In mid-July, Century Huatong, the parent company of DianDian Interactive, released its earnings forecast for the first half of 2026. The announcement shows that the company expects first-half operating revenue of about RMB 22 billion, up approximately 28% year over year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company of RMB 4.3 billion to RMB 4.77 billion, up 61.87% to 79.57% year over year; and net profit attributable to shareholders after deducting non-recurring gains and losses of RMB 4.08 billion to RMB 4.55 billion, up 57.76% to 75.94% year over year.

Looking only at the performance data disclosed in the announcement, this is undoubtedly an impressive report card showing high growth. What is difficult to imagine is that just one year ago, Century Huatong, which had been placed under other risk warnings due to historical financial issues, was once labeled by the market as hovering on the edge of delisting. Today, the company has not only emerged from its operating trough, but its performance growth has also entered a new stage.

Behind this contrast in performance, the global product portfolio represented by DianDian Interactive's two ace products, Whiteout Survival and Kingshot, has become Century Huatong's most important growth engine.

From Revenue Expansion to Profit Release, the Business Transformation Enters the Harvest Period

From a longer-term perspective, since 2014, Century Huatong has undergone a long transformation from its main automotive parts business to digital entertainment, from expansion through the consolidation of game assets to growth led by global mobile games.

Century Huatong's transformation can be clearly divided into three stages through its financial changes over the years. In the early stage, when automotive parts were the main business, revenue growth did not steadily translate into profit. After game assets were gradually incorporated into the listed company, the high-gross-margin nature of the business began to change the profit structure. The consolidation of DianDian Interactive rapidly expanded the company's global gaming footprint, although in 2018 it was still reflected more in rising revenue scale.

The real turning point in operating performance came ten years later, in 2024, alongside the success of Whiteout Survival. According to DianDian Data, the game generated over US$7.61 million in estimated global revenue in its first month after launch, exceeded the US$50 million mark in October of the same year, and continued to climb after entering 2024.

The continued scaling of this product first accelerated the company's overseas business. In 2024, company revenue increased 70.27% year over year, net profit attributable to shareholders increased 131.51% year over year, and net profit attributable to shareholders after deducting non-recurring gains and losses increased 290.20% year over year. This became the key point at which its business transformation truly showed up on the profit side.

In 2025, as new titles such as Kingshot took over, company revenue rose to RMB 37.898 billion, and net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 5.605 billion. Mobile game revenue reached RMB 32.470 billion, accounting for 85.68% of total revenue, while overseas revenue reached RMB 22.219 billion, accounting for 58.63% of total revenue. Century Huatong's core identity further shifted toward that of a content company centered on global mobile games.

Century Huatong's core change in the first half of 2026 was not only continued revenue growth, but also the continued lead of profit growth over revenue growth. Based on the forecast range, the company's first-half net profit margin attributable to shareholders was about 19.5% to 21.7%, higher than the approximately 15.4% level in the same period of 2025.

In addition, based on the half-year forecast, net profit attributable to shareholders in Q2 is estimated at approximately RMB 2.273 billion to RMB 2.743 billion. Even at the lower end of the forecast range, it is higher than Q1, indicating that growth momentum did not quickly fall back after the New Year peak season. This further confirms that as revenue scale expanded, product structure and operating efficiency were also improving.

Kingshot Completes a Second Validation, Cementing Its Leading Position in the SLG Category

If financial data reflects the result of the transformation, then the product portfolio determines how long this round of growth can continue.

At present, Whiteout Survival remains one of the most important products supporting Century Huatong's overseas business. According to DianDian Data's Global Mobile Game Revenue Top 20 Ranking for June 2026, Whiteout Survival ranked second with estimated monthly revenue of more than US$141 million, equivalent to roughly RMB 960 million, and the data gap with the top-ranked Honor of Kings was not large.

Compared with its single-month revenue ranking, Whiteout Survival's long-term vitality is even more noteworthy. After the concentrated breakout in its early launch phase, its revenue did not decline significantly as the product entered maturity. Instead, it continued to rise through ongoing operations and remained at a high level over the long term. In June this year, driven by Children's Day-themed events, revenue approached the peak seen a year and a half earlier. Its user retention and lifecycle have clearly exceeded those of typical mobile game products.

