KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

When you look at KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE), how does a single integrated online and offline platform manage a quarterly Gross Transaction Value (GTV) of over RMB736.7 billion (US$103.5 billion) in Q3 2025? This real estate giant, which leverages a vast network of 471,501 active agents and its Beike platform, is rapidly diversifying its revenue streams to reduce cyclical risk, with home rental services alone surging 45.3% year-over-year in that same quarter. Understanding this strategic pivot from core transaction commissions to high-growth, recurring services is defintely key to valuing the company's future, so let's break down the history, mission, and mechanics behind a business that is actively repurchasing shares, spending US$281 million in Q3 alone.

KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) History

You need to understand the history of KE Holdings Inc. to grasp its current market position; it's a story of evolving from a local, traditional brokerage to a vast, integrated technology platform. The company's foundation is not its 2018 incorporation, but the 2001 launch of its core brokerage, Lianjia, which pioneered standardization in China's fragmented real estate market.

This long-term view is why, even with a flat Gross Transaction Value (GTV) of RMB736.7 billion in the third quarter of 2025, the platform's long-term infrastructure play still matters.

Given Company's Founding Timeline

Year established

KE Holdings Inc. was officially incorporated in July 2018 in the Cayman Islands as the holding company. However, its operational roots trace back to the founding of its core real estate brokerage brand, Lianjia, in November 2001.

Original location

The company's operations began in Beijing, China, which remains its headquarters.

Founding team members

The company was founded by Zuo Hui, Peng Yongdong, and Shan Yigang. Following Zuo Hui's passing in 2021, Peng Yongdong assumed the role of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Initial capital/funding

While early financial backing came from major investors like Tencent, SoftBank Group, and Hillhouse Investment, the most significant capital event was the August 2020 Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which raised US$2.12 billion.

Given Company's Evolution Milestones

Given Company's Transformative Moments

The company's trajectory has been shaped by three major shifts, moving it from a brokerage to a comprehensive housing service provider. Honestly, these moments define their current strategy.

• The Platform Pivot (2018): Launching Beike and the Agent Cooperation Network (ACN) was the biggest change. It transformed Lianjia from a closed, proprietary brokerage into an open, collaborative platform for the entire industry. This move allowed the company to scale its active stores to 59,012 and active agents to 471,501 by Q3 2025.
• The Founder's Death and Succession (2021): Founder Zuo Hui's unexpected death in May 2021 was a critical test of governance. His family's trust subsequently granted proxy voting rights to a partnership controlled by Peng Yongdong and Shan Yigang, ensuring leadership continuity and eliminating market uncertainty over the company's decision-making ability.
• The Housing Service Expansion (2022): The acquisition of Shengdu Home Decoration for RMB3.92 billion was a defintely transformative step away from being purely a transaction platform. It created a new, high-growth segment-Home Renovation and Furnishing-which is crucial for diversifying revenue as the core real estate market matures. This shift is why you should be Exploring KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Here's the quick math on their current state: while net income dropped 36.1% year-over-year in Q3 2025 to RMB747 million, the growth in active agents and stores shows the underlying platform network is still expanding its reach, even if market volume is challenging.

KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) Ownership Structure

KE Holdings Inc. operates under a dual-class share structure, meaning that while the majority of shares trade publicly, the co-founders and insiders retain control through superior voting rights. This setup is defintely a key factor in understanding the company's strategic direction, so you need to look beyond just the float percentage.

KE Holdings Inc.'s Current Status

The company is a publicly traded entity, listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker BEKE and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX: 2423). This dual listing gives them access to significant global capital, but still subjects them to rigorous regulatory oversight in two major jurisdictions. For the third quarter of 2025 alone, KE Holdings Inc. reported net revenues of approximately US$3.2 billion, showing the scale of the operation you are analyzing.

KE Holdings Inc.'s Ownership Breakdown

As of late 2025, the ownership is a mix of global institutions, the founding team, and a large public float. The institutional stake has been volatile, but it remains a powerful influence. Here's the quick math on who holds the equity:

What this estimate hides is the voting power distribution. The co-founders collectively control the company because their Class B shares carry significantly more voting weight than the Class A shares held by public and institutional investors. Tencent Holdings, an early investor, also holds a notable stake, sharing approximately 8% of the total voting power.

