Paying Subscribers Hit a Record High of 19.83 Million!
Meitu, Inc.（Stock Code: 1357.HK）2026 Investor Day Highlights Focused AI Innovation and Global "Scale-Up"
HONG KONG, Oct. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Meitu, Inc. (collectively, "Meitu" or "Company" and stock code: 1357.HK), a global leading provider of AI-powered photo, video, design and productivity solutions, held its 2026 Investor Day on October 26. Mr. Xinhong Wu, Founder, Chairman and CEO, appeared together with management including Mr. Gary Ngan, CFO and Company Secretary, and Mr. Jianyi Chen, CPO and President of the Imaging Products Division. They gave investors and analysts worldwide a comprehensive update on the Company's latest strategic direction in the generative AI era, its product progress, the restructured commercialisation framework and its global expansion results.
Paying Subscribers and Core Revenue Both Grew, Reaching a Four-Quarter High
As of September 2026, Meitu's global paying subscribers reached 19.83 million, with 1.39 million added in the quarter, representing the largest quarterly net increase in the past four quarters.
Paying subscribers of Applications for Productivity grew 18.3% year-on-year to 2.39 million. Annual Recurring Revenue ("ARR") for AI-driven Productivity Applications reached RMB655 million, up a strong 40.1% year-on-year.
Meitu's business performance in the third quarter of 2026 showed that revenue (unaudited) from its core photo, video and design products reached RMB1.0 billion, up 28.2% year-on-year. This reflects its strong monetisation capability and the resilience of its subscription model in generating revenue.
Strategic Focus on Validated Products, Launching a Sustained "Scale-Up" Phase
Management announced that the Company's exploration of AI innovation has entered a new stage. It will gradually narrow its exploratory scope and prioritize resource allocation to a group of core products that have validated product-market fit ("PMF"). Mr. Xinhong Wu noted that this closely resembles Meitu's experience in the early days of the mobile internet: after many experiments, the Company confirmed a clear direction and then committed to scaling it up with resources over the long term.
Among the Company's innovative products, Picchi's latest Net Billings ARR is close to US$1.4 million. MVLAND's Net Billings ARR is close to US$0.85 million, and its application is planned to launch this December. When an innovative project's ARR reaches the milestones of US$2 million and US$5 million, the Company will unlock additional strategic resources for it.
Drawing on the Fashion Consumer Goods Playbook: Features as Products
In overseas markets, consumers are long accustomed to paying for quality software subscriptions. Given the high computing costs in the AI era, Meitu will increasingly model on the commercial strategies of fashion consumer goods, treating "features as products" and making paying subscribers its core target group.
Mr. Gary Ngan, CFO, emphasised that Meitu has more new businesses that monetise through AI credits consumption, which offer greater ARPPU elasticity than traditional products. The Company is more focused on real growth in overall product revenue and net profit than on gross margin, which is merely an intermediate indicator.
Productivity Business Accelerates Overseas Expansion and Shifts Toward End-to-End Marketing Solutions
In its global strategy, Meitu now designs products for the global market right from the initial research and project inception phase.
Mr. Xinhong Wu explained that Meitu places great importance on overseas markets. Its globalisation strategy has successfully moved beyond the first stage of "language-based regions" to add "cultural regions" (for example, the Latin American cultural region represented by Brazil and Mexico), making its global operations more refined and professional. Beyond establishing local operations teams, Meitu has also built local effects design teams to understand and meet the distinct aesthetic preferences of local users. Both Kaipai, aimed at Mainland China, and Vmake Labs, aimed at international markets, delivered impressive results, with ARR for each growing by more than 100% year-on-year as of September 2026.
In addition, Mr. Jianyi Chen, CPO, said that Meitu is moving from offering productivity tools to offering complete marketing solutions. In the past, Meitu provided productivity tools, and users handled content creation and subsequent promotion themselves. With the development of AI Agent capabilities, Meitu has begun to cover the full chain from marketing planning and content production to content distribution and performance optimisation.
Mr. Jianyi Chen believes Meitu's future business model may increasingly resemble that of an AI-driven marketing services company. "Customers are no longer just purchasing a set of creation tools, but marketing outcomes that help them increase sales."
About Meitu Inc.
Founded in 2008, Meitu is an AI-driven technology company that regards "beauty" as its core ideal. Guided by our mission to "Uniting Art and Technology", Meitu is committed to creating world-class imaging products that simplify the creation of images, videos, designs, and other visual content. Meitu was listed in 2016 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (stock code 1357.HK). For further information, please visit: https://www.meitu.com/en.
source: Meitu