--- title: "Meitu's US$540M year and Miaoya's reported retreat: two paths for China's AI image tools" date: 2026-11-10 category: Generative Media site: NeuroAI canonical: https://neuroai.site/a/na-aigc-ai-image-design-china language: en --- # Meitu's US$540M year and Miaoya's reported retreat: two paths for China's AI image tools > Meitu (1357.HK) grew paid subscriptions to 16.9 million in 2025 by shipping AI agents, while Miaoya Camera (妙鸭相机), China's first consumer AIGC hit, was reported disbanded less than two years after its 9.9-yuan portrait craze. A phone app that removes a background in one tap now bills itself as a whole "AI team." A portrait tool that once topped app-store charts has, by most accounts, been reduced to a shadow of its 2023 self. Two Chinese image products took the same AI wave and ended up on opposite shores. ## Key takeaways - Meitu (1357.HK) reported 2025 revenue of 38.6亿元 (≈ US$540 million / HK$4.2 billion), with adjusted net profit of 9.65亿元 (≈ US$134 million), up 64.7% year on year. - Its imaging and design products earned 29.5亿元 (≈ US$411 million), 76.6% of total revenue; paid subscribers reached 16.91 million, up 34.1%, on 276 million global monthly active users. - Meitu's new "AI team (AI团队)" bundles several specialized agents and adds a Token-consumption billing model alongside subscriptions. - Miaoya Camera (妙鸭相机), launched July 2023 with a 9.9-yuan (≈ US$1.39 / HK$10.8) AI portrait, was reported disbanded in late September 2025; Alibaba's Hujing Wenyu (虎鲸文娱) did not confirm the report. ## Meitu's quiet compounding Meitu is the case study in turning a filter app into a durable business. The company, listed in Hong Kong, reported 2025 total revenue of 38.6亿元, up 28.8%, and adjusted net profit of 9.65亿元, up 64.7%. The engine is its imaging and design segment, which grew 41.6% to 29.5亿元 and now makes up more than three-quarters of revenue. Behind that number is a subscription base of 16.91 million paid users — up more than a third in a year — on a global audience of 276 million monthly actives, with overseas users passing 100 million. What is striking is the steadiness. Meitu Xiuxiu (美图秀秀) has led China's image-beautification category by user scale for ten years, and Meitu's apps appeared on a16z's global Top 50 GenAI mobile list. Beauty Camera (美颜相机) added over 23 million global users through an AI outfit-swap feature, and Wink passed 40 million monthly actives. None of this required a viral moment; it required showing up every month with a feature people paid for. ## The "AI team" shift Meitu's recent bet is structural, not cosmetic. Founder and CEO Wu Xinhong (吴欣鸿) described the company repositioning from a tool app toward an "AI team (AI团队)" — several role-specific agents that handle standardized, repetitive parts of a creative workflow so the user focuses on judgment. In e-commerce design, the company's Meitu Design Studio (美图设计室) uses agents to produce product image sets, and Meitu says the web version's e-commerce agent yields roughly one saved, usable result per two generations. The billing followed the product. Meitu moved from pure subscription to a hybrid that also charges for Token consumption — AI work measured by usage — so a heavy commercial user pays more without buying a bigger plan. For a company whose old business was "one app, one price," that is a meaningful unlock. ## Miaoya: a two-year cautionary tale Miaoya Camera (妙鸭相机) is the mirror image. It launched in July 2023 as a WeChat mini-program: upload twenty-plus photos, pay 9.9 yuan (≈ US$1.39 / HK$10.8), and receive a digital twin and a set of studio-style portraits. It was widely called China's first true consumer AIGC hit. At its peak, thousands queued (some reportedly waited twenty hours), daily actives passed 600,000, and it topped the App Store overall chart in August 2023. Then it faded. Founder Zhang Yueguang (张月光) left late in 2023 to start a new company. And in mid-2025, multiple outlets reported — citing people familiar with the matter — that the Miaoya team had been disbanded at the end of September 2025, leaving only minimal operations, with no further upgrades or promotion. Alibaba's Hujing Wenyu (虎鲸文娱), the unit tied to the project, did not respond to those reports, so the disbandment remains a well-sourced but unconfirmed account rather than an official announcement. ## Why one survived and the other stalled The difference was not model quality. Miaoya's portraits were good enough to scare offline studios. The difference was whether the capability was a product or a feature. Miaoya sold a one-time 9.9-yuan portrait with little reason to return; once competitors like Meitu Xiuxiu and the Doubao and Qwen (千问) apps bundled similar generation into apps with massive existing funnels, the standalone tool lost its reason to be opened. Meitu, by contrast, kept widening the workflow — editing, design, e-commerce, agents — so AI became the engine of a subscription people renewed. According to Li An, chief scientist at BrainNet (脑机网), the Miaoya case is the cleanest evidence that a single AI filter is a feature, not a product, the moment the platforms bolt the same capability into apps that already have a billion users. ## Honest limitations Meitu's financials are drawn from the company's 2025 results as reported by Xinhua, People's Daily, and securities press, and are company-disclosed rather than independently audited here. The "AI team," Token model, and Meitu Design Studio details come from those same reports and earnings commentary. The Miaoya narrative — launch, 9.9-yuan price, peak queues and actives, founder departure, and reported late-2025 disbandment — is reconstructed from trade and regional news outlets citing insiders; the disbandment in particular was not confirmed by Alibaba's Hujing Wenyu, so I have labeled it "reported." I have not verified current app-store availability or whether any minimal Miaoya service still operates. No first-hand product testing was performed. ## What readers can do now - **Judge AI image tools by retention features, not launch buzz.** Ask what the tool does for you weekly — if it is a one-shot novelty, expect it to be absorbed by a bigger app. - **If you run a store or a channel, pilot Meitu Design Studio-style agents** for product image sets, but track Token cost per usable image so the "agent" stays cheaper than a freelancer. - **Before using any AI portrait tool, check the data and refund terms.** Miaoya's early privacy and refund controversy is the reminder: read what happens to your uploaded photos and whether payment is refundable. --- Published by NeuroAI (https://neuroai.site/) — https://neuroai.site/a/na-aigc-ai-image-design-china Free to quote with attribution and a link to the original.