Shares of MiniMax Group surged 10.5% to HK$331.80 after the Chinese AI company reported first-half results that showed explosive top-line growth alongside deepening losses — a combination that forces investors to decide whether they're buying a future giant or funding a cash bonfire. MiniMax Triples Revenue and Stock Jumps 10%, but Can a Money-Losing AI Startup Justify the Hype?
Shares of MiniMax Group rocketed 10.5% to HK$331.80 as investors piled back into the Shanghai-based AI company after first-half results showed a near-quadrupling of revenue. But the celebration masks an uncomfortable truth: adjusted net losses more than doubled to US$293.0 million, up from US$138.7 million a year earlier . The question is whether blazing growth can outrun ballooning spending.
• Six Months of Sales Already Surpass All of Last Year
Total revenue jumped 283.1% year over year to US$116.6 million, exceeding MiniMax's full-year 2025 revenue of US$79.0 million. The acceleration is real: this growth rate compares with 159% for all of 2025.
Analysts now expect full-year sales to expand 360%. August annualized recurring revenue — a measure of the revenue pace if current monthly billings repeated for a year — topped US$800 million, suggesting the second half is tracking far ahead of the first.
• Enterprise Clients, Not Just Consumers, Are Driving the Surge
Revenue from the company's developer platform and enterprise AI services soared 703.1% to US$73.9 million, now representing 63.4% of total revenue versus just 30.3% a year ago. That shift matters: enterprise contracts tend to be stickier and more predictable than consumer app downloads. Consumer AI product revenue still grew, rising 100.9% to US$42.6 million , but it's clearly no longer the main engine.
• Margins Are Improving, but Losses Are Widening Faster
Gross profit surged 464.8% to US$20.8 million, with gross margin expanding from 12.1% to 17.9%. That signals better unit economics — each dollar of revenue keeps more after covering computing costs. Yet the bottom line tells a different story: total losses for the period hit US$358 million , as research and infrastructure spending devoured gains. Cash reserves of US$1.32 billion provide a runway , but at current burn rates, that cushion lasts roughly two years without fresh capital.
• The Stock Already Fell Before It Bounced
In the week after results dropped, shares initially fell 13% to HK$300 because revenue came in 2.9% below analyst expectations. Today's rebound suggests the market is now pricing in the August run-rate rather than the backward-looking miss. At roughly US$14 billion in market capitalization, MiniMax remains a fraction of OpenAI's ~US$500 billion — but it also has a fraction of the revenue and no path to near-term profit. Investors are buying a growth story, not earnings.