For DianDian Interactive, and even for Century Huatong, the significance of Whiteout Survival lies more in the fact that it established for DianDian Interactive a globally validated model of light-gameplay user acquisition + long-term SLG monetization. On this basis, market testing, content R&D, advertising creatives, user-acquisition spending and global publishing were integrated into one process, becoming an important methodological source for subsequent product development and global operations.

The rapid rise of Kingshot is what validated this methodology. The product did not simply copy the former's snowy apocalypse theme. Instead, it used medieval survival as its setting and combined light gameplay such as tower defense and simulation management with SLG systems, continuing the underlying logic of light gameplay for user acquisition, heavier content for retention, and long-term operations for monetization.

According to DianDian Data's estimated daily revenue data for the two products in overseas markets, in the first half of 2026, Kingshot surpassed Whiteout Survival at multiple event time points, including the late-April Peach Blossom Festival, the late-May Children's Day event Fun Gathering, and the late-June Adventure Shop event.

The significance of this phased overtaking is not that Kingshot will replace Whiteout Survival, but that DianDian Interactive's overseas business is beginning to shift from relying on a single blockbuster to being jointly driven by two head products. For Century Huatong, compared with having one product alone shoulder long-term growth pressure, a two-ace structure can improve overseas revenue stability and, to some extent, reduce the risks caused by lifecycle fluctuations of a single product.

After being validated in overseas markets, the two products also returned to China one after another as Endless Winter and Benben Kingdom, further opening new channels and user-growth windows. Among them, the domestic publishing of Endless Winter has progressed smoothly. With the still relatively fresh light gameplay + SLG model at the time, combined with the channel dividend brought by the rapid expansion of WeChat mini games, the product quickly established a long-term leading advantage and converted the domestic market into an important incremental source supporting high global revenue.

According to DianDian Data, Endless Winter entered its first full month of domestic operation in June 2024, and domestic estimated revenue exceeded US$13.61 million that month, accounting for about 16.7% of the product's global revenue. In July of the same year, revenue from China further surpassed the United States, becoming its largest revenue source. By 2025, the domestic version's contribution to the product's global revenue had risen to 29.5%.

Benben Kingdom, however, failed to replicate its strong overseas performance as expected. Century Huatong's 2025 annual report only described it as performing well, with rankings steadily rising. After entering 2026, although the product once entered the top ten of the WeChat mini-game grossing chart during the Spring Festival and ranked among the leading domestic iOS SLG products, in terms of chart stability and market influence, it still had a certain gap compared with Endless Winter, which has long occupied a leading position.

This does not mean that the product model has failed. The more important reason is that the two products faced different market windows. When Benben Kingdom launched, products such as Endless Winter and Three Kingdoms: Ice Age had already occupied leading positions. Similar competitors had clearly increased, while user competition and UA competition had become more intense. At the same time, as a later entrant, it had to face both external competitors and the need to find differentiated space among Century Huatong's existing SLG users.

Judging only from current data, against the backdrop of increasingly intense competition in hybrid SLGs, the incremental efficiency that can be achieved merely through theme changes and migration of an existing framework is far weaker than before. The self-developed product High Seas Hero, which was described in the 2025 performance forecast as achieving steady growth, also saw its data decline in the second half of the year. Under these circumstances, Century Huatong is also trying to move beyond the basic SLG stronghold and begin expanding into different gameplay formats and user groups.

Casual New Titles and Classic IP Advance Together, Seeking New Growth Beyond SLG

The consecutive success of Whiteout Survival and Kingshot proves that DianDian Interactive has established a relatively mature SLG R&D and publishing system. But Benben Kingdom's relatively weaker performance after returning to China also shows that copying a mature product framework does not mean copying the same market window. This also means that if Century Huatong wants to convert a phase of high performance growth into more stable long-term growth, continuing to add SLG products alone is not enough. Against this backdrop, the performance of Tasty Travels: Merge Game has strategic significance beyond the product itself.

Unlike the two SLG products, Tasty Travels chose a lightweight route of merge + cooking + travel. The product lowers the understanding and operation threshold through merge gameplay, then builds mid-to-long-term goals through restaurant management, regional exploration and task progression, targeting a broader base of global casual users.

