Major client renewal rate at 96%, initial signs of operating leverage—Six signals from Minglue Technology's 2025 annual report

Ask AI · How does a 96% renewal rate among major customers reflect a transition in the AI services business model?

When analyzing a company’s annual report, year-over-year revenue growth is often the easiest figure to spot—and also the one most likely to be misread.

Especially for technology companies in the professional services category, revenue growth is only a surface-level indicator. Changes in gross margin, customer mix, renewal quality, and operating leverage are the metrics that truly reveal a company’s operational health and long-term competitiveness.

From this perspective, the FY2025 annual report just released by Minglue Technology (2718.HK) reveals at least six signals worth paying attention to.

Signal One: Gross profit growth is three times revenue growth

In FY2025, Minglue Technology achieved operating revenue of RMB 1.426 billion, up 3.2% year over year; gross profit reached RMB 790 million, up 10.8%.

Gross profit growth of 10.8% is more than triple revenue growth of 3.2%. This ratio points to an important structural change: the company’s efficiency at making money is currently outpacing the speed at which it is expanding its scale.

In the professional services industry, the phenomenon of “gross profit growth significantly exceeding revenue growth” is usually explained by two possibilities: either the share of higher value-added businesses in the revenue mix is increasing, or systemic improvements in delivery efficiency are reducing unit delivery costs— or both happening at the same time.

Minglue Technology’s situation in 2025 is a combination of both: its newly introduced Agentic Services business segment (with first-year revenue exceeding RMB 100 million) brought higher gross profit contribution, while AI-driven internal efficiency improvements lowered the marginal cost of existing businesses. These two lines jointly drive a structural improvement in gross margin.

Signal Two: 96% renewal rate among major customers

A 96% renewal rate among major customers is one of the most easily overlooked—but potentially most important—indicators of operating quality in this annual report.

In B2B professional services, the renewal rate is the most direct thermometer for how well customer value is delivered. It answers the core question: after customers have used the service for a full year, do they believe it is worth paying for again?

A 96% renewal rate means that among more than 2,100 brand customer accounts and 240,000 enterprise users, an overwhelming majority choose to renew. This number is not only a reflection of customer satisfaction—it is also an endorsement that customers have “received quantifiable value.” In a context where macro budgets are being compressed and enterprises are growing increasingly cautious when purchasing professional services, this renewal rate is especially worth noting.

According to an IAB “2026 Outlook” survey, among the top six priority areas that ad buyers care about most, five are directly related to AI. Against the broader industry trend of shifting toward “quantifiable results,” service providers that can sustain a 96% renewal rate imply that they have already built sufficient customer trust in this new competitive dimension of “results that can be verified.”

Signal Three: Operating leverage is starting to show

In 2025, after adjustments, Minglue Technology’s operating profit jumped from RMB 5.8 million in 2024 to RMB 24.98 million, an increase of about 330%; operating losses narrowed sharply from RMB 132 million to RMB 15.72 million.

Revenue grew only 3.2%, while operating profit grew by 330%—this is a hallmark signal that operating leverage has begun to form.

Operating leverage, put simply, means: when fixed costs remain basically unchanged, marginal revenue growth leads to a larger percentage growth in profit. For professional services firms, operating leverage is typically minimal under traditional models—because labor costs increase linearly with scale, which limits expansion in profit margins.

But once AI takes on some of the work that previously had to be completed by human resources, the rate at which fixed costs expand starts to fall below the revenue growth rate—only then can operating leverage take shape. Minglue Technology’s financial data for 2025 is an early signal that this mechanism is beginning to take effect.

Signal Four: Double-line growth in the data intelligence foundation

The Data Intelligence segment generated revenue of RMB 1.26 billion. As the core foundation built over more than 19 years of accumulation, it continues to maintain steady growth.

There are two parallel clues driving growth in this segment:

First is the iterative upgrade of session intelligence products. After functional optimization, the product better meets customers’ needs for real-time data access; together with the continuous expansion of sales channels, related revenue increased significantly.

Second is the expansion of the intelligent store operations system into more scenarios. Continuous strengthening of underlying AI capabilities, combined with a further expansion of covered application scenarios, drove revenue growth for this product line.

This “stable core base plus exploration of new businesses” dual-track structure reflects a company’s operational maturity: existing business provides cash flow and market recognition, while incremental business explores new ceilings. Relying on the DeepMiner platform, both segments form a positive feedback loop between data accumulation and business growth.

Signal Five: Substantive upgrade in customer mix

The annual report shows that among newly added major customers, more than 30% come from the Agentic Services segment. Behind this proportion is a substantive shift in how customers make purchasing decisions.

Traditionally, brand enterprises purchase data intelligence services mainly to obtain “insights”: understanding the market, understanding competitors, and understanding consumers. These services are, in essence, information products, and customers pay for information.

Meanwhile, Agentic Services means customers are purchasing “results”: how much marketing effectiveness improves, how much operating costs decrease, and how much content output efficiency increases—these services are, in essence, performance products, and customers pay for outcomes.

From “buying information” to “buying results,” this is not only a change in product form, but also a reshaping of the relationship between customers and service providers—both sides move from a transaction relationship to a community of shared interests. The depth of this relationship typically leads to higher customer stickiness, longer partnership cycles, and higher renewal rates. A 96% renewal rate among major customers closely aligns with this logic.

Signal Six: Strategic confidence—transitioning from a listed company to an operating entity

In November 2025, Minglue Technology officially listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (2718.HK), becoming the “world’s first Agentic AI stock” in the Hong Kong market. On its first day of trading, the stock rose by more than 106%, and its market value surpassed HKD 40 billion.

Listing is not only a financing event—it is a public expression of strategic confidence. In a backdrop where competition in the AI industry is becoming increasingly intense and customers’ expectations for AI delivery outcomes continue to rise, choosing this timing window to enter the capital market, and centering the narrative on “world’s first Agentic AI stock,” suggests that the company has very high confidence in the long-term viability of the Agentic Services business model.

From Agentic Services revenue of more than RMB 100 million in 2025, to a 96% renewal rate among major customers, to the turnaround of adjusted net profit into profit—through to 2026’s clearly defined core mission focusing on scaling Agentic Services— the core message conveyed by this annual report is: the new business model has completed the 0-to-1 validation phase, and the next step is scaling replication from 1 to N.

For investors and industry researchers observing this company, the significance of the FY2025 annual report may not lie in the 3.2% revenue growth rate itself, but in the structural changes revealed behind gross margin, renewal rate, operating leverage, and the share of new business.