AI Business虎嗅

Chinese Users Have No Habit of Paying: Will It Sink Domestic Large Models?

虎嗅Oct 14, 20261 min read

AI Summary

Epoch AI and CLSA reports show China's six leading AI firms earn about 10% of OpenAI and Anthropic's combined revenue, yet their overseas API call volume has surpassed US peers. The author argues that China's AI can carve out a differentiated niche, supported by low power costs, security-driven enterprise and government demand, despite weak consumer willingness to pay.

AI Insights

China's leading AI firms earn roughly 10% of OpenAI and Anthropic's combined revenue, yet they dominate overseas API token volume, suggesting a strategy built on low-cost compute, cheap electricity, and price-driven adoption rather than consumer subscriptions. The real moat may lie in enterprise and government markets where data sovereignty and security requirements favor domestic vendors, making vertical, deployment-focused models a more durable source of revenue than general-purpose chatbots.

Analysis written by AI from the original article. Check it against the source.

Translated text

Paid conversion among Chinese AI users is 3% to 13%, compared with 15% to 40% in North America. When ByteDance's Doubao introduced paid subscriptions, 96.7% of the 91,000 Weibo voters opposed it. MiniMax's AI-native apps had a gross margin of just 4.7%, while its open platform and enterprise services reached 69.4%. China generated about 10,573 TWh of electricity in 2025 versus about 4,536 TWh in the US, with most new capacity coming from renewables. The US faces aging grids and transformer shortages that constrain data center power. Chinese model prices are roughly 80% below US peers, yet usage reportedly rose 67-fold after price cuts, an example of Jevons paradox. Enterprise and government customers prioritize data residency, private deployment and control, which favors domestic vendors in regulated sectors. The author argues China's AI revenue is at an early stage, with B2B and government markets likely to become the main source of income.

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