" with Douyin continues** When it comes to competition, Douyin is always an unavoidable reference point. However, the strategies of the two have clearly diverged: Douyin is accelerating its deep push into full-domain interest e-commerce and local life, emphasizing a "shelf + content" dual-drive model; while KUAISHOU-W insists on the "Lao Tie economy" foundation, strengthening the private trust chain and community stickiness, continuously deepening its efforts in sinking markets and vertical fields such as agriculture and the elderly. This differentiated path avoids direct confrontation but also means that KUAISHOU-W is still at a disadvantage in high-end brand recruitment and penetration in first-tier cities. The competition in the content ecosystem has also shown differentiation, with short dramas becoming a new battleground for "traffic competition" between KUAISHOU-W and Douyin. Douyin, with its independent app "Hongguo Short Drama," is leading strongly. According to QuestMobile data, in the third quarter of 2025, Hongguo's monthly active users reached 236 million, second only to Tencent Video, iQIYI (IQ.US), and Mango TV Free + massive supply builds a strong moat. More importantly, Douyin leverages Byte's AIGC tools (such as the Dream Video large model) to achieve IP feedback through Tomato Novel, forming a closed-loop ecosystem of "novel - short drama - advertisement - e-commerce." In contrast, Kuaishou, although a pioneer in short dramas, lags behind Douyin in scale, strategy, and traffic. Recently, it has begun to adjust its strategy, on one hand, covering all categories of free short dramas to capture users, and on the other hand, using AI generation as a differentiated breakthrough— the AI unit drama "New World Loading" co-produced by Keling AI has been launched. However, challenges remain, as Kuaishou lacks its own literary IP library, leading to insufficient content stability and potential copyright disputes, while Douyin has millions of web novels stored in Tomato Novel, possessing a natural advantage. In this traffic competition triggered by short dramas, whether Kuaishou can catch up remains a significant question. **Conclusion: Seek progress while maintaining stability, but a breakthrough strategy is needed** Overall, Kuaishou delivered a report card of "quality growth" in the third quarter of 2025. The roaring e-commerce engine, accelerated profit release, and increased shareholder returns all confirm the maturity of its business model. However, the repeated losses in overseas business and the existence of a ceiling for AI monetization also remind the market that the true "second growth curve" has not yet fully formed. In the long-term competition with Douyin, Kuaishou needs not only tactical improvements but also strategic breakthroughs. It is worth mentioning that, with the business resilience and leap in profitability demonstrated this quarter, Kuaishou has become a strong competitor in this year's "Top 100 Hong Kong Stocks" list. This selection aims to recognize listed companies in the Hong Kong stock market with outstanding strength and influence. Kuaishou's breakthrough in e-commerce and accelerated profit growth reflect its core value. Stay tuned for the upcoming list results to see if Kuaishou can once again prove its leading position as a core asset in the Hong Kong stock market amid fierce market competition ### Related Stocks - [KUAISHOU-W (01024.HK)](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/01024.HK.md) ## Related News & Research - [MedPal AI Wins Strong Shareholder Backing at AGM as It Expands AI Health Platform](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281501359.md) - [Tartana Minerals to Live-Stream Managing Director’s EGM Presentation](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281098095.md) - [Got $5,000? 3 AI supercycle growth stocks at every layer of the stack](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281690338.md) - [Insig AI Plans Growth Drive and Eyes Nasdaq Dual Listing](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281311983.md) - [Letter from the Editor Introducing AI Intelligence on American Banker](https://longbridge.com/en/news/281266312.md)