KE Holdings Inc.'s Leadership

The company is steered by an experienced management team, with an average tenure of over three years, which is long in the fast-moving tech sector. The leadership is focused on navigating the complex Chinese real estate market, particularly leveraging their platform model, which you can read more about in their Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE).

The core leadership, as of November 2025, includes:

• Yongdong Peng: Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He has been an Executive Director since December 2018.
• Tao Xu: Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Executive Director. He manages the financial health, which is critical given the RMB 55.7 billion in cash and investments on the balance sheet.
• Wangang Xu: Executive Vice Chairman.
• Yigang Shan: Co-Founder and Executive Director, deeply involved in the strategic foundation laid by the company's predecessor, Lianjia.

Though the founder, Hui Zuo, passed away, he is still recognized as the Permanent Chairman Emeritus, and his vision continues to shape the company's strategy. The current team must balance this founder-led legacy with the demands of a public, dual-listed company.

KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) Mission and Values

KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) anchors its operations on a straightforward, customer-centric mission: 'admirable service, joyful living.' This focus on service quality and consumer experience is the cultural foundation that drives its platform growth, even as the company manages significant financial fluctuations like the 36.1% decrease in net income to RMB747 million in Q3 2025.

Given Company's Core Purpose

The company's core purpose moves beyond simply facilitating transactions; it aims to revolutionize the entire housing ecosystem in China. This commitment to improving industry infrastructure is what allows for a massive scale, supporting over 59,012 active stores and a significant year-over-year increase of 25.9% in active stores as of Q3 2025.

Official mission statement

The formal mission statement is concise, powerful, and empathetic, which is rare in large-scale real estate tech (PropTech) firms. It sets a clear expectation for service providers on the platform and for the ultimate consumer outcome.

• 'admirable service, joyful living.'
• The mission is about elevating the status of China's housing-related industry and helping service providers gain dignity.
• It reflects a commitment to long-term value creation, choosing to do the right thing even if it is defintely difficult.

The mission is the business model. You can read more about how this translates to strategy here: Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE).

Vision statement

KE Holdings Inc.'s vision statement is ambitious, mapping its future scale directly to the market's vast potential. It's a huge goal, but one that is being built on a platform that reported RMB23.1 billion in net revenue in the third quarter of 2025.

• 'providing comprehensive and trusted housing services to 300 million families.'
• The secondary goal is to 'be the most reliable and efficient platform for home transactions and services.'
• This vision requires continuous improvement in service efficiency, which the company pursues through technological innovation, like integrating AI capabilities into core business scenarios.

Here's the quick math: reaching 300 million families means capturing a significant majority of the total Chinese household population, making the vision a true market-dominance play.

Given Company slogan/tagline

While the company doesn't use a separate, short-form tagline, its core values-the cultural DNA-act as the practical, everyday operating slogan for its agents. These values guide the platform's community of service providers, which grew its active agent count by 11.4% year-over-year in Q3 2025.

• Customer First: Prioritizing the homeowner's or renter's experience above all else.
• Honest and Reliable: Building the trust (xinlai) necessary to standardize a historically fragmented industry.
• Win-Win Cooperation: Fostering a collaborative environment on the Beike platform (the integrated online and offline platform) that benefits all brokerage firms and agents.
• Striving Beyond Better: Committing to continuous improvement, which is essential in a dynamic market where Gross Transaction Value (GTV) can remain flat, as it did at RMB736.7 billion in Q3 2025.

What this estimate hides is that the 45.3% jump in home rental service revenue to RMB5.7 billion shows where the company's 'striving beyond better' value is translating into real, diversified business growth.

KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) How It Works

KE Holdings Inc. operates as China's largest integrated online and offline platform for housing transactions and services, essentially acting as a comprehensive ecosystem for the entire property lifecycle. It connects consumers, real estate agents, and service providers through its technology infrastructure, allowing it to generate revenue from brokerage commissions, rentals, and home improvement services.

