MiniMax revenue surges 283% but remains behind pace to meet forecast amid crowded AI race

Chinese AI company MiniMax reported a staggering 283% increase in first-half revenue to $116.6 million in its latest earnings, driven by a massive 700% rise in its enterprise business. However, top-line growth still falls short of meeting analysts' expectations for the full year. The $116.6 million in revenue accounts for about 32% of the $363.77 million analysts forecast for 2026.

Analysts estimate MiniMax's full-year revenue for 2025 at $79 million. The enterprise segment, which includes MiniMax's Open Platform and other AI-based services, grew over 700% year-over-year to $73.9 million, making up 63.4% of total revenue. This growth is attributed to an increase in paying users and enterprise customers. Other AI-native products also doubled in revenue.

While the company's total loss narrowed by 11% to $358 million, adjusted net loss expanded by 111.2% to $293 million, compared to last year. Net profit from gross profit, which grew more than five-fold to $20.8 million, increased to 17.9% from 12.1% a year earlier. MiniMax is known for its M-series LLMs, its H3 video-generation model, and popular consumer apps like Hailuo AI.

The company recently announced that its annual recurring revenue reached $300 million in May, doubling from February. Both MiniMax and Beijing-based Zhipu AI, China's first publicly traded LLM developer, have seen their valuations surge after their IPOs in January, but now trade at a fraction of their peaks. MiniMax's shares have fallen about 77% from their all-time high of HK$1,330 in March.

The company's founder and CEO, Yan Junjie, has pledged to forego his salary until the company achieves artificial general intelligence to boost morale. MiniMax faces fierce competition from other Chinese AI model developers and major US AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI. The upcoming M3.1 model could be a crucial test for MiniMax's LLM's relevance on the capability-cost frontier.