Conferencia de resultados del 2T de 2026 de Waterdrop (WDH): los ingresos aumentan un 72,8 % impulsados por el crecimiento de los seguros

Puntos clave

• Waterdrop Inc. (WDH) reportó en el segundo trimestre de 2026 unos ingresos operativos netos de 1.448 millones de yuanes, lo que supone un aumento interanual del 72,8%, impulsados por un incremento del 80,5% en los ingresos por seguros.
• El beneficio operativo aumentó un 14,3% interanual y un 39,2% intertrimestral hasta alcanzar aproximadamente 111 millones de yuanes. El beneficio neto atribuible a los accionistas cayó un 10,3% en comparación con el mismo periodo del año anterior, pero aumentó un 27,9% en términos secuenciales hasta situarse cerca de los 126 millones de yuanes.
• Los ingresos relacionados con seguros alcanzaron los 1.330 millones de yuanes. La captación de nuevos clientes aumentó un 32,3% intertrimestral, mientras que las primas del primer año de los seguros a largo plazo crecieron un 33,4%.
• Las interacciones con usuarios asistidas por IA generaron casi 100 millones de yuanes en primas del primer año. La directiva señaló que el objetivo de la IA es contribuir mediante el crecimiento de los ingresos y la eficiencia operativa, en lugar de funcionar como un negocio independiente.
• Para todo el ejercicio 2026, la directiva se ha fijado como objetivo un crecimiento de los ingresos totales superior al 40% interanual y un aumento del beneficio operativo por encima del 10%.
• El consejo de administración aprobó un dividendo de 0,03 dólares por ADS y un nuevo programa de recompra de acciones de hasta 50 millones de dólares durante los próximos 12 meses.

Datos financieros principales

Rendimiento comercial y operativo

Seguros

Los ingresos relacionados con seguros aumentaron un 80,5% interanual y un 15,4% secuencial hasta los 1.330 millones de yuanes. El beneficio operativo del segmento creció un 20% intertrimestral hasta alcanzar los 180 millones de yuanes.

La captación de clientes se mantuvo activa. Los nuevos clientes captados aumentaron un 32,3% secuencialmente, mientras que las primas del primer año de los seguros a largo plazo crecieron un 33,4%. Los productos para clientes con enfermedades preexistentes generaron 310 millones de yuanes en primas del primer año, mientras que los seguros de incapacidad aportaron 84 millones de yuanes.

Waterdrop continuó ampliando sus productos con barreras de cobertura más bajas. Entre las nuevas ofertas figura Rongyi Bao, descrito por la empresa como un producto para enfermedades graves a largo plazo que no requiere declaración de salud y ofrece renovabilidad garantizada por cinco años. La compañía también amplió Jixing Gaozhao con cobertura para enfermedades específicas que ofrece protección de por vida sin necesidad de declaración de salud.

Las aplicaciones de IA en escenarios de atención al cliente generaron casi 100 millones de yuanes en primas del primer año. Las primas del primer año facilitadas por el Asistente Experto en Seguros Médicos con IA crecieron un 25,6% secuencialmente. KEYI.AI había respondido a más de 13.000 preguntas de suscripción al cierre del trimestre, mientras que los usuarios atendidos por el Súper Asistente de Preventa de IA aumentaron casi un 50% secuencialmente.

Financiación colectiva médica y ensayos clínicos

A 30 de junio de 2026, la plataforma de financiación colectiva médica de Waterdrop había recaudado 74.700 millones de yuanes para 3,82 millones de pacientes, con aportaciones de aproximadamente 499 millones de donantes. La empresa continuó actualizando los controles de riesgo basados en IA para detectar ocultación de activos, riesgos de identidad e inconsistencias en el material presentado.

El negocio de soluciones digitales para ensayos clínicos reclutó a más de 1.500 pacientes durante el trimestre, un 54% más interanual, lo que eleva el reclutamiento acumulado por encima de los 17.000. El reclutamiento para enfermedades crónicas aumentó un 80%, aunque la directiva señaló que estos estudios suelen presentar mayores tasas de fallo en el cribado y requieren una selección de pacientes más rápida y precisa.

La plataforma E-Find firmó 167 nuevos proyectos durante el trimestre. El número de empresas farmacéuticas y organizaciones de investigación por contrato que colaboran con la plataforma superó las 255.

Retribución al accionista

El consejo de administración aprobó un dividendo en efectivo de 0,03 dólares por ADS, o 0,003 dólares por acción ordinaria, pagadero a los accionistas registrados a 9 de octubre de 2026. Se prevé que el pago total ascienda a aproximadamente 10,8 millones de dólares, con una distribución prevista para principios de noviembre.