KE Holdings Inc.'s Product/Service Portfolio

The company's value creation stems from four primary business segments, diversifying its revenue away from being solely dependent on property sales, which is defintely a smart move in a cyclical market.

KE Holdings Inc.'s Operational Framework

The company's operations are built on a powerful online-offline (O&O) model, where the digital platform, Beike, enhances the efficiency of its physical network of agents and stores. This hybrid approach is what drives their execution.

• Agent Cooperation Network (ACN): This proprietary system is like a Multiple Listing Service (MLS) but with a sophisticated set of rules for collaboration and compensation among agents and brokerage brands. It ensures data quality and incentivizes agents to cooperate on transactions, which boosts efficiency.
• AI-Driven Efficiency: AI is deeply integrated into core processes. For instance, in home rental services, AI-powered tools are used for housing condition assessment and intelligent pricing, which helped the business achieve profitability and drove the conversion ratio of its Carefree Rent business opportunities up by more than 2 percentage points year-over-year in Q3 2025.
• Operational Specialization: The company is piloting a 'buyer-seller agent specialization' mechanism in major cities like Shanghai. This divides the agent's role, letting sell-side agents focus purely on marketing and listing, which is a structural change aimed at improving service quality and transaction velocity.
• Supply Chain Integration: For the Home Renovation segment, value is created through centralized procurement and standardized on-site management, which reduces procurement costs and enhances construction quality. This is how they maintain a healthy contribution margin, which was 32% in Q3 2025 for this segment.

Here's the quick math: with 59,012 active stores and 471,501 active agents on the platform as of September 30, 2025, the scale of their network is a massive operational asset.

KE Holdings Inc.'s Strategic Advantages

KE Holdings Inc. has built a strong economic moat (a sustainable competitive advantage) by leveraging its data and network effects, which are hard for competitors to replicate.

• Unparalleled Scale and Network Effect: The sheer size of the Agent Cooperation Network (ACN) creates a flywheel effect. More agents join for the high-quality listings and cooperation rules, which attracts more consumers, which in turn attracts more agents. This makes the platform the essential infrastructure for China's housing market.
• Diversified Revenue Streams: They've successfully expanded beyond core brokerage. Non-housing transaction services accounted for 41% of total revenues in Q2 2025, significantly reducing the risk from a volatile property transaction market.
• Data and Technology Moat: The platform is data-driven, using proprietary housing data and transaction records to provide better valuation, pricing, and matching services than traditional brokerages. This technology focus is why they are actively driving AI integration across all business scenarios.
• Financial Strength for Reinvestment: Despite a challenging market, the company reported total cash and investments of approximately US$7.8 billion as of September 30, 2025, which allows for continued investment in technology and strategic share repurchases, with US$281 million spent on repurchases in Q3 2025 alone.

If you want a deeper dive into the ownership structure behind this platform, you should be Exploring KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why? Exploring KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) How It Makes Money

KE Holdings Inc., which operates the Beike platform, makes money by acting as the central hub for China's massive housing ecosystem, primarily through commissions from real estate transactions and, increasingly, from complementary services like home renovation and rentals.

The core of their revenue engine is a hybrid online-offline model that monetizes every stage of the property lifecycle, from finding a new home to renting it out and remodeling it. This diversification is key to weathering the cyclical nature of the real estate transaction market.

KE Holdings Inc.'s Revenue Breakdown

Looking at the third quarter of 2025, the revenue mix clearly shows the company's shift toward a more diversified model, with New Home and Home Rental services gaining prominence as the existing home market faces headwinds. Total net revenues for Q3 2025 were RMB 23.1 billion (approximately US$3.2 billion).

Business Economics

The economics of KE Holdings are defined by the interplay between its self-owned brokerage (Lianjia) and its open platform for connected agents (Deyou), which directly impacts how they recognize revenue-a crucial detail for analysts.

• Dual Commission Structure: Revenue from the proprietary Lianjia brand is recorded on a gross commission basis, meaning they book the full commission fee. Revenue from transactions facilitated by connected agents on the Beike platform is recorded on a net basis, primarily as platform service fees.
• Platform Monetization vs. GTV: In Q3 2025, Existing Home Gross Transaction Value (GTV) actually increased by 5.8% year-over-year to RMB 505.6 billion, but the segment's net revenue declined by 3.6%. This divergence happens because a higher proportion of transactions shifted to the connected agent model, where the company records lower net service fees instead of higher gross commissions.
• High-Growth, High-Efficiency Segment: The Home Rental Services segment, particularly the 'Carefree Rent' model, is showing significant operating leverage. Its contribution margin rose by 4.3 percentage points year-over-year to 8.7% in Q3 2025, largely driven by AI integration and scale. The total number of rental units under management now exceeds 660,000.
• Cost Optimization: The company is aggressively streamlining costs in its New Home business, achieving a reduction of over 40% in relevant fixed labor costs compared to the peak in late 2024. That's a serious efficiency gain.

KE Holdings Inc.'s Financial Performance

While revenue is growing modestly, the company's profitability is under pressure due to the changing revenue mix and a challenging real estate market. This is a classic structural risk you need to watch.

• Profitability Decline: GAAP Net Income for Q3 2025 fell by 36.1% year-over-year to RMB 747 million (US$105 million), while Adjusted Net Income dropped 27.8% to RMB 1.29 billion (US$181 million). This is largely due to the declining contribution from the higher-margin existing and new home transaction services.
• Margin Compression: The overall Gross Margin for Q3 2025 decreased by 1.3 percentage points year-over-year to 21.4%. The lower contribution from the traditionally higher-margin transaction services is the main culprit here.
• Liquidity and Capital Allocation: KE Holdings maintains a strong balance sheet, with cash and equivalents totaling approximately RMB 55.7 billion (US$7.8 billion) as of September 30, 2025. [cite: 5 in first search] This strong cash position supports its commitment to shareholder returns; the company repurchased approximately US$281 million of shares in Q3 2025 alone. [cite: 5 in first search]
• The AI Factor: The company is heavily investing in AI integration, which is already contributing over RMB 100 million in profit in the home rental segment in Q3 2025, proving technology is defintely a profit center, not just a cost.

For a deeper dive into the market's reaction to these figures, you should read Exploring KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) Market Position & Future Outlook

KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) is the dominant integrated online and offline platform for housing transactions in China, maintaining its lead by aggressively expanding its non-transaction services like home renovation and rentals while the core property market faces macro headwinds. The company's strategy is a clear pivot from being a pure brokerage to a full-lifecycle housing service provider, a move that is defintely paying off in market share gains even as overall property sales volume remains challenged.

Competitive Landscape

In China's vast and fragmented residential brokerage market, KE Holdings Inc. leverages its Agent Cooperation Network (ACN) and proprietary data infrastructure to maintain a significant lead in market concentration. The nearest competitors are traditional brokerages and a multitude of smaller, regional players.

Opportunities & Challenges

The company is strategically diversifying its revenue streams, which is crucial for navigating the prolonged downturn in the new home sales segment, but this expansion also introduces new execution and margin risks.

Industry Position

KE Holdings Inc. is positioned as the clear market leader in China's residential housing services sector, a position reinforced by its massive scale and technological moat. Its integrated online-offline platform, the Beike platform, is its core competitive advantage (moat).

The company's full-year 2024 net revenues reached RMB 93.5 billion (US$12.8 billion), demonstrating its scale even amid a difficult market. This revenue base is supported by an enormous network:

• Number of stores stood at 56,849 as of March 31, 2025, an increase of 28.6% year-over-year.
• The active agent count was 490,862 as of March 31, 2025.

The focus on non-transaction services is translating into real revenue diversification, with non-housing transaction services revenue growing by 64.2% year-over-year in 2024, accounting for 33.8% of total net revenues. This shift makes the company more resilient than traditional, transaction-only brokerages. For a deeper dive into the institutional confidence behind these numbers, you should consider Exploring KE Holdings Inc. (BEKE) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?