Brokerage firm sub-account commission rankings released! A wave of "small dark horse" stocks are soaring astonishingly

How does AI Huayuan Securities achieve a sevenfold increase in sub-branch commission fees?

Cailian Press, April 1st (Reporter Yan Jun Lin Jian)
Two years after the implementation of new regulations on fund trading fee management, the overall trend of declining brokerage commissions has shown clear improvement.

As the annual reports of fund companies for 2025 are disclosed, the revenue from brokerage sub-branch commissions has been revealed. Wind data shows that in 2025, the total income from brokerage sub-branch commissions reached 11.01B yuan, a slight increase from 10.99B yuan in 2024. Although far from the peak of 22.26B yuan in 2021, the industry as a whole has reversed its downward trend.

A wave of “dark horse” firms surged astonishingly, clearly the biggest highlight of this list. Among them, Huayuan Securities, Huafu Securities, and Eastmoney are the most eye-catching among small- and medium-sized brokerages. Huayuan Securities rose 34 places to 24th, Huafu Securities moved up 11 places to 22nd, and Eastmoney advanced 5 places to 29th.

It is even more difficult for leading brokerages to improve. Shenwan Hongyuan soared from 13th place in 2024 directly to 8th in 2025, a notable leap.

Some brokerages could not hold their positions. Among them, Guotou Securities experienced the deepest decline, down 48.96% year-on-year, dropping 7 places, barely maintaining a top-30 ranking. Debang Securities’ research business shrank even more significantly, with commission income falling by 81.23% in 2025, dropping from 32nd place in 2024 to 52nd in 2025.

From the market trading volume perspective, during the 2025 bull market, brokerage seat stock trading volume reached 30.16 trillion yuan, a 47% surge compared to 2024. However, increased trading did not translate into increased income, and brokerage sub-branch commissions have officially entered a low-profit era.

How do 5 brokerages with over 5 trillion yuan in commission income maintain their dominance?

The hot market has driven stock trading, with fund companies’ transactions on CITIC Securities and Guotai Huatong seat surpassing 2 trillion yuan in 2025. However, declining commissions have led to “more volume but less price” in brokerage sub-branch commissions.

Looking at the final income landscape, the top-tier camp still holds absolute dominance in sub-branch commissions in 2025. The top ten brokerages’ combined sub-branch commission income totaled 301.6k yuan, accounting for over half of all brokerages. Among them, CITIC Securities, Guotai Huatong, GF Securities, Changjiang Securities, and Huatai Securities all have sub-branch commissions exceeding 5 trillion yuan, forming the first echelon.

CITIC Securities remains the leader with a total commission of 750 million yuan, maintaining a clear lead with a slight decrease of 0.89% year-on-year. In a market dominated by existing players, it’s not easy for industry leaders to break through and grow. Guotai Huatong and GF Securities rank second and third with 668 million yuan and 660 million yuan respectively. Guotai Huatong, as a merged giant, saw its sub-branch commission income decrease by 11.34% year-on-year, while GF Securities narrowed the gap with a 1.82% increase.

Within the top ten, Huatai Securities and Industrial Securities each rose 2 and 3 places to fifth and sixth, with sub-branch commissions increasing by 19.58% and 21.86% respectively. Especially, Huatai Securities’ revenue of 50k yuan indicates an improvement in research services or institutional client coverage, posing a substantial threat to the fourth-place Changjiang Securities.

The dark horse Shenwan Hongyuan also made a leap from 13th in 2024 to 8th in 2025, with sub-branch commission income of 404 million yuan, a 37.37% increase year-on-year.

In the top ten, CITIC Construction Investment and Guolian Minsheng both declined in ranking. CITIC Construction Investment dropped from fifth to seventh, and Guolian Minsheng from sixth to ninth.

It is noteworthy that Guotai Huatong Securities and Guolian Minsheng Securities, due to the scale effect brought by mergers, rank high in sub-branch commissions, but both experienced year-on-year declines in 2025. Some believe this is related to recent regulations on public fund sales.