Waterdrop también autorizó un programa de recompra de acciones por hasta 50 millones de dólares durante los 12 meses siguientes. A 31 de agosto de 2026, la empresa había recomprado de forma acumulada 62,9 millones de ADS por aproximadamente 120 millones de dólares desde el lanzamiento de su primer programa de recompra.

Previsiones de la directiva

Para todo el ejercicio 2026, la directiva fija como objetivo un crecimiento interanual de los ingresos totales superior al 40% y un aumento del beneficio operativo de más del 10%.

La empresa prevé mantener un ritmo activo de captación de clientes durante el segundo semestre de 2026 y todo el año 2027. La directiva confía en que el valor de la captación de clientes actual se materialice de forma progresiva mediante renovaciones, venta incremental y venta cruzada a lo largo del ciclo de vida del cliente.

Waterdrop prevé que su ratio global de gastos en I+D se mantenga estable y dentro de lo que la directiva considera un rango razonable, al tiempo que reorienta más talento y gasto relacionado con tokens hacia la IA. El gasto podría aumentar a medida que la adopción escale, sujeto a una disciplina de retorno de la inversión según la aplicación.

Riesgos y factores a vigilar

• Los gastos de ventas y marketing aumentaron drásticamente debido al incremento de la inversión de Waterdrop en canales de tráfico de terceros. El momento y la escala del retorno de estos desembolsos en captación de clientes siguen siendo consideraciones operativas clave.
• El beneficio neto atribuible a los accionistas disminuyó en términos interanuales a pesar de los mayores ingresos y beneficio operativo, reflejando partidas de carácter fiscal y pérdidas y ganancias no recurrentes.
• La directiva señaló que las informaciones en los medios de comunicación sobre la aplicación de la normativa fiscal vigente a los dividendos de las pólizas afectaron a corto plazo al sentimiento de los clientes hacia los seguros en Hong Kong, aunque no consideró que el asunto respondiera a una nueva medida dirigida específicamente a dicho mercado.
• Los estudios clínicos sobre enfermedades crónicas cuentan con un volumen mayor de pacientes, pero también registran tasas de fallo en el cribado más altas, lo que exige una mayor precisión y velocidad en el proceso de emparejamiento.
• El asistente de oficina portátil basado en IA de Waterdrop y su iniciativa de hardware inteligente vinculada continúan en una fase inicial de ventas piloto. La directiva indicó que su impacto financiero actual es limitado.

Puntos destacados de las preguntas y respuestas con analistas

Seguros en Hong Kong y tributación de los dividendos de pólizas: La directiva calificó el interés reciente como la aplicación de las reglas fiscales vigentes en lugar de una nueva política orientada específicamente a los seguros de Hong Kong. Reconoció un efecto a corto plazo en el sentimiento de los clientes, pero afirmó que los impulsores de la demanda, como la asignación multidivisa, el acceso a recursos sanitarios globales y la planificación de la herencia, permanecían intactos.

Seguros para enfermedades preexistentes: Waterdrop considera esta categoría como una oportunidad de crecimiento impulsada por la demanda. Su estrategia combina estructuras diferenciadas de suscripción y siniestros con la asignación mediante IA según el estado de salud, la edad y el perfil del cliente. La directiva identificó la cobertura de afecciones preexistentes, los seguros médicos de gama media y alta, y los productos combinados con gestión de la salud o servicios de atención a la tercera edad como áreas de gran potencial.

Comercialización de la IA: La directiva no prevé comercializar la IA principalmente como un negocio independiente. Confía en que el valor de la IA se refleje a través de una mayor conversión, el crecimiento de los ingresos y la eficiencia operativa en la captación, la evaluación de riesgos, los servicios de asesoramiento y la gestión de siniestros.

Gasto en captación de clientes: La directiva señaló que el objetivo no es solo reducir los costes de captación, sino mejorar la adecuación entre el producto y el cliente y optimizar la conversión mediante IA. Waterdrop prevé seguir ampliando su alcance al tiempo que busca retornos a más largo plazo a través de renovaciones y venta cruzada.

Transcripción completa de la conferencia de resultados

Transcripción completa de la conferencia de resultados

Comentarios de la dirección

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by for Waterdrop Inc.'s Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the meeting over to Ms. Tracy Lee. Please proceed, Ms. Lee.

Tracy Lee

Thank you, operator. Dear investors and analysts, this is Tracy Lee from Waterdrop Investor Relations. Please note that discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provision of U.S. Private Securities and the Litigation Reform Act of 1995. 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 not limited to those outlined in our public filings with the SEC. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law.

Also, this call includes discussion of certain non-GAAP measures. Please refer to our earnings release for a reconciliation between non-GAAP and GAAP.

Joining us today on the call are Mr. Shen Peng, our Founder, Chairman and CEO; Mr. Ran Wei, Director and GM of Insurance Business; Mrs. Li Jieru, