Renaming and reshaping the brand, and the strategic upgrade paid off: Zupan (09890) successfully turned a loss into a profit

2025 will undoubtedly be a landmark year for Zeppan (09890).

At the critical juncture of the 10th anniversary of its establishment, the company handed over an interim report card that attracted the attention of the market. According to the company's announcement, in the first half of 2025, the net profit turned a year-on-year loss into a profit, and the net profit reached RMB 650 million.

This turning point not only reflects the steady improvement and fundamentals of the company's business, but also means that its strategic layout is entering a period of full harvest.

The Zhitong Finance App learned that in the first half of 2025, Oban achieved operating income of 2,005 billion yuan and realized net profit of 650 million yuan, a significant improvement over the net loss of 385 million yuan in the same period last year. The strong growth in gaming performance is inseparable from the company's deep cultivation in the “AI+ Gaming” strategy, overseas expansion, strategic investment and brand strategy.

1. The AI+ game strategy is fully implemented to drive marketing and operation cost reduction and efficiency

Cofan has deeply integrated AI technology into the entire game distribution and operation link, improving systemic efficiency from marketing promotion to content production. Through the self-developed intelligent delivery system “Luoshu” and the intelligent analysis system “River Map”, the company achieved unified advertising multi-channel advertising and real-time traffic control, greatly improving delivery accuracy and resource utilization. At the same time, AIGC technology is widely used in automatic material generation, copywriting optimization and creative testing to quickly produce high-quality promotional content and significantly reduce labor and time costs.

AI applications are also extended to user operations and customer service, improving user retention and payment conversion through behavioral prediction and personalized recommendations, and further optimizing life cycle value (LTV). AI technology is penetrating from the marketing side to the R&D side, supporting the generation of art materials, gameplay testing and balance adjustments, and gradually realizing an intelligent transition in the R&D process. This series of “AI+ gaming” practices enables Gongwan to continuously improve operational efficiency and profitability while controlling marketing costs.

Therefore, through the comprehensive application of AI technology in core processes such as optimization of promotion strategies, generation of creative materials, and precise control of delivery, playtime not only maintains market competitiveness, but also significantly controls the scale of investment in marketing expenses. The changes in marketing revenue in the first half of the year essentially reflected the success of the company's strategic transformation. Using technology to replace resource accumulation, using intelligence to achieve lean operations, and ultimately achieved cost reduction and efficiency while guaranteeing results, laying a solid foundation for the company's healthy and sustainable growth.

2. Overseas markets have become high-profit growth engines, and localized distribution has achieved remarkable results

It is worth noting that the rapid expansion of overseas high-margin businesses has also become a new highlight of the company's performance growth. With the gradual saturation of the domestic market, game going overseas has become a general trend in the industry. Among them, playtime has shown outstanding performance in overseas distribution.

Compared to the domestic market, some overseas market users are more willing to pay and the competitive pattern is more diverse, so overseas businesses generally have higher operating margins. According to the Zhitong Finance App, during the period, many games released by the company overseas performed brilliantly, which not only brought revenue growth to the company, but also contributed high quality profits to the overall performance.

According to reports, “Hot Bloods: Homecoming” recently topped the iOS free list on the first day of its launch in Korea, won the double best-selling title in Thailand, and topped Vietnam's iOS free list. These achievements not only reflect the high adaptability of the game to overseas markets, but also highlight the increase in its global influence. As of the first half of 2025, ToPlay has successfully released and operated more than 30 multi-language products in Southeast Asia, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Europe, America, and the Middle East, and has established a deep market foundation.

As the overseas business layout continues to increase, related revenue is gradually increasing, driving the further improvement of overall profitability. In the long run, the overseas market will become a key support point for the sustainable growth of Zoufan, opening up a wider space for strategic growth for them.

