ZKH Q2 2026 Earnings Call: Erstmals operativer Gewinn und beschleunigtes GMV-Wachstum

Wichtigste Erkenntnisse

• Die ZKH Group Limited meldete für das zweite Quartal 2026 ein Bruttowarenvolumen (GMV) von 2,9 Mrd. RMB, was einem Anstieg von 18,9 % gegenüber dem Vorjahr entspricht, während die Nettoeinnahmen um 12,8 % auf 2,4 Mrd. RMB stiegen.
• Der Bruttogewinn stieg um 20,3 % auf 430 Mio. RMB. Der Bruttogewinn im Verhältnis zum GMV erreichte 14,9 %, verglichen mit 14,8 % im Vorjahreszeitraum und 14,4 % im ersten Quartal 2026.
• Das Unternehmen erzielte erstmals einen positiven Betriebsgewinn. Das Non-GAAP-EBITDA verbesserte sich von minus 39 Mio. RMB auf 42 Mio. RMB, während der bereinigte Non-GAAP-Nettogewinn nach einem Verlust von 37 Mio. RMB nun 39 Mio. RMB erreichte.
• Das GMV mit regionalen KMU-Kunden stieg um 30 %, und das GMV mit staatlichen Unternehmen, einschließlich zentral verwalteter Staatsbetriebe, kehrte mit einem Plus von mehr als 20 % zum Wachstum zurück.
• Das Management erwartet für das dritte Quartal ein GMV-Wachstum, das die Rate von 18,9 % aus dem zweiten Quartal übertrifft, und strebt für das Gesamtjahr 2026 weiterhin ein GMV-Wachstum von 15 % bis 20 % an.
• Das internationale GMV überstieg im ersten Halbjahr 95 Mio. RMB, was mehr als einer Verzehnfachung entspricht. Das Management rechnet damit, dass das Auslandsgeschäft in der zweiten Jahreshälfte die Gewinnzone erreicht.

Wichtige Finanzdaten

Geschäfts- und operative Entwicklung

Das Wachstum erstreckte sich breitenwirksam über Kundengruppen und Branchen. Das GMV mit regionalen KMU-Kunden stieg um 30 %, während zentrale Staatsbetriebe und Großkunden der Industrie ein zweistelliges Wachstum verzeichneten. Laut Management machten KMU-Kunden etwa 30 % des GMV aus, verglichen mit rund 60 % bei Großkunden, Branchenführern und staatlichen Unternehmen. Das Unternehmen definiert dieses KMU-Segment als Kunden mit einem Umsatz von über 1 Mrd. RMB, die jedoch kleiner sind als seine größten Kunden.

Stahl und Buntmetalle führten das Branchenwachstum an, wobei sich das GMV im Jahresvergleich verdoppelte. Versorger verzeichneten einen Zuwachs von 57 %, Feinchemikalien und Pharmazeutika stiegen um 37 %, Lebens- und Agrarmittel legten um 37 % zu und der Bereich Kommunikation und Elektronik wuchs um 35 %.

Das GMV mit Kunden im Bereich elektrische Automatisierung stieg um 160 %, unterstützt durch die Nachfrage in den Bereichen Sensoren, Industrie-PCs, Arbeitsschutz/Industriesicherheit, industrielles IoT und Robotik. Das GMV mit Halbleiterkunden verzeichnete mehr als eine Verhundertfachung. Zudem baute ZKH seine Zusammenarbeit mit Intel bei Edge-Control- und Industriesteuerungslösungen aus.

Das GMV mit Eigenmarken wuchs um mehr als 25 % und machte etwa 10 % des gesamten GMV aus. ZKH nahm im Quartal über 700 neue Eigenmarken-SKUs auf. Laut Management liegen die Bruttomargen von Eigenmarken in der Regel etwa 10 Prozentpunkte über denen von Fremdmarken. Das langfristige Ziel, den Eigenmarkenanteil auf 30 % des GMV zu steigern, wurde beibehalten.

Die internationale Expansion wurde durch die Unterstützung chinesischer Hersteller im Ausland sowie lokalisierte Aktivitäten fortgesetzt, primär in den USA und Texas. Das Unternehmen berichtete zudem über steigende Umsätze auf Amazon mit seinen neuen Eigenmarkenprodukten der Marke Sky. Das Management betonte, dass die Ausgaben weiterhin diszipliniert und an den geschäftlichen Erfordernissen ausgerichtet bleiben.

