瑞银：中国人工智能-语言模型服务 API：价格战有意义吗？

Investment Rating - The report assigns a "Buy" rating to major Chinese cloud service providers including Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, and Kingsoft Cloud, indicating a positive outlook for their stock performance [36]. Core Insights - The aggressive price cuts in LLM API services in China, initiated by companies like DeepSeek, have significantly reduced costs, making LLM services more accessible and driving competition in the market [2][3]. - The report highlights that while Chinese LLM API prices are approximately 5% of their US counterparts, the rapid decline in inference costs globally has made these services more affordable [2][5]. - The demand for AI services is expected to drive cloud revenue growth, with AI-related revenue contributing 10-20% to total revenue for both Chinese and US cloud vendors [5]. Summary by Sections Pricing Strategy - Chinese LLM leaders are employing a loss-leader pricing strategy to enhance user adoption and cross-sell opportunities, particularly to cloud service providers [3]. - The report notes that despite some companies achieving gross margins, many API services are priced at thin margins or losses, intensifying competition and leading to market consolidation [3]. Market Comparison - The report contrasts the pricing strategies of US and Chinese cloud vendors, noting that US companies have reduced API costs at a more moderate pace due to a mature cloud market and a focus on enterprise reliability [4]. - US vendors like OpenAI have implemented tiered monetization strategies, avoiding a full-scale price war while still reducing prices significantly [4]. Revenue Growth Expectations - The report anticipates that the increasing demand for AI applications will lead to accelerated cloud revenue growth, with major Chinese CSPs revising their revenue growth estimates upward for 2025 and 2026 [5][22]. - For instance, Alibaba's cloud revenue growth estimate was revised up by 8.3 percentage points post Q4 results, reflecting a positive trend in AI-related demand [22].