36Kr Holdings Inc. (KRKR): Marketing Mix Analysis [Dec-2025 Updated]

Honestly, when you look at 36Kr Holdings Inc. right now, you see a media company making a hard pivot, and their marketing mix tells the whole story. After years watching this space, I can tell you their strategy isn't just about getting clicks anymore; it's about selling efficiency, especially with their AI push-think of their Doubao AI agent helping nearly 1,000 companies. This shift is showing up in their numbers: a 54.4% gross margin in H1 2025 and a net loss slashed by 95%, all while they push content to 36.6 million followers across platforms like Douyin and WeChat. You need to see how their Product, Place, Promotion, and Price are locked in to support this new, leaner model, so dive into the details below.

36Kr Holdings Inc. (KRKR) - Marketing Mix: Product

You're looking to map out what 36Kr Holdings Inc. actually sells to its New Economy participants. The product element here isn't just articles; it's a layered offering built around content, data intelligence, and enterprise solutions. Honestly, the focus has clearly shifted toward higher-margin, recurring revenue streams, even if advertising still brings in the bulk of the top line.

The foundation remains high-quality, New Economy-focused content. This includes reports on companies and industries, market updates, editorials, and commentaries, delivered through diverse channels. By the end of the first half of 2025, the total number of followers for 36Kr Holdings Inc. reached 36.6 million, marking a 9.9% increase from the 33.3 million followers recorded on June 30, 2024. This content ecosystem also heavily features multimedia assets.

• Original video and audio content for technology, consumer, retail, healthcare, media and entertainment, and enterprise services industries.
• Video followers specifically exceeded 9.52 million at the close of the first half of 2025.

Online advertising services remain a major revenue driver, though we see a slight contraction in H1 2025 compared to the prior year, likely due to strategic refinement. This service leverages the significant traffic generated by their content base. Here's the quick math on the revenue breakdown for the first half of 2025:

Enterprise value-added services are designed to address the upgrading needs of traditional companies and the evolving needs of New Economy participants. These offerings encompass integrated marketing, advertisement agent services, online/offline events, and consulting services. Revenue for this segment was RMB 12.2 million in the first half of 2025, down from RMB 13.4 million year-over-year, as the company proactively refined its service offerings to focus on margin improvement.

The push for recurring revenue is evident in the subscription services. The flagship offering is the 36Kr corporate Omni Intelligence. This service targets investors in the secondary market by providing AI-powered daily sentiment analysis reports for public companies. The system currently covers over 7,800 public companies listed in Mainland China and Hong Kong. As of the first half of 2025, the service had 4,220 paying subscribers, part of a cumulative user base of 25,000. Subscription services revenue was RMB 6.4 million in H1 2025.

Technological application is a key product differentiator, particularly with AI-powered tools. 36Kr Holdings Inc. launched its Doubao AI agent as the exclusive technology and finance media partner for Doubao, achieving a consistent 10% weekly increase in user interaction following its debut (though some reports cite a 20% weekly user interaction rate). Furthermore, their AI capabilities extend to enterprise applications; to date, AI meeting coverage has been deployed for nearly 1,000 companies, highlighting their latest initiatives or fundraising ventures. What this estimate hides is the exact revenue contribution from these new AI tools, though they are central to the company's efficiency gains.

To be fair, the product strategy is clearly about bundling these elements. You get the content, which drives the audience for the advertising, and then you upsell that audience into the higher-value, data-driven enterprise and subscription services. Finance: draft the Q3 2025 revenue breakdown by service line by next Tuesday.

36Kr Holdings Inc. (KRKR) - Marketing Mix: Place

You're looking at how 36Kr Holdings Inc. gets its content and services into the hands of its audience, which is all about distribution channels in late 2025. The core of their Place strategy is digital-first, which makes sense given their focus on the New Economy participants.

Core online platform and proprietary mobile applications form the foundation. The company maintains its flagship channels, 36Kr and 36Kr Pro, as central hubs for its content ecosystem. This digital infrastructure supports the delivery of diverse content formats, including original video and audio content across technology, consumer, retail, healthcare, media and entertainment, and enterprise services industries. Furthermore, new digital product distribution includes AI tools like the 'AI Media Coverage' platform, which generated 993 AI-driven reports in the first half of 2025, and '36Kr Corporate Omni-Intelligence,' engaging 25,000 users in total by June 2025.

Digital distribution is defintely the primary channel for their 36.6 million followers. As of June 2025, 36Kr Holdings Inc. reported over 36.57 million followers, representing a 9.9% year-over-year increase and marking the 17th consecutive quarter of growth in this metric. This scale is built upon a comprehensive circulation network across major Chinese new media platforms.

The reach across these third-party platforms shows significant traction:

• WeChat Channels followers surged by 69% year-over-year as of the first half of 2025.
• Followers of the 'Waves' official account expanded by 44% year-over-year in terms of short video reach.
• Video content on platforms like Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Bei Chat channels, and DDT garnered over 10 million views for specific live streaming content.