Das Abwicklungsnetzwerk von ZKH umfasste mehr als 30 Distributionszentren, 109 Transitlager, über 200 eigene Lieferfahrzeuge und mehr als 6.000 intelligente EVM-Verkaufsautomaten an Kundenstandorten. Verbesserte Lagerabläufe und eine optimierte Transportplanung senkten die Abwicklungskosten auf 3,7 % des Umsatzes.

Im Bereich KI und Digitalisierung führte ZKH „Domino“ ein, eine Big-Data-Engine für Industriebedarf, die von mehr als 1 Milliarde Produktparametern angetrieben wird. Der KI-Materialmanager bediente mehr als 8.600 Kunden, verarbeitete über 24 Millionen Zeilen an Materialdaten und erzielte erste Einnahmen. Interne KI-Anwendungen sparten im Laufe des Quartals mehr als 12.000 Arbeitsstunden ein, während KI-gestützte Programmierung über 70 % der Programmieraktivitäten ausmachte.

Prognose des Managements

Das Management rechnet mit einer weiteren Beschleunigung des GMV- und Umsatzwachstums in der zweiten Jahreshälfte 2026. Basierend auf den Auftragstrends im Juli und August erwartet das Unternehmen für das dritte Quartal ein GMV-Wachstum, das die im zweiten Quartal verzeichneten 18,9 % übertrifft.

Für das Gesamtjahr 2026 bekräftigte das Management sein Ziel eines GMV-Wachstums von 15 % bis 20 %. Zudem wird für das zweite Halbjahr ein GMV-Wachstum im hohen Zehnprozentbereich erwartet, einhergehend mit einer weiteren Verbesserung der Profitabilität und einer sinkenden Betriebsausgabenquote bei zunehmender Skalierung.

Das Unternehmen geht davon aus, dass sein Auslandsgeschäft im Laufe der zweiten Jahreshälfte 2026 profitabel wird. Das Management erklärte zudem, dass eine stärkere Entwicklung im zweiten Halbjahr die Geschäfts- und Profitabilitätsziele für das Gesamtjahr stützen sollte.

Risiken und wichtige Beobachtungspunkte

• Der operative Cashflow blieb im ersten Halbjahr mit minus 156 Mio. RMB negativ. Das Management führte dies auf saisonale Effekte zurück und rechnet mit einer Beschleunigung der Zahlungseingänge im zweiten Halbjahr.
• Die internationale Expansion bleibt eine langfristige Investitionspriorität. Das Management betonte eine disziplinierte Ausgabenpolitik und Renditeorientierung bei gleichzeitig angestrebter Profitabilität in der zweiten Jahreshälfte.
• Laut Management hängt ein effektiver, KI-gestützter Einkauf von genauen, strukturierten Produktdaten ab, einschließlich Spezifikationen, Alternativprodukten, Marken und Materialien.

Highlights aus der Fragerunde mit Analysten

Das Management führte das beschleunigte GMV-Wachstum auf die Stärke in wachstumsstarken Branchen, bei KMU-Kunden und mit Eigenmarkenprodukten zurück. Es wird erwartet, dass der KMU-Anteil am GMV im Laufe der Zeit steigt, was den Kundenmix und das Bruttogewinnprofil unterstützen könnte.

Bezüglich KI hob das Management das sich verändernde Einkaufsverhalten hervor: Kunden nutzen zunehmend Anfragen in natürlicher Sprache und erwarten von den Systemen eine Präzisierung des Bedarfs sowie Produktempfehlungen. ZKH treibt Pläne zur Gründung einer unabhängigen KI-Tochtergesellschaft voran, die eine enge Anbindung an die Industriedaten, Kundenanwendungsfälle und Lieferkettenressourcen der Gruppe beibehalten soll.

Hinsichtlich der Kapitalrückgabe an die Aktionäre erklärte das Management, dass die Ermächtigung zum Aktienrückkauf über 50 Mio. USD weiterhin bis Juni 2027 gültig sei. Bis zum Ende des zweiten Quartals 2026 hatte ZKH rund 2,49 Millionen ADSs für etwa 7,67 Mio. USD zurückgekauft. Das Unternehmen beabsichtigt, die Rückkäufe zu beschleunigen, und könnte Dividenden in Betracht ziehen, sobald die Gewinne deutlicher skalieren.