According to DianDian Data, Tasty Travels clearly entered a growth channel starting in the second half of 2025. In January 2026, driven by the Christmas-themed event Christmas Starlight and a card-collection event, the game's monthly revenue increased 32.8% month over month. In May, driven by the launch of a new summer-themed card album, estimated revenue exceeded US$23.62 million, setting a new record since launch.

Judging from recent performance, Tasty Travels is no longer merely a new product used to test the casual market, but is gradually becoming an important growth force in DianDian Interactive's product portfolio after the two core SLGs.

In addition to Tasty Travels, Truck Star has also begun to show certain growth potential. This product combines match-3 gameplay with truck repair, modification and collection. Instead of using the common home-renovation or manor themes, it attempts to cut into male casual users. Unlike the three leading products, its growth path was not a rapid breakout immediately after launch, but gradual scaling through continuous updates, creative testing and operational iteration. According to DianDian Data, the product reached a revenue peak in late January this year, driven by the continuous launch of new trucks, merge gameplay, limited-time modifications and holiday gift packs, with estimated monthly revenue exceeding US$8.35 million.

Around the casual track, the company has also deployed Family Farm Match, a match-3 product based on the classic Family Farm IP. The classic farm + match-3 elements have relatively high acceptance in European and U.S. markets, and the overall data trend is steadily rising.

Although the three products differ in exploration direction and development stage, they show that DianDian Interactive's casual-track layout has moved from single-product testing to a product portfolio covering multiple themes and multiple user groups.

Shifting to another line, Shengqu Games under the group is responsible for stabilizing the domestic base, revitalizing classic IPs and seeking opportunities in niche segments. Century Huatong's 2026 half-year earnings forecast explicitly mentioned that Shengqu Games focused on core IP operations, deeply explored the value of private-domain traffic, and implemented a product strategy of advancing PC and mobile games in parallel. Its operating results were significant and provided support for the group's overall performance.

In the first half of 2026, Shengqu Games successively launched Legend New Hundred Zones Heji - Mengzhong Divine Weapons, The World of Legend Wushuang, Uncharted Waters: Origin and the nostalgic version of Dragon Nest. In terms of subsequent pipeline, projects such as LaTale: Classic, Aion: Classic, Don't Starve: Newhome and the nostalgic version of MapleStory are also being advanced. They may not be able to replicate the growth slope of overseas SLGs, but mature IPs have lower recognition costs and a stronger foundation for user return, providing Century Huatong with a relatively stable domestic product base.

Overall, Century Huatong's two routes have not yet fully moved beyond reliance on core products and mature IPs, but they can diversify, to a certain extent, the risks brought by the lifecycle of a single SLG product. DianDian Interactive is responsible for raising the growth ceiling, while Shengqu Games provides a relatively stable product safety cushion. Together, they are helping Century Huatong build a more complete product portfolio step by step.

Conclusion

Looking back at Century Huatong's changes over the past few years, this round of growth is not an isolated performance rebound, but the result of a shift in business focus, the scaling of core products and improvements in operating efficiency. In 2024, the breakout of Whiteout Survival drove the company to an inflection point where both revenue and profit began accelerating together. In 2025, products such as Kingshot pushed growth into concentrated realization. Entering 2026, first-half revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders continued to maintain high growth, showing that this growth logic is still continuing.

Beyond game products, regarding its AI layout, Century Huatong mentioned in its 2025 annual report that over the past two years, through exploration and application of diversified AI technologies, it had not only significantly improved product R&D and operating efficiency, but also achieved a series of substantive results in AI testing and AI tool development. However, the 2026 half-year earnings forecast did not mention AI's contribution to performance growth, indicating that the most certain profit source at present remains the core game business.

Therefore, to judge whether Century Huatong's current growth can continue, the key areas to watch in the future remain the two main lines within its gaming business: whether DianDian Interactive's two core SLGs can continue to stay at a high level, and whether casual products such as Tasty Travels and Truck Star can complete the handoff; as well as whether Shengqu Games' classic IPs and pipeline titles can steadily contribute incremental growth.

At this stage, Century Huatong has clearly emerged from its trough and is entering the critical stage of whether growth can continue. Only when growth sources expand from a single star product to a richer set of track paths, creating a more solid product portfolio and a reusable industrialized product system, may the company open up longer-cycle growth potential.