Executive Summary / Key Takeaways

• Kanzhun Limited ($BZ), operating BOSS Zhipin, is solidifying its position as a leading online recruitment platform in China through a mobile-first, AI-driven strategy that enhances user experience and operational efficiency.
• The company demonstrates robust financial performance, with Q2 2025 revenue reaching RMB 2.1 billion, a 9.7% year-on-year increase, and net income surging 70.4% year-on-year to RMB 710 million, reflecting expanding profitability and strong operating leverage.
• Strategic expansion into blue-collar and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segments, coupled with significant AI integration across its platform, is driving user growth and market share, with average verified monthly active users (MAU) reaching 63.56 million in Q2 2025.
• Kanzhun is committed to shareholder returns, having adopted an annual dividend policy of USD 80 million for fiscal year 2025 and initiating a new USD 250 million share repurchase program, backed by a strong cash position of RMB 16.0 billion.
• While macroeconomic uncertainties and the challenge of AI-generated content pollution present risks, the company's positive outlook for reaccelerated revenue growth and a RMB 3 billion non-GAAP operating profit target for 2025 underscores its confidence in its differentiated technology and market strategy.

The AI-Driven Evolution of China's Recruitment Landscape

Kanzhun Limited, through its flagship BOSS Zhipin platform, has emerged as a transformative force in China's online recruitment industry. Founded in 2013, the company pioneered a highly interactive, mobile-first approach, fundamentally reshaping how job seekers and employers connect. This strategy, centered on direct communication and intelligent recommendations, has been particularly effective in penetrating challenging segments such as blue-collar workers, lower-tier cities, and micro and small enterprises (SMEs), which are now significant growth drivers for the platform.

The core of Kanzhun's differentiation lies in its advanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. The company has made substantial investments in AI infrastructure, including over RMB 1 billion in chips since 2023 for self-drive research and small-scale inference. Its proprietary Nanbeige model and the deployment of DeepSeek-R1 underpin a suite of AI-powered features designed to enhance efficiency and user experience across the platform.

For job seekers, AI-powered question-based search and an AI interview training robot, now available to students and young professionals with up to three years of experience, provide tailored guidance and improve understanding of user behaviors. AI-assisted user search offers explanations for results, dynamic content summaries, and job search strategy planning, leading to more mutual achievements. On the enterprise side, AI agents like HAMR enable recruiters to complete the majority of their work through dialogue, with experimental groups seeing a 25% increase in achievement efficiency under the same amount of conversations and bosses saving over 40% of their time. AI also assists in optimizing job postings for tens of thousands of positions daily, particularly for startups and junior HR. Internally, AI has revolutionized operations, with 30% of coding at the Beijing headquarters and 70% in a newly established R&D department now AI-generated, significantly accelerating product iteration and launch speeds. Furthermore, AI has improved audit efficiency for security reviews by 30% and plays a crucial role in customer service training, quality inspection, and emotion recognition. These technological advancements collectively form a robust competitive moat, driving operational cost reductions, enhancing user satisfaction, and strengthening Kanzhun's market positioning.

In the competitive Chinese online recruitment market, Kanzhun stands out as a leading innovator. While established players like 51job (JOBS) and Zhaopin maintain broad market reach and strong enterprise networks, and global platforms like LinkedIn offer extensive professional networking, Kanzhun's mobile-first, AI-centric approach provides a distinct advantage. Its technological agility and deep understanding of local market nuances allow for more effective matching and user engagement, particularly in the rapidly expanding blue-collar and SME segments. The company's strategy in the blue-collar market, for instance, focuses on "returning the truth to this job position" by controlling salary ranges, aiming to build a long-term, trustworthy ecosystem that differentiates it from platforms prioritizing short-term gains. While the current generation of AI has not fundamentally disrupted the competitive landscape, the open-source nature of models like DeepSeek 671B has leveled the playing field, enabling middle-sized internet companies to achieve similar AI capabilities, pushing the focus towards innovative AI applications and agents.

Operational Momentum and Expanding Market Reach

Kanzhun's strategic focus on user growth and market penetration has translated into impressive operational metrics. From January to July 2025, the company cumulatively added over 30 million verified new users. The average verified monthly active users (MAU) on the BOSS Zhipin app reached 63.56 million in the second quarter of 2025, marking a 16.5% year-on-year increase. This robust user expansion is a testament to the platform's powerful two-sided network effects and its ability to attract and retain a diverse user base.

The company's efforts to expand into blue-collar and lower-tier city markets are yielding significant results. In Q1 2025, blue-collar new users accounted for over 45% of total users, driving their revenue contribution to more than 39%. This trend continued into Q2 2025, with blue-collar revenue contributions further increasing. The manufacturing sector, despite short-term tariff impacts, resumed year-on-year growth from May 2025, outpacing other industries. The urban service sector also experienced accelerated year-on-year growth in Q2 2025. Furthermore, the recovery in recruitment demand from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been particularly pronounced, with companies having fewer than 20 employees seeing their revenue contribution rise to almost 20% in Q2 2025, representing the highest growth rate among all company types. This is a critical development, as SMEs constitute the majority of enterprises in China and are a primary source of new enterprise users for Kanzhun.