This omnichannel approach ensures content is available where the New Economy participants are already active. The company also actively cultivated content-specific accounts, enriching its metrics across specialized domains.

The Place strategy isn't purely digital, though. Offline presence through integrated marketing events and co-organized projects provides high-visibility touchpoints. For instance, the 'WAVES' IP and the 2025 AI Partner Summit each achieved over 100 million views. Additionally, 36Kr served as a Special Supporting Media partner for the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in July 2025, offering full-spectrum content coverage.

Distribution of business services relies on strategic partnership channels for corporate global expansion services and advertising. The online advertising revenue stream is supported by stable partnerships with leading clients. Here is a snapshot of the key partners enabling this distribution of advertising inventory and services:

The company's distribution of enterprise value-added services, which includes integrated marketing and consulting, is directly tied to the traffic and brand influence generated across these digital and event channels. The focus on high-margin businesses, like enterprise value-added services, was a strategic refinement, even though its revenue was RMB 12.2 million in the first half of 2025, down from RMB 13.4 million in the same period last year, as the company refined its service offering for margin improvement.

36Kr Holdings Inc. (KRKR) - Marketing Mix: Promotion

You're looking at how 36Kr Holdings Inc. communicates its value proposition across its New Economy ecosystem as of late 2025. The promotion strategy centers on digital dominance and leveraging new technology narratives, which directly impacts their service revenue streams.

Content-driven marketing is the foundation for expanding brand influence in the New Economy sector. This is evidenced by the consistent growth in their audience base across multiple platforms. As of June 30, 2025, 36Kr Holdings Inc. had over 36.57 million total followers, marking the 17th consecutive quarter of growth in this metric. This overall audience growth of 9.9% year-over-year (from 33.3 million as of June 30, 2024) shows sustained brand relevance.

The short-video strategy is aggressive and yielding measurable results. Our video followers exceeded 9.52 million at the end of the first half of 2025. This focus on visual media is clearly working across channels; for instance, WeChat Channels followers surged by 69% year-over-year, and followers of the "Waves" official account expanded by 44% year-over-year. To give you a sense of content impact, "WAVES" and the 2025 AI Partner Summit each achieved over 100 million views. Furthermore, in the first half of 2025, 339 articles from their Visual Accounts alone achieved over 100,000 page views.

Leveraging AI product launches for media visibility is a key tactic for user acquisition and narrative control. The company's focus on AI is translating directly into advertising revenue growth; advertising revenue from AI/large-model offerings expanded by over 50% year-over-year in H1 2025. 36Kr Holdings Inc. served as a Special Supporting Media partner at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in July 2025, which opened new avenues for commercialization by offering full-spectrum content coverage. This integration of technology into their promotional narrative is a core part of their strategy to achieve a commercialization closed loop from content empowerment to product implementation.

Direct sales and relationship management support the high-value enterprise value-added services, though this segment saw a slight revenue contraction in H1 2025. The revenues from enterprise value-added services were RMB12.2 million (US$1.7 million) in the first half of 2025, compared to RMB13.4 million in the same period of 2024. The sales and marketing expenses for H1 2025 were CNY 29.4 million, which represented a decrease of 35.1% from CNY 45.4 million in H1 2024, suggesting a shift toward more efficient, perhaps relationship-driven, promotion over broad spending. Stable partnerships with leading clients including Alibaba, ByteDance, JD.com, Huawei, and Lenovo underpin the advertising revenue base.

Here's a quick look at the key audience and expense metrics related to promotion for H1 2025:

The company is clearly prioritizing high-engagement, high-visibility content channels, especially those related to AI, while simultaneously cutting overall sales and marketing spend.

36Kr Holdings Inc. (KRKR) - Marketing Mix: Price

36Kr Holdings Inc. employs a pricing structure that supports a diversified revenue model across its service lines, reflecting a strategic pivot toward profitability.

The revenue streams contributing to the pricing strategy for the six months ended June 30, 2025, are detailed below:

Enterprise services utilize a value-based pricing approach, which generated revenues of CNY 12.2 million for the first half of 2025. This revenue stream saw a decrease from RMB 13.4 million in the prior year period, attributed to the proactive refinement of service offerings aimed at margin improvement.

Subscription revenue, reflecting a shift in the training services business model, amounted to CNY 6.4 million in H1 2025, down from RMB 8.6 million in H1 2024.

The overall pricing and cost management strategy has demonstrably impacted the bottom line, optimizing for profitability:

• Gross margin reached 54.4% in the six months ended June 30, 2025, a 10 percentage point increase from 44.4% in the same period of 2024.
• Net loss narrowed by 95%, moving from RMB 95.9 million in H1 2024 to RMB 4.8 million in H1 2025.

This focus on profitable pricing structures is evident in the gross profit, which increased to RMB 50.7 million in H1 2025 from RMB 45.5 million in H1 2024.