Vollständiges Transkript der Telefonkonferenz zu den Quartalszahlen

Vollständiges Transkript der Telefonkonferenz

Ausführungen des Managements

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to ZKH Group Limited Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Daecy Xu, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Daecy Xu

Good morning, and welcome to ZKH Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. With me are Mr. Eric Chen, our Founder, Chairman and CEO; Mr. Gerry Wang, our CFO; and Mr. David Liu, our CEO. Eric will begin with an overview of our quarterly performance and business strategy, followed by Jerry, who will review our financial highlights. After the prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A, and David will join us for a Q&A session.

Today's discussion may include forward-looking statements. Related factors are described in our today's press release. and we'll also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for comparison purposes only. Please refer to the earnings release for definitions of these measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results.

With that, I will turn the call over to Eric. Eric, please go ahead.

Long Chen

[Interpreted]

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining ZKH Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Building on the strong start to the year, our business gained further momentum in the second quarter. extending the growth trajectory that we returned to in the fourth quarter of last year. Both GMV and revenue grew year-over-year for a third consecutive quarter in their fast growth in recent quarters. Growth was broad with our key industries and core customer segments, further reinforcing our foundation for sustained growth.

As our business continues to scale, the quality of growth and profitability improved in tandem. Gross profit grew faster than GMV in the quarter lifting gross margin both year-over-year and sequentially. Supported by greater economies of scale, a more favorable customer and product mix and steady gains in operating efficiency, we achieved quarterly operating -- we achieved quarterly operating profitability for the first time. Adjusted net income also delivered a significant turnaround, reversing from a loss in the same period last year.

These results reinforce the steady improvement in our fundamentals and demonstrate that our strategic initiatives and capability building efforts are translating more quickly into operating results. Based on current business trends, we expect GMV growth to accelerate further in the second half of the year, with profitability improving more meaningfully.

Next, let me walk you through some of the business highlights in the quarter. Starting with GMV. Second quarter GMV grew by 19% year-over-year. while GMV on the DKH platform increased by 23%, accelerating further from the first quarter. Based on current trends, we expect GMV growth to pick up further in the third quarter. Multiple customer segments drove growth in tandem this quarter, creating a more balanced growth profile. Regional SME customers maintained the strong momentum that began in the fourth quarter of last year, with GMV up 30% year-over-year.

Reflecting continued improvement in our coverage of and service capabilities for the SME market. The SME market offers significant growth potential. Demand is fragmented procurement needs are diverse, and gross margins are higher. Rapid expansion in this segment not only adds momentum to our overall growth, but also improves our customer mix and overall gross margin.

Meanwhile, our business with central SOEs and industry key accounts remained solid, delivering double-digit GMV growth year-over-year. Notably, following adjustments last year, GMV from state-owned enterprises, including centrally administered SOEs, returned to growth of more than 20% year-over-year this quarter. Performance was also strong across key industries. Our specialized product and service capabilities built over years of serving a wide range of industrial use cases are increasingly translating into strong results.

Steel and nonferrous metals led the way with GMV doubling year-over-year. Communications and Electronics, fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals and utilities also delivered strong growth with GMV in each sector increasing by more than 30% year-over-year.

While we continue to deepen our domestic business, our overseas expansion accelerated further from the first quarter, with first half GMV increasing more than tenfold year-over-year. During the quarter, we continued to advance our international business on 2 fronts: supporting Chinese manufacturers as they expand globally and deepening localized operations in key overseas markets. On the first front, we provide Chinese manufacturers expanding overseas with one-stop MRO solutions, spanning coordinated product sourcing in China and abroad compliance support and local performance.

On the second front, we continued to build out our localized operations starting with MRO use cases in warehousing and supply chains where our business model has been validated. Our new Sky private label products also gained traction through online channels primarily Amazon, with categories such as material handling forklifts and industrial fans, delivering encouraging sales and earning strong customer recognition. We also established a dual sourcing system for key product categories with sources in China and overseas, further strengthening the resilience of our international supply chain.

As these initiatives take hold, our overseas business is beyond early market exploration into a new stage in which capability building and business expansion are advancing in parallel with an increasingly clear path forward.

The progress we achieved across our businesses was underpinned by the continued strengthening of our core capabilities. During the quarter, we remain focused on 3 areas central to our long-term competitiveness, products, fulfillment and AIs. Starting with products. we continue to deepen our presence in specialized high barrier MRO categories and strengthen collaboration with leading manufacturers. These efforts enhanced the depth of our services. in specialized categories and further differentiated our offerings.

