管理層發言
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Autohome's Second Quarter and Interim 2026 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. A live and archived webcast of today's call will be available on Autohome's IR website. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Sterling Song, Autohome's IR Director. Mr. Song, please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Autohome's Second Quarter and Interim 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Earlier today, Autohome distributed its earnings release, which can be found on the company's IR website at ir.autohome.com.cn. Joining me on today's call is our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Craig Yan Zeng. Management will go through the prepared remarks first, which will be followed by a Q&A session where they will be available to answer all your questions. Before we begin, please note that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in our public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Autohome undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable laws. Please also note that Autohome's earnings press release and today's conference call include discussions of certain unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release. I will now turn the call over to Autohome's CFO, Mr. Craig Yan Zeng, for opening remarks. Mr. Zeng, please go ahead.
Thank you, Sterling. Hello, everyone. This is Craig Zeng, Chief Financial Officer of Autohome. Thank you for joining our earnings conference call today. In the second quarter, our innovative business continued to make steady progress, driving Autohome's upgrade towards a comprehensive automotive service ecosystem. For our new retail business with the authorized dealer model in pilot operation and expanding into more cities, we launched the offline franchised chain brand, Autohome Good Car, further expanding our offline service network. In addition, our global expansion into used car trading is advancing steadily. Our cross-border export platform completed its first transaction in July, providing valuable experience to further expand our service capabilities. We also made major strides in AI, particularly in cutting-edge AI agent technologies. In early July, we unveiled our proprietary intelligent agent product, Cheese Car Butler, and opened it for public beta as the automotive industry's first stand-alone agent product.
It represents not only a pioneering exploration of intelligent applications, but also a key milestone in enriching our product portfolio and establishing a differentiated competitive edge for us. Specifically, in the second quarter, we made solid progress across content offerings, product capabilities and traffic alliances. On content, in May, we launched our annual IP, China Intelligent Manufacturing Exploration Plan, jointly created with the News and Publicity Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Six episodes will be released throughout the year, covering exciting technological trends, including the low-altitude industry, intelligent cockpits, intelligent driving and embodied AI. The premiere episode focused on flying cars, combining immersive visits to the front lines of intelligent manufacturing with a fresh, innovative user-oriented storytelling perspective to make cutting-edge technologies more relatable and engaging for younger users.
This series also marks our first major content initiative following Autohome's brand refresh. After its launch, the program sparked lively discussion on social media, was covered by over 20 leading media outlets and generated over 70 million views across various platforms. On the product side, we launched our intelligent driving channel, which systematically profiles the intelligent driving capabilities of nearly 200 mainstream models and provides easy comparisons to help users understand differences across models and choose cars efficiently. In addition, we continue to advance collaboration across our multi-platform multi-scenario traffic ecosystem. A notable example was our partnership with Alipay in June, under which our mini program became the exclusive provider of comprehensive automotive services for Alipay's auto live channel, offering differentiated content to match the varied needs of first-time buyers, repeat buyers and those upgrading their vehicles.
According to QuestMobile, in June, our daily active users steadily increased year-over-year, reaching 76.5 million. In the New Energy Vehicle sector, in late April, we launched a pilot online car purchase model in Shenzhen and Xi'an in partnership with authorized dealers. Under this model, local partners and dealerships posted competitive pricing on the mall, enabling consumers to select the vehicle and place deposits online and then complete the contract signing and take delivery offline. During this pilot period, over 400 dealers joined across these two cities, offering more than 1,000 models and over 1,000 transactions were completed within 70 days, receiving positive feedback from both our dealer partners and users. Based on the experience gained from the pilot cities in the second quarter, we replicated this model to three additional cities, Suzhou, Jinan and Shijiazhuang, steadily broadening our network coverage in Northern and Eastern China.
At the same time, to address the service gap in low-tier cities, we launched our offline franchise chain brand, Autohome Good Car, at the end of June with a focus on the underserved low-tier cities. Through precise traffic redirection and standardized operating and management systems and a streamlined resource support system, we help dealerships in low-tier cities achieve scalable growth. At present, over 100 franchise stores have joined Autohome Good Car. Going forward, the Autohome APP will remain the core of our online customer acquisition efforts while offline, Autohome Good Car franchisees and authorized dealer stores will handle vehicle delivery. Through standardized services, we aim to support users throughout the entire vehicle life cycle from vehicle discovery and selection to purchase and ownership. In AI and models powered by Autohome's proprietary large language model, we launched Cheese Car Butler, our intelligent agent product for the automotive vertical.
