Rankings serve as a barometer for industrial development and a wind vane for the changes of the times. Recently, the "026 Top 30 National Cultural Enterprises" and "2026 Top 30 National Growth Cultural Enterprises" lists were officially released. As an authoritative window for observing development of China's cultural enterprises, this list is not only an honorary showcase of the year's outstanding cultural enterprises, but also a powerful manifestation of the optimization of industrial structure the innovation of development logic.
Currently, China's cultural enterprises have bid farewell to the extensive development stage of single-scale expansion. In the multi-dimensional development of stateowned and private, traditional and emerging, eastern and western, stock and incremental, and domestic and international, they have formed a pattern of upholding integrity and innovation, as well as symbiosis, laying a solid foundation for the high-quality development of China's cultural industry.

State-owned and private enterprises synergistically coexist, constructing the basic plate of industry. This edition of the "Top 30" list continues the pattern of state-owned cultural enterprises as the main force and private cultural enterprises as the new vanguard. More 20 state-owned and state-controlled enterprises firmly hold the dominant position, while several private enterprises take root in new business format tracks, forming a virtuous ecosystem of "stateowned enterprises consolidating the foundation and private enterprises accelerating growth." State-owned enterprises are "stable" and private enterprises are "fast," each with its own division of labor and complementing each. Relying on their deep content accumulation, complete channel systems, and social responsibility, state-owned cultural enterprises have become the ballast stone of industrial development. For example, Xinhuaxuan has been included in the list for several consecutive years, achieving steady growth in revenue and net profit in 2025; Changjiang Publishing and Media has become one the very few state-owned publishing enterprises in China to achieve growth in both revenue and profit, demonstrating the operational resilience of traditional state-owned cultural enterprises. Private cultural enterprises, on other hand, have achieved accelerated growth relying on their flexible market mechanisms and strong innovation capabilities. Pop Mart, a representative of private cultural and creative enterprises, saw its revenue climb sharply in2025, with the proportion of overseas revenue continuing to rise, achieving breakthrough growth in the American market and pushing Chinese trend toy culture to the world. Mixed-reform enterprises such as Mango Excellent Media and iFLYTEK deeply align with the national cultural digitalization strategy, using market-oriented innovation to make up for the shortcomings of traditional industries. The symbiosis model, where state-owned enterprises lead the direction and private enterprises create vitality, is becoming increasingly mature.

The deep integration of traditional and emerging sectors is stimulating new drivers for industrial growth. A key manifestation the current transformation in the cultural industry is the integration and coexistence of old and new business formats. Traditional publishing and broadcasting industries are no longer clinging to existing market tracks, but are breaking development bottlenecks through digital, networked, and intelligent transformations. Major leading publishing and media enterprises are accelerating their layouts in digital content, knowledge services, and smart education businesses, with the share of digital businesses continuously increasing; broadcasting enterprises are relying on 5G and AI technologies to transform and upgrade into smart broadcasting, enriching cultural benefit-the-people and public service, and revitalizing the value of traditional resources. This business transformation is not a simple replacement of the "old" by the "new", but a reconstruction of "integration" andinterconnection".