During the quarter, GMV from electrical automation customers grew 160% year-over-year driven by our strategy of focusing on key product categories and high potential industries. To address customers' end-to-end needs across control, safety, sensing and connectivity for intelligent production lines. We deepened our offerings in sensors, PCs, industrial safety, industrial IoT and robotics forming a comprehensive automation product portfolio.

At the industry level, we positioned ourselves early in 3 sectors with high automation intensity, new energy, semiconductors and communications and electronics. This enabled us to capture growing demand arising from capacity expansion and intelligent product line upgrades. Growth among semiconductor customers was particularly strong with GMV up more than 100-fold year-over-year. We also expanded our collaboration with Intel in edge control. jointly advancing visual intern and industrial control product solutions as we cultivate our next growth curve beyond control, safety and sensing.

Meanwhile, our private label business is an important driver of both competitive differentiation and profitability. During the quarter, we added more than 700 private label SKUs, driving private label GMV growth up more than 25% year-over-year and listing private label product share of total GMV to approximately 10%. In addition to contributing incremental revenue, this also improved our overall gross margin.

As we broaden the portfolio, we are also building out end-to-end capabilities from product development through testing and validation. Our in-house testing system now covers multiple core product lines with rigorous validation across performance, safety, compliance and reliability. These capabilities further improve product development efficiencies and quality consistency, providing strong support for scaling our private label business.

Turning to fulfillment. We continue to optimize our multi-tiered warehousing and distribution network while enhancing supply capabilities and customer experience in specialized MRO categories. During the quarter, we completed the build-out of a dedicated hazardous materials warehouse in Tongzhou Gabe province. Further strengthening our compliance storage and supply assurance capabilities for hazardous chemicals.

As of quarter end, our nationwide fulfillment network comprised more than 30 distribution centers, 109 transit warehouses, more than 200 company-operated delivery vehicles and more than 6,000 EVM smart vending machines deployed at customer production sites. This integrated network strengthens our end-to-end fulfillment capabilities from regional inventory deployment and last-mile delivery to on-site on-demand product access.

As we expanded our net network coverage, we also improved warehouse operations and transportation scheduling, further improving operating leverage. In the quarter, fulfillment expenses as a share as a percentage of net revenues declined to 3.7% from 4.2% a year ago.

We also made solid progress on the AI and digitalization front, guided by our goal of building industry-leading full-stack AI capabilities for industrial supplies. We continue to strengthen our technology stack and expand AI adoption across customer-facing and internal use cases. These efforts are accelerating the conversion of our extensive industry data and technological expertise into tangible customer value and operating results.

A key milestone this quarter was the June launch of Domino, our industrial supplies Big Data engine powered by more than 1 billion product parameters, Domino features automated data labeling, self-learning and end-to-end traceability. This provides customers with a high-quality data foundation for MRO data governance, motto training and intelligent applications. Through this platform, we are further unlocking the value of MRO data and enabling it to evolve from an internal resource to industry infrastructure that can be offered externally.

Building on this foundation, we continued to expand the use cases for our Linglong MRO industry-specific foundation model and its suite of AI agents, integrating AI more deeply into customers' business processes. Today, solutions such as AI materials manager, Linda, the yen and AI marketplace are already deployed across manufacturing, chemicals, ports and automotive covering key workflows such as materials data governance, product search and selection, enterprise knowledge management and collaboration and warehouse item recognition.

Notably, AI materials manager has served more than 8,600 customers and has been implemented in more than 15 cases involving state-owned enterprises, including centrally administered SOEs. To date, it has processed more than 24 million rows of materials data, helping customers streamline materials management and reduce inventory cost. Internally, we continue to scale AI adoption across our organization and business processes to improve operating efficiency.

During the quarter, internal AI applications saved more than 12,000 employee hours and AI-assisted coding accounted for over 70% of our coating activity. We also continue to encourage business teams to participate in AI innovation and the co-development of new use cases. More than 200 employees across 22 departments are now actively involved, bringing AI capabilities into a new -- into a growing range of new business processes.