The agent leverages our core assets accumulated in the automotive field, including our professional content, product database, MCN ecosystem and offline service network to provide users with a broad range of services, including multidimensional vehicle comparison, vehicle purchase guidance and maintenance services, establishing a unique differentiated competitive advantage. Currently, Cheese Car Butler is available to users and has entered the feedback collection phase with the initial market response being positive. In the future, we will continue to enhance the underlying model capabilities, optimize the product's interactive experience and gradually integrate more offline service resources to steadily improve the product value and service quality. In the used car business, we continue to develop both our core domestic and overseas platforms. For our full process used car sales service platform, we continue to improve service quality through greater standardization.
Recently, we completed an upgrade and integration of our vehicle inspection system, expanding the number of inspection items from 128 to 265, including 82 newly added assessments specifically designed for new energy vehicles, further improving the accuracy and reliability of our inspection reports. For our cross-border used car export service platform, we formally obtained the official export qualifications during the second quarter. We also established an online multilingual international website and an offline fulfillment network with business leads spanning over 100 countries. In early July, we successfully completed the first used car export order on our platform, making a breakthrough from 0 to 1 for our business. In the next phase, we will focus on three key areas: high-quality vehicle supplies upstream, expanding overseas customer acquisition downstream and improving platform operational efficiency.
All of this supports our all-out effort to create a new one-stop channel for used car exports. In summary, since the beginning of the year, we achieved meaningful progress across all businesses. While steadily developing our businesses, we've consistently delivered on our commitment to shareholder returns. The USD 200 million stock buyback program announced in March 2026 was completed ahead of schedule in less than six months. In late July, we announced a new 12-month USD 400 million repurchase plan, demonstrating our strong confidence in the company's long-term value. In addition, the RMB 500 million cash dividend for the first half of the year was distributed at the end of July. Looking ahead, we will continue to deepen our new business development, provide high-quality services to users and partners and deliver sustainable returns to our shareholders. With that, let me briefly walk you through the key financials for the second quarter of 2026.
Please note that I will reference RMB only in my discussion today, unless otherwise stated. Net revenues for the second quarter were RMB 1.2 billion. To break it down further, media services revenues were RMB 280 million. Leads generation services revenues were RMB 560 million and online marketplace and others revenues were RMB 357 million. With respect to costs, cost of revenues in the second quarter was RMB 274 million compared with RMB 503 million in the second quarter of 2025. Gross margin in the second quarter was 77.1% compared with 71.4% in the same period last year. Turning to operating expenses: sales and marketing expenses in the second quarter were RMB 552 million compared with RMB 630 million in the second quarter of 2025. Product and development expenses were RMB 223 million compared with RMB 253 million in the second quarter of 2025. General and administrative expenses were RMB 96 million compared with RMB 133 million in the same period last year.
Overall, we recorded an operating profit of RMB 130 million in the second quarter compared with RMB 297 million in the same period of 2025. Adjusted net income attributable to Autohome was RMB 277 million in the second quarter compared with RMB 476 million in the corresponding period last year. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per share in the second quarter were RMB 0.62 and RMB 0.61, respectively, compared with RMB 1.01 for both in the corresponding period of 2025. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS in the second quarter were both RMB 2.46 compared with RMB 4.06 and RMB 4.04, respectively, in the corresponding period of 2025. As of June 30, 2026, our balance sheet remains robust. Cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments and other long-term investments totaled RMB 19.36 billion. We generated net operating cash flow of RMB 261 million in the second quarter of 2026. On March 5, 2026, our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program under which we were committed to purchase up to USD 200 million of Autohome's ADS over a period not to exceed 18 months as of July 30, 2026.
We have completed this share repurchase program ahead of schedule with a total of approximately 10.63 million ADS repurchased. In addition, on July 28, 2026, our Board of Directors authorized a new share repurchase program under which we may repurchase up to USD 400 million of Autohome's ADS over the next 12 months. As of August 14, 2026, we had repurchased approximately 1.9 million ADS for a total cost of approximately USD 43.6 million. That concludes our financial summary. Now we are ready to open up the Q&A session. Operator, please.
分析師問答
Your first question comes from the line of Thomas Chong of Jefferies.
I have two questions. The first one is about the auto industry, which is softer than market expectations. Can management comment about the second half industry outlook? And my second question is about the export of used car business. Can management comment about our competitive edge and the latest business progress?