According to regulatory requirements, the maximum proportion of transaction commissions allocated to a single sales institution for public funds was sharply reduced from 30% to 15%. For the two merged brokerages, the commission shares originally belonging to two separate legal entities must be combined after integration, directly limited by the new cap of 15%, leading to a passive compression of commission income and short-term performance pressure.

Among ranks six to ten, Zheshang Securities maintained the tenth position, with a nearly 20% year-on-year growth in sub-branch commissions, with no change in ranking.

Huayuan, Huafu, and Eastmoney become “dark horses” in the top 30

If the top tier is characterized by consistent strength and tough defense, then ranks 10 to 30 are a “battle of rise and fall.”

Even in an industry with declining beta, some institutions can find their alpha. Huayuan Securities, Huafu Securities, Eastmoney, and Guojin Securities seized excellent opportunities to rise, becoming eye-catching “dark horses” in 2025’s sub-branch commissions.

In the first half of 2025, Huayuan Securities already showed signs of a breakout and became the biggest dark horse of the full-year list. Its commission income in 2025 increased 7.6 times year-on-year, jumping from 58th in 2024 to 24th, a 34-place leap.

In a market with stock of existing assets, how can such a surge of 764.89% be achieved? Huayuan Securities’ research business’s leap is a “rocket-like” breakthrough, reflecting a qualitative change in research strength. In a fiercely competitive brokerage research field, it has successfully carved out a niche and entered the mainstream institutional eye.

Huayuan’s approach is to shift from broad resource coverage to deep focus on new quality productivity, green and low-carbon sectors; to reconstruct research and service processes with AI, adopting a distinctive breakthrough route; to deeply penetrate vertical industry chains through specialized research; and to build a research + business ecosystem through group collaboration, providing differentiated services to institutional clients, and creating a barrier of versatile talent and specialized research.

The reporter has been closely observing Huayuan’s research. After more than two years of development, Huayuan Research Institute has achieved a leap from “resource input” to “value creation.” A relevant company executive once said, “If the development of commission business is like a marathon, Huayuan Research has run less than half of it.” Huayuan’s research positioning is very clear: focus on industry research, strengthen collaborative empowerment, and better serve the real economy.

Huafu Securities’ sub-branch commission income also performed remarkably, with a growth rate of 186.46%, rising 11 places to 22nd. Huafu’s strategy is “high-end talent + precise sales.” Supported by shareholders and led by Director Zhiqiang, they use star analysts to build a reputation and attract commissions, deepen research in industries, and build a moat. The six major centers are all focused on “new quality productivity,” each representing hot sectors.

Eastmoney’s sub-branch commission income rebounded after a sharp decline in 2024, with a 67.14% increase year-on-year, rising 5 places, moving from retail to institutional service transformation. This is closely related to the company’s major talent recruitment in recent years. In March last year, sell-side research veteran Chen Guo joined Eastmoney Securities as Deputy Director and Chief Strategist. Since then, talent recruitment has continued, and 2025 has taken on special significance for Eastmoney Securities’ research.

Guojin Securities also achieved a good performance in 2025, with a 37.23% increase in commission income, rising 5 places in just one year, standing out among veteran brokerages. Its development path is similar to Zheshang Securities, representing a renewal of old research institutes.

Guojin Securities clarified in 2021 that its business model is “driven by investment banking, research-led, based on wealth management, with a focus on securities asset management and institutional business, supplemented by proprietary trading and other businesses,” and its research institute has also launched a 3.0 reform.

Clearly, talent is a core competitive advantage for research institutes. Especially for brokerages that are actively expanding against the trend, a common point is aggressive talent recruitment.

Take Huayuan Securities as an example. Since its research institute was established in 2023 under the leadership of Director Liu Xiaoning, it has grown rapidly from “a blank sheet.” The team has expanded to 170 people. As a small brokerage at the start, attracting talent was undoubtedly difficult. Interestingly, the current Huayuan research team’s talent has also become a target for poaching.