Beyond strengthening our own capabilities, we are also actively contributing to the broader industry ecosystem. In June, we co-hosted the inaugural China Industrial Supply Sumit or CIS, with several national -- with several national trade associations and industry organizations. As China's first MRO Industry Summit focused on collaboration and value creation -- the event brought together more than 2,000 attendees from over 1,000 companies, including many industry leaders, senior executives and experts from across the value chain.

The event set industry records for both attendance and the seniority of its guests. Its success further enhanced ZKH's influence within the industry and provided an important platform for deeper engagement with key stakeholders. Going forward, we will continue to leverage our platform strength to promote knowledge sharing and coordination across the value chain, creating greater long-term value for the industry as a whole.

Looking ahead to the second half, we will remain focused on strengthening our core competencies, including enhancing product supply capabilities, improving fulfillment efficiency and building greater organizational strengths. These are the cornerstones of our long-term competitiveness and will lay a solid foundation for sustained growth in business scale and further improvements in profitability.

With that, I will turn the call over to our CFO, Jerry Wang to walk you through our financial results. Thank you.

Qian Wang

Okay. Thank you, Eric, and thank you, everyone, for joining our earnings conference call today. Now let me walk you through our financial performance for the second quarter of 2026. The Building on a strong start to the year, we delivered continued improvement across key financial metrics in the second quarter. GMV growth accelerated to its fastest pace in the past few quarters. while our gross profit margin expanded even further as operating leverage became increasingly evident, our profitability also improved significantly.

Notably, we achieved operating profitability for the first time, marking an important financial milestone for the company. Together, these results demonstrate our ability to maintain growth momentum while improving operational quality, supported by the increasing benefits of scale and disciplined execution of our strategic priorities.

Let's now take a closer look at the second quarter financial performance, starting with GMV and revenue. The gross recoveries that began in the second half of last year, gained further momentum in the second quarter. with GMV and revenue posting accelerated year-over-year growth. GMV increased 18.9% year-over-year to RMB 2.9 billion while net revenues grew 12.8% to RMB 2.4 billion, representing the fastest growth for both metrics in recent quarters.

This strong performance was primarily driven by robust growth among SMB customers and key accounts across our core industries, along with a continued recovery in business with central SOEs. As GMV growth accelerated, gross profit grew even faster, increasing 20.3% year-over-year from RMB 357 million to RMB 430 million. As a result, gross profit as a percentage of GMV edged up to 14.9% compared with 14.8% in the same period last year and 14.4% in the first quarter of 2026.

This improvement reflected the continued optimization of our customer and product mix as well as the increasing GMV contribution from private label offerings. Driven by improved operating leverage and operating efficiency, total operating expenses decreased 0.8% year-over-year to RMB 425 million in the quarter. Operating expenses as a percentage of net revenues improved notably, declining from 19.8% in the same period last year to 17.4%. Breaking it down Fulfillment expenses were RMB 90 million, representing 3.7% of net revenues, down from 4.2% in the same period last year.

Sales and marketing expenses were RMB 151 million, representing 6.2% of net revenues, down from 6.9% in the same period last year. R&D expenses were RMB 35 million, representing 1.4% of net revenues, down from 1.9% in the same period last year. General and administrative expenses were RMB 150 million, representing 6.1% of net revenues, down from 6.8% in the same period last year.

Looking ahead, we expect GMV and revenue growth to accelerate further in the second half of the year. Combined with our continued focus on operating efficiency, -- this should drive further improvement in our operating expense ratio and strengthen our operating leverage. On the international front, as we noted previously, overseas expansion remains an important long-term strategic priority for the company.

In the first half of this year, international GMV exceeded RMB 95 million marking a significant step up in scale. As we continue to grow this business, we remain disciplined in managing expenses and focused on return on investments. Going forward, we expect our international business to turn profitable in the second half of this year. Our faster GMV growth, improving operating efficiency and greater operating leverage drove a significant year-over-year improvement in profitability.

In the second quarter, our operating profit, non-GAAP EBITDA and non-GAAP adjusted net profit all turned positive. In particular, non-GAAP EBITDA reached RMB 42 million, compared with negative RMB 39 million in the same period last year, while non-GAAP adjusted net profit reached RMB 39 million compared with negative RMB 37 million a year ago.

Turning to our balance sheet. We continued to maintain a solid liquidity position. As of June 30, 2026. Cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments totaled RMB 1.7 billion, providing ample financial flexibility to support our day-to-day operations and strategic priorities. Operating cash flow followed a seasonal pattern that is similar to last year, with net outflows in the first half and net inflows in the second half as customer collections accelerate.