Thank you for your question. I will answer your question. Since the beginning of this year, overall retail sales in the auto market have remained under pressure. In the first seven months, domestic retail sales of passenger vehicles declined by 20% year-over-year, while domestic new vehicle sales fell by 22% year-over-year in Q2. Even the New Energy Vehicle (NEV), which had previously been the primary growth driver, already saw a sales decline of 8% in Q2 year-over-year for the consecutive period. And traditional internal combustion engine vehicles performed even worse, with sales declining 38% year-over-year in Q2. At the same time, the auto industry's profitability has deteriorated. In the first half of the year, profit for the auto manufacturing industry declined by 20% year-over-year with the profit margin at just 3.8%, which is a historical low. Market expectations for overall industry sales at the beginning of the year were optimistic, but now those expectations have been revised downward.
The China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) now forecasts that full-year 2026 passenger vehicle retail sales will decline by 16% year-over-year, bringing total annual sales to fewer than 20 million units. This means the overall China auto market will continue to face considerable pressure in the second half of the year. We expect the auto industry to be characterized by a combination of weak domestic demand, structural differentiation and exports providing support. From the industry level, we can see the new energy transition is accelerating and auto exports are becoming a new growth driver. So for the China auto market, it has entered an existing market stage with weak domestic demand becoming a major constraint on growth. At the same time, penetration for NEVs continues to pick up: in April, the penetration rate was 60%, and in July it climbed further to a new high of 65%. In contrast to weak domestic demand, auto exports have maintained strong growth momentum.
During the first seven months of 2026, passenger vehicle exports increased by 74% year-over-year with NEVs accounting for more than half of the total export volumes. With weak domestic demand and strong overseas growth simultaneously, auto exports have become a key engine for automakers to offset weak domestic demand and drive profit growth. From the market level, there is increasing structural differentiation and consumers are increasingly in a wait-and-see mode. The market is experiencing clear structural differentiation across segments. By price range, the market is diverging at both ends. The entry-level market for vehicles priced below RMB 50,000 has contracted sharply, declining 55% year-over-year in the first half. On the other side, sales of high-end NEVs priced above RMB 400,000 surged 46%, demonstrating greater market resilience. Overall, sales of traditional ICE vehicles and low-end NEVs continue to decline, while middle- to high-end NEVs have emerged as a growth segment.
In summary, the auto market in the first half of this year can be characterized as cold domestically, hot overseas. Domestic demand weakened year-over-year, while NEV penetration continued to increase and auto exports became the primary growth driver for the overall industry. As China's auto market enters a more mature competition stage, only companies that can capture consumers' needs throughout their entire lifecycle and provide value-added services across the customer journey will be best positioned for future development during this transformation period. This is also one of the key areas we will continue to focus on and explore going forward. Regarding the used car export business, the used car export market is sufficiently fragmented with a large and diverse supply of used vehicles. This is favorable for us to build long-term competitive advantages and sustainable barriers to entry.
If the market were more highly concentrated, it would be more difficult for platform companies. Our advantages in this area include: first, strong brand recognition from Autohome; we are the leading auto vertical media platform, which provides credibility. Second, stable supply and a standardized system: we have access to a stable and compliant supply of used cars, supported by a standardized industry-leading vehicle inspection system, which enables comprehensive assessment of vehicle condition. Overseas buyers value accurate, complete and comprehensive vehicle inspection reports as well as maintenance and insurance claim records. Autohome can provide all of this, which gives overseas buyers greater confidence in their purchase process. Third, a digital one-stop service: we leverage our online digital tools to improve operational efficiency, including 24/7 customer support, dynamic matching of vehicle supply and multilingual website services.
These capabilities facilitate more effective communication between buyers and sellers. For our business progress update on used cars, in the second quarter we officially obtained government qualification for used car exports and successfully completed the first used car export transaction on our platform. This represents an important 0-to-1 breakthrough for this business segment. Moving forward, we will expand our high-quality used car sourcing, focus on expanding our overseas customer base, and continue to optimize our used car export service platform to improve overall operational efficiency with the goal of building a one-stop new channel for used car exports.
The next question comes from the line of Zhang Xiaodan of CICC.
First of all, the company has recently taken proactive steps on shareholder returns. How do you view the sustainability of the shareholder return program going forward? And over the medium to long term, how will you balance the cash reserves as well as the shareholder returns? Secondly, regarding the new retail business, what is the company's current strategic positioning for this segment?