Emerging cultural business formats have become an important growth engine for the industry. The average growth rates of core operating and R&D investment indicators for the "Top30 Growth Enterprises" in this edition have all reached new highs. Continuous high-intensity technological investment has enabled the rapid development of new formats such as AI creation, digital cultural creativity short drama overseas expansion, and immersive cultural tourism. Enterprises such as Wuhan Ligong Digital Communication and Chongqing Dawa Hezhi Image, relying on technological innovation, have built entirely new production and dissemination systems, attracting a massive number of users through digital and intelligent content creativity. New cultural formats such as AI large models, micro-short dramas, and domestic animation games evolved from "greenhouse bonsai" to "outdoor landscapes". The deep integration of technology and culture is driving the entire industry to break out of the old development framework and achieve iterative upgrades
The regional development gap is narrowing, breaking the old pattern of unbalanced development. For a long time, China's cultural industry has exhibited a characteristic of eastern concentration. Beijing,, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao region, leveraging their advantages in talent, capital, and markets, have continuously led the national cultural innovation and, concentrating most of the leading cultural enterprises, and always remaining at the forefront of the industry in R&D investment and business format innovation. However, this edition's list clearly the late-mover advantage of the cultural industry in central and western China, with the regional development gap continuing to narrow. Chengdu Coco Bean Animation has entered the national top 30 the first time, winning high global box office with "Ne Zha: Demon Child's Sea Havoc", setting a global record for Asian animated films, and becoming a benchmark content creation enterprises in the west. At the same time, enterprises from Chongqing, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Yunnan, and other regions have been included in the growth list. Enterprises such Yushang Hemei and Guangxi Shanhai Xingchen Media, based on local characteristic cultural resources and combining technology and cultural tourism integration models, are transforming the existing cultural in the west into industrial increments. A synergistic development pattern of innovation empowerment in the east and characteristic breakthroughs in the west is gradually emerging.
The conversion of old and new drivers to deepen, and the industry is moving towards value growth. The stratified performance of the list intuitively reflects the driver conversion of the cultural industry. The growth rate of traditional tracks is slowing, and industry differentiation is intensifying. Enterprises that cling to traditional models are experiencing weak growth, while those that actively transform and deeply cultivate innovation are steadily improving their quality. Emerging tracks, on the dual drivers of creativity and technology, are experiencing explosive growth. Behind this differentiation is a shift in the logic of industrial development: Chinese cultural enterprises are bidding farewell to the model of resource-driven and scale-expansion, and fully shifting towards high-quality development driven by creativity and value creation. Whether it is the steady quality improvement of leading enterprises or rapid growth of growth-oriented enterprises, investment in innovation, deep cultivation of content, and model upgrades have become a consensus
International competition is accelerating the breakthrough, and cultural expansion abroad is opening a new chapter. Comparing the development paths of the cultural in China and the United States, enterprises in the two countries exhibit completely different growth logics. U.S. cultural giants maintain their monopoly advantage by relying on a mature full-chain industry and a global distribution network, while Chinese cultural enterprises, based on their domestic market advantages, have explored diversified paths for going global. Cultural enterprises such as Tencent Technology and Perfect World are deeply cultivating the export of digital content, with domestic games, animated works, and online literature continuously capturing the global market. The communication of Chinese culture is shifting from a single content to co-creation and sharing with the global market. Of course, we must clearly recognize that domestic leading cultural enterprises still have a gap compared to top international giants in terms of global influence and full-chain operation capabilities. Chinese enterprises still need to accelerate the upgrade from product export to brand export and ecosystem export.
Observing the rankings reveals the general trend, examining the changes clarifies the direction. At present, the structural transformation of China's cultural industry is essentially a deep integration of cultural value and market value, traditional heritage and modern, and domestic cultivation and global expansion. In the future, technology empowerment will continue to reconstruct the entire chain of cultural production, communication, and consumption, becoming the core driving force for upgrading; high-quality content and premium IPs will always be the core competitiveness of cultural enterprises and the foundation for the long-term development of the industry; the trends of market stratification enterprise specialization will become increasingly apparent, with platform-type leaders and specialized enterprises in vertical fields each playing to their strengths; the global layout of culture will continue to deepen, global will enter a new stage, and the international influence of Chinese culture will steadily increase.
This annual ranking is a vivid microcosm of the structural transformation of China's cultural industry, us a new picture of a more dynamic, resilient, and open Chinese cultural industry. Looking to the future, Chinese cultural enterprises need to adhere to their original intention of content, deeply technological innovation, and persist in integrity-based innovation, continuously consolidating the foundation for the development of the cultural industry, and injecting lasting momentum into promoting the construction of a strong cultural nation enhancing the soft power of Chinese culture.