For the first half of 2026, net cash used in operating activities decreased to RMB 156 million from RMB 208 million in the first half of 2025, reflecting continued improvement in our working capital management. To conclude, the second quarter of 2026, marks an important financial milestone for the company as we achieved positive operating profit for the first time and delivered a significant improvement in non-GAAP adjusted net profit. Based on current trends, we expect to maintain high teens GMV growth in the second half of the year, while continued to improve profitability.

This should put us in a solid position to achieve our full year business and profitability targets and lay a solid foundation for even stronger performance in 2027. Okay. This concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you. We can now open for Q&A.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. If you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. The first question comes from Jin Guan with CICC.

Fragen und Antworten

Unknown Analyst

[Foreign Language]

Good evening management, we noticed that the company's TMA growth accelerated to around 80% this quarter year-over-year. could management walk us through the key drivers behind this acceleration and which subsectors, customer segments or product line are staying stronger momentum. And what's your outlook for GMV growth in the second half and full year?

Long Chen

[Interpreted]

Thank you very much for that question. So indeed, we achieved acceleration in terms of our GMV growth in the second quarter 2026 and it's faster than any past quarters. And this goes to show how we are gaining share in this highly fragmented MRO market in China. We can approach this question from 3 perspectives, namely industries, customers and private labels.

So firstly, let's talk about industries. We have been continually investigating or rather investing in high-growth industries. So the following are some of the industries that have been growing over 30% in Q2 this year from a GMV perspective, and they are still and nonfee-primarily nonferic metals, growing at over 103% utilities grew 57%, Fine Chemicals and pharmaceuticals grew 37%. Food and agricultural products, 37%; Communications and Electronics 35% and we have also been consistently gaining customers from emerging and strategic industries such as semiconductors, robotics and optical communications.

So secondly, in terms of our customer mix, I would like to talk about how we perform on the SME customers front -- and just to clarify the definition of what we mean by an SME customers. We're talking about customer with a revenue of over RMB 1 billion. So it's not technically a small customer or a small company, right? But relatively speaking, it's small compared to some of the large guys or central and local OEs. And so a big highlight of Q2 is that the GMV for these SMEs have reached over -- reached 30%.

And so the GMV growth for this segment is outperforming the company's overall GMV growth. And like discussed earlier, we believe this type of customers can reflect the improvement of the product and service capabilities for ZKH more than any other types of customers because these customers are getting increasingly demanding in terms of their requirements for services. So as a result, traditional and conventional trading companies are being eliminated.

And secondly, the business -- our business is evolving from sales driven to supply driven or supply change event. I'll explain what I mean by this. So before, we were basically selling whatever the customers wanted and demand it, right? But now with the capabilities of our product improving, we are more in a position to sell what we recommend and what's available on our part. And that's definitely a huge increase in terms of efficiency and productivity.

At the same time, the gross margins on part of the SMEs are higher than large customers. So the growth of SMEs, outstripping the overall company is definitely conducive to the improvement of our overall gross margin. And these SMEs are usually located in the outskirts of cities, which means delivery and the fulfillment for them is easier. And GMV-wise, these SME customers are accounting for about 30% and of total GMV, while large customers and by large customers, I mean key accounts or leading companies of various sectors and those SOEs.

So these larger customers account for 60% GMV-wise, -- and we expect SME GMV share to continue to rise in the future.

And thirdly, my last point is on private labels. So for Q2, private labels achieved a growth of over 25%, outstripping overall growth and GMV share has reached 10% margin towards our long-term goal of 30% for it. And the gross margins for private labels are higher than nonprivate labels. It's usually 10% higher. So this trend of private labels as a share of overall GMV increasing will also be conducive to the overall gross margins improving.

Looking out to the second half of this year and the entire year's -- if you look at the order trend, July, August this year, we expect GMV growth for Q3 is going to be higher than Q2's 18.9%. So it's going to continue to accelerate. And the Q4, especially the month of December is a peak month or peak quarter for orders throughout the year. And we are confident that we are able to sustain this growth and be able to achieve our overall growth of 15% to 20% growth for GMV this year. And that was my answer to your question. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Zooming a with Huatai Securities.