Thank you for your question. Autohome has always placed a strong emphasis on shareholder returns and long-term market value management. To further enhance our shareholder return mechanism and improve investment value, we have established a dual-track return framework, combining a regular cash dividend policy with share repurchases, making our shareholder return policy more transparent and predictable. For the share repurchase, as mentioned, the USD 200 million share buyback program was completed ahead of schedule at the end of July. On July 28, the company announced a new USD 400 million share repurchase program, and as of last week, approximately 10% of this buyback program has been completed. Going forward, we will continue to actively execute this buyback program in the open market in accordance with our established strategy. For the cash dividend, in March the company announced the RMB 500 million cash dividend for the first half of this year, and this was successfully distributed to all our shareholders by the end of July.
Also this year, we will continue to execute our commitment to pay at least RMB 1.5 billion in cash dividends for the full year. Autohome has a healthy balance sheet, ample cash reserves and stable business operations, which gives us the capacity to deliver sustainable, stable and long-term returns to our shareholders. We will continue to improve operational efficiency and strengthen business resilience to ensure we can fulfill our commitments to shareholders. Regarding the new retail business, it is an important strategic initiative for Autohome as we build our transaction ecosystem and address gaps in our offline service capabilities. Online, we are leveraging the Autohome APP to build an automotive transaction service platform, Autohome Mall. Offline, we leverage Autohome Good Car and authorized dealer stores to expand our offline service network, connecting online demand with offline service fulfillment.
For online-to-offline scenarios, we are leveraging our AI technologies to provide end-to-end support, including vehicle selection through AI car selection assistance and purchase support through AI price inquiry, among other services. Going forward, we plan to expand AI-enabled services into the vehicle ownership stage. For progress, online car purchase began its pilot program in late April and has expanded to five cities—Xi'an, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Jinan and Shijiazhuang—primarily targeting high-tier cities. Autohome Good Car opened its franchise program in late June and now has more than 100 franchise stores, primarily focused on low-tier markets. Ultimately, our goal is to become a comprehensive automotive service ecosystem that delivers value throughout the entire vehicle lifecycle, from discovery to selection, purchase, ownership and eventually replacement.
Our next question comes from Ritchie Sun of HSBC.
I want to ask management about how you feel about the recovery timing as well as the drivers behind the auto market and especially for the media services, how would you view the trend in the second half of this year?
Regarding drivers for auto industry recovery, as mentioned earlier, the auto market sales for the whole year are expected to decline about 16% year-over-year. This is a downside, but it doesn't mean there are no growth opportunities in the market. For example, vehicle prepayments and replacements will still contribute to new vehicle purchasing demand. Sales of high-end EVs priced over RMB 400,000 increased 46% year-over-year. In our view, sustainable stabilization and recovery of the auto market depend on improvement in the broader macroeconomic environment and strengthening consumer confidence. Exports are another important growth opportunity. In the first half of this year, key passenger vehicle exports increased by more than 70% year-over-year and NEV exports surged 124%, with NEVs accounting for over 50% of total passenger vehicle exports. This represents new opportunities in the auto market. Regarding the media business in the second half, there is the traditional 'Golden September and Silver October' seasonal effect and multiple new vehicle launches are expected. We believe the market will show some recovery in the second half of this year.
The next question comes from the line of Brian Gong of Citi.
Given the pressure on auto dealers, how does management think about the outlook for our sales leads business?
Leads generation performance is highly related to overall sales volume in the market. In Q2, market sales decreased, which is the main reason for pressure in the leads generation segment. Dealers continue to face significant operating pressures; many did not meet their sales targets for the first half of this year. According to the China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA), 77% of dealerships achieved less than 90% of their first half sales targets, and many dealers are responding with more losses and high inventory levels. Therefore, we believe sales volumes for new cars will continue to face pressure and may decrease in the second half of this year. That said, we see opportunities to increase traffic and upgrade products to improve lead quality and lay a solid foundation for renewal of our dealership products. For example, we are using our AI technology and AI live streaming to empower dealers' new media live streaming operations, helping them reduce costs, improve efficiency and enhance conversion capabilities.
We also have smart stores and an upgraded intelligent guided tour function; when users browse a dealer's online store, AI-generated voice commentary can match the content on the screen and play automatically, creating an immersive watch-and-listen experience that helps increase the number of users who submit contact information. We expect these product and service upgrades and technologies to build a solid foundation for product renewal next year.
No further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.
Thank you very much, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you all again on our next quarter's conference call and sharing the latest updates on the company's corporate strategy and business development. Should you have any further questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us at any time. Thank you, everyone. Goodbye. Thank you, operator.
That does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.