3. Core game products have entered a mature period, and main business optimization promotes profit margins

Through accumulation and accumulation, ToFun has formed a number of product portfolios that have entered a mature stage. Today, these products not only have a stable flow and user base, but also have a long-term accumulated brand effect, showing greater efficiency in the user development process, reducing customer acquisition costs for new users, and becoming a key source for increasing the company's profit margin.

Many of its classic game products have entered a mature stage of operation, such as “Legend,” “Miracle MU,” and “Hot Blood River”, and other IP adaptations, which continue to contribute to stable traffic and user base. With the brand effect and user awareness accumulated over a long period of time, these products have significantly reduced the cost of acquiring new users and further freed up profit margins.

The rapid development of applet games is opening up a new growth curve for the company. In recent years, with changes in user entertainment habits and the maturity of the social platform ecosystem, applet games have become an important incremental market for the industry due to their “lightweight,” “easy to reach,” and “social fission” characteristics.

Fun actively promotes lightweight IP adaptation and multi-platform distribution, and has launched mini-program versions such as “Original Legends”, “Dragon Trail City”, and “National Jianghu” to achieve low-cost reach and social fragmentation through channels such as WeChat, Douyin, and Alipay, covering a wider range of users. At the same time, the company is also actively developing layouts in emerging categories such as casual, martial arts RPGs, and tower defense. The masterpiece “Little Soldier Battle” further enriches the product matrix, which not only extends the life cycle of classic IPs, but also covers the needs of a wider range of users. The continuous optimization of the game structure has enabled the company to show greater resilience in product life cycle management and user value mining.

4. Deepening strategic investment and cooperation to build a foundation for ecological collaboration

In addition to its main business, Cofan also enhances ecological collaboration and resource integration through financial asset investment and strategic cooperation. In the first half of the year, the fair value of shares held by the company in some listed companies rebounded, bringing positive contributions to profits. Cofan emphasized that the investment layout is still guided by strategic cooperation, focusing on deep collaboration with companies in the game industry chain, IP development, AI technology, etc., with the aim of strengthening their own R&D, distribution and operation capabilities.

IP is a game company's core asset. Fun not only develops independently, but also continues to expand its IP reserves through various methods such as investment and licensing cooperation. The company has now mastered more than 10 heavyweight IPs, including “The Eight Heavenly Dragons,” “The Divine Trilogy,” has reserved more than 20 games, and continues to expand the IP ecosystem and technology boundaries through investment and cooperation. It not only guarantees the company's ability to continue to launch new products in the next few years, but also ensures the continuation of brand popularity and players' attention, and provides a natural foundation for the company to expand its cross-border business.

Overall, the sharp reversal of Zoufan's performance in the first half of 2025 can be attributed to the synergy of four major pillars: technology-level AI cost reduction and efficiency, market-level overseas high-margin business growth, steady contributions from mature products at the product and operation levels, and a recovery in the value of financial assets at the capital level. These four different dimensions jointly drive the company to turn losses into profits, and also lay the foundation for long-term sustainable development in the future.

Multi-dimensional strategic collaboration, playful play ushered in a new stage of high-quality growth

Finally, while its performance and business continued to rise, the company officially announced that it would change its name from “Zhongxu Future” to “Fun”, which is deeply tied to brands already familiar to the market. The board of directors believes that this adjustment will help enhance the company's brand value and further expand the influence of “playful play” in the market.

For Tohan, which is on its 10th anniversary, this is not only an image unification, but also a strategic reshaping. By strengthening brand recognition, the company's competitiveness in domestic and foreign markets will be further enhanced.

Standing at a new starting point for the 10th anniversary, Zoufan has built a clear and sustainable growth model through the four dimensions of AI empowerment, overseas expansion, main business optimization, and strategic investment. The company not only successfully turned losses into profits, but also showed forward-looking brand renewal, technology integration and ecological layout. In the future, with the deepening of “AI+ gaming” applications, the continuous expansion of overseas markets, and the continuous maturity of the IP matrix, Playful is expected to gain more room for growth in global competition.