Huojin’s talent recruitment has been ongoing since 2024, with several well-known analysts joining, and by the end of 2025, Liu Gaocang also joined, marking another milestone in talent expansion, with the team nearing 180 people.

Who is falling behind? The “pain” of commission reform persists

Under the dual background of declining commissions and industry salary cuts, some veteran brokerages experienced significant “blood loss” in 2025.

Among the top three in commission income, Guotou Securities suffered the deepest decline, down 48.96% year-on-year, dropping 7 places, barely maintaining a top-30 ranking. Since 2022, Guotou Securities’ commission income has been steadily declining; there have also been personnel losses, with over 10 analysts leaving in the past year.

Outside the top 30, Debang Securities’ research business shrank even more sharply. Its commission income in 2025 fell by 81.23%, dropping from 32nd in 2024 to 52nd in 2025. This downturn is also reflected in the number of analysts, which decreased from 28, 33, 56, to 46 between 2021 and 2024. Currently, the latest data from the China Securities Association shows only 8 analysts, including some serving internally.

Industry insiders speculate that the research strategies of these two brokerages may have changed. In the industry’s counter-cyclical environment, brokerages lacking core differentiated competitiveness are being caught up by latecomers.

Commission decline stabilizes, breakthroughs emerge

Since July 1, 2024, the new regulations on fund trading fee management have been implemented. After a year and a half, the reform of public fund fee rates continues to deepen. Against the backdrop of intensified industry competition and regulatory adjustments, the development of sell-side businesses and research institutes is undergoing profound changes.

Cailian Press’s statistics show that, so far, research institutes can be divided into four categories:

The first category includes well-established leading brokerages with strong comprehensive strength, such as CITIC Securities, Guotai Huatong, GF Securities, Huatai Securities, etc., with market concentration continuing to rise;

The second category comprises “dark horse” research institutes with solid research strength, mainly among small- and medium-sized brokerages, achieving significant commission income growth and notable ranking jumps, such as Huayuan Securities, Huafu Securities, AVIC Securities, Eastmoney Securities, etc. Huayuan Research’s sevenfold growth is particularly impressive;

The third category includes veteran research institutes restarting their new journey, such as Guojin Securities, Zheshang Securities, etc. Excluding data interference from mergers, Guojin Securities’ industry ranking jumped from 21st in 2024 to 16th, and Zheshang Securities remains in the top ten.

The fourth category features brokerages seeking steady progress, such as Changjiang Securities and Shenwan Hongyuan. Despite the addition of Guotai Junan and Haitong Securities, Guotai Huatong remains in the top five, and Shenwan Hongyuan jumped from 13th in 2024 into the top ten.

Additionally, many small- and medium-sized brokerages with smaller bases have also achieved significant growth, such as Beijing Securities, East Asia Qianhai Securities, Hualin Securities, etc.

In this process, it is evident that the brokerage research model is iterating and upgrading. Since the public fund sub-commission cake is shrinking, external service boundaries are expanding.

Some institutions point out that some broker research is expanding outward, breaking the single model focused on public funds and sub-commission sharing, extending clients to government and investment institutions, with think tanks and industry research becoming mainstream, replacing “one-size-fits-all” approaches; internally, brokerages emphasize transforming research results into core business assets like wealth management and asset management, while promoting integrated domestic and international research, with leading institutions strengthening cross-border cooperation.

Meanwhile, more research institutes are changing their research methods, moving beyond simple “call votes,” providing deeper industry research, expert meetings, and customized trading solutions. The rise of dark horses like Huafu and Huayuan is largely due to their deep cultivation in specific regions or niche industries.

Furthermore, the digital and intelligent construction of brokerage research is accelerating. While not yet directly increasing revenue, it has become a key focus in industry layout. Many brokerages are exploring AI applications, empowering cost control and talent development, and improving operational efficiency.

(Reporter Yan Jun, Cailian Press)