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Meitu
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China’s struggling selfie king Meitu finally has a profitable year

  • Beauty filter app maker Meitu reports full-year profit for the first time after going public in Hong Kong in 2016, driven by growth in membership subscriptions
  • Meitu has ventured into smartphones, e-commerce and social networking, and is now investing in cryptocurrencies

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Chinese star Angelababy poses with a Meitu-branded smartphone on April 8 , 2015. Photo: Simon Song
Xinmei Shen

Meitu, the maker of one of China’s most popular selfie apps, has struggled for years to make money despite various attempts to diversify its business, but on Thursday, the Hong Kong-listed company posted its first full-year profit since it went public in 2016, driven in part by soaring membership subscriptions.

The Xiamen-based company reported a net profit of 60.9 million yuan (US$9.3 million), with revenue growing 22.1 per cent year on year to 1.19 billion yuan in 2020.

It marks a major turnaround for the long-struggling company, which reported a net loss of 190 million yuan in 2019.

Meitu, which means “beautiful pictures” in Chinese, creates apps that let users remove blemishes, enlarge their eyes, slim their faces and bodies, and put on virtual make-up in their photos.

Two models take a selfie with a Meitu smartphone during the company’s initial public offering press conference in Admiralty, Hong Kong, on December 16, 2016. Photo: Dickson Lee
Two models take a selfie with a Meitu smartphone during the company’s initial public offering press conference in Admiralty, Hong Kong, on December 16, 2016. Photo: Dickson Lee
The firm’s flagship app, also called Meitu, has been a huge contributor to China’s selfie culture since its release in 2008. It also briefly became a hit in the US in 2017 after comedian Stephen Colbert, Captain Marvel actress Brie Larson and other celebrities shared their heavily-edited Meitu makeovers on social media.
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