The total number of paid enterprise customers reached 6.5 million in the twelve months ended June 30, 2025, a 10% increase year-on-year. This growth, coupled with a stable and modest increase in average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) driven by key accounts, highlights the effectiveness of Kanzhun's monetization strategy. The Internet industry also showed a noticeable recovery in Q2 2025, with active job openings reaching a new high since 2021, led by product and technical roles.

Financial Strength and Shareholder Returns

Kanzhun's operational successes are clearly reflected in its strong financial performance and expanding profitability. For the second quarter of 2025, the company reported total revenue of RMB 2.1 billion, a 9.7% increase year-on-year. Net income reached RMB 710 million, surging 70.4% year-on-year, and achieving a net profit margin exceeding 33%. Excluding share-based compensation expenses and other income, adjusted operating profit was RMB 880 million, up 33% year-on-year, with a record-high adjusted operating margin of 41.9%.

The company's focus on cost control and operational efficiency, significantly aided by AI integration, has been instrumental in driving margin expansion. Share-based compensation expenses decreased for the second consecutive quarter in Q2 2025, amounting to RMB 230 million, with its ratio to revenue narrowing by approximately 5 percentage points year-on-year. Sales and marketing expenses decreased by 23% year-on-year to RMB 420 million in Q2 2025, primarily due to reduced advertising and marketing expenses, while still maintaining robust user growth through strong brand recognition and network effects. Research and development (R&D) expenses also decreased by 6% year-on-year to RMB 416 million, mainly due to reduced public cloud service fees related to AI. This disciplined approach to cost management, combined with steady revenue growth, underscores the inherent operating leverage of Kanzhun's marketplace model.

Kanzhun maintains a robust liquidity position, with net cash provided by operating activities reaching RMB 1.052 billion in Q2 2025, marking two consecutive quarters of over RMB 1 billion in operating cash flow. As of June 30, 2025, the company held a strong cash position of RMB 16.0 billion. This financial strength provides significant flexibility for future growth initiatives and, importantly, for enhanced shareholder returns.

In July 2025, Kanzhun completed a Hong Kong secondary share offering, raising approximately HKD 2.2 billion, primarily to boost liquidity in the Hong Kong market and broaden its shareholder base. Further demonstrating its commitment to shareholders, the Board of Directors approved an annual dividend policy in August 2025, declaring a dividend of USD 80 million for the fiscal year 2025. Concurrently, the company launched a new share repurchase program, authorizing the repurchase of up to USD 250 million of its shares over the next 12 months. The combined value of these shareholder return initiatives exceeds the proceeds from the Hong Kong offering, signaling strong management confidence and a proactive approach to capital allocation.

Outlook and Risks

Kanzhun's management maintains a positive outlook, anticipating a reacceleration of revenue growth starting in Q3 2025, driven by the continued recovery of the recruitment market. For Q3 2025, the company expects total revenues to be between RMB 2.13 billion and RMB 2.16 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 11.4% to 13%. The full-year 2025 non-GAAP operating profit target is set at RMB 3 billion, a 30% increase from RMB 2.3 billion in 2024. User growth is projected to remain strong, with a target of over 35 million new users for 2025. Management expects gross margins to remain flat or improve slightly, with overall operating margins expanding further due to continued sales efficiency improvements and capped marketing spending.

Despite the optimistic outlook, potential risks warrant consideration. The proliferation of AI-generated content, with over 200 million AI-generated resumes and 40 million AI-generated job descriptions on the platform, poses a challenge in maintaining content authenticity and matching quality. Kanzhun is actively addressing this through AI-powered risk identification, but it remains a "long-term and challenging task." Macroeconomic uncertainties, while having a "limited" impact on the overall supply and demand relationship for job seeking, could still influence enterprise hiring sentiment. Furthermore, a widening job seeker-to-recruiter ratio, as observed in Q3 2024, could temporarily affect enterprise users' willingness to pay, potentially slowing the growth of the company's paying ratio. The company's disciplined approach to overseas expansion, not investing heavily without clear certainty, mitigates immediate international market risks.

Conclusion

Kanzhun Limited stands as a compelling investment opportunity, leveraging its AI-powered platform to capture significant growth in China's dynamic online recruitment market. The company's strategic focus on blue-collar and SME segments, coupled with its relentless pursuit of AI innovation, provides a strong competitive edge and drives robust user expansion. Its consistent financial performance, marked by expanding profitability and strong cash generation, underscores the effectiveness of its business model and disciplined cost management.

The commitment to substantial shareholder returns through dividends and share repurchases further enhances its investment appeal. While challenges such as AI content pollution and macroeconomic fluctuations persist, Kanzhun's proactive strategic responses, technological leadership, and clear growth targets position it favorably for sustained long-term value creation. The company's ability to continuously enhance its platform through AI, expand its market reach, and deliver on its financial commitments makes it a noteworthy contender in the evolving digital economy.