Unknown Analyst

[Foreign Language]

[Interpreted]

Question against the backdrop of ongoing AI waves. Have you observed any incremental changes in purchasing behavior and caps of different customer groups how will DKH capture the opportunities? Have AI applications launched previously such as the AI and materials manager made further progress recently. In addition, what is the latest progress on establishing the AI subsidiary as alluded to earlier.

Unknown Executive

[Interpreted]

So this is the CTO of the company, and I'll take this question. So indeed, we have observed some incremental changes in customer purchasing behavior as AI applications gradually mature. -- we observed each trends that are quite notable. First, customers are changing how they express their needs and access procurement services. In the past, MRO products procurement rely primarily on key searches catalog filters or manual requests for quotations, Increasingly, customers are becoming accustomed to describing their requirements directly in a natural language.

Some provide AI systems with equipment models, use cases and technical specifications and expect that the systems to clarify their needs, select suitable product models or recommend the right products to them. The second trend we observe is that the demand for high-quality data is increasing for AI2 participate meaningfully in procurement decisions. data such as product parameters, specifications, product alternatives, brands and materials. These things must be it accurate.

We, therefore, believe that high-quality structured and specialized data will become even more important in the era of AI. Third, SMEs are becoming more receptive to self-service and smart procurement. In the past, many procurement services required repeated communication between our sales representatives and the customers' procurement people. In the future, AI may be able to handle a significant portion of the standardized work, reducing service costs while improving the customer service or rather a customer service experience.

So as regards to AI materials manager, which we launched previously, it continues to evolve. It has now served more than 8,600 customers, representing a year-over-year growth of 93% in terms of customer count and has begun generating revenue. We are also continuing to build a competitive moat around our full-stack AI capabilities for MRO products. And then September, November, October this year, we plan to work with Intel, a leading global chip maker to launch our LinalM, which is an industry-leading edge model and solution for industrial vision.

We also intend to establish deep collaboration with leading domestic chip makers integrating AI material Manager and the Linglonmodel with their technologies at both the model and agent layers.

So regarding the AI subsidiary you were asking about, we are proceeding with this establishment according to plan. The primary reason for setting up an independent company is to give the business a more independent and a flexible organizational structure, talent model and greater flexibility for future capital activities. At the same time, subsidiary will maintain deep synergy with ZKH in industrial data, customer use cases and supply chain resources.

Our goal is to develop it into a smart infrastructure company serving the industrial sector. And that was my answer to your question.

Operator

The next question comes from Leo Chang with Deutsche Bank.

Leo Chiang

[Foreign Language]

So transfer myself. -- even in management, congrats on the strong results. I have 2 questions. First 1 is regarding our international business. could management update us on the company's internationalization progress, including GMV contribution, some expansion and your outlook for future international markets.

The second question is could management provide an update on the shareholder return plan such as share repurchase program or other related initiatives?

Long Chen

[Interpreted]

So in terms of our international business, growth wise, revenue has been growing very strongly, a tenfold increase compared to the same period last year. So for the first half of this year, GMV was RMB 95 million, and we expect second half to continue this strong growth. Secondly, international business has always been part of our long-term strategy, and we will continue to make investments into it.

And there's 2 parts our international business. Part 1 is we will continue to support Chinese businesses as they expand their business in overseas markets. And based on existing customer relations, we will leverage more overseas orders and at the same time, strengthen our last night fulfillment capability in different locales, geographies and regions. The second part to our international business is localized business, which is happening primarily in the U.S. and Texas specifically as we speak.

At the same time, as was talked about in the prepared remarks, while our online sales by way of Amazon is also increasing greatly. So overall, we are valuing efficiency more when it comes to making investments in our overseas business. And we will avoid strong loading expenses ahead of business needs, and we will try to turn a profit for this sometime in the second half of this year for our international business.

When it comes to shareholder returns, in June 2025, the company authorized a USD 50 million worth of share back program, which remains valid through June of 2027. As of the end of the Q2 this year, the company had cumulatively repurchased approximately 2.49 million ADSs, which translates into about USD 7.67 million. We intend to set up the pace or whether to step up the pace of share buybacks. And once our profits begin to scale more meaningfully, we will also consider starting to pay dividends to our shareholders. And that was my answer to your question.

Operator

And that concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for closing remarks.

Unknown Executive

Thank you once again for joining us today. You can find the webcast of today's call on ir.vts.com. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us. Our contact information can be found in today's press release. Thank you, and have a great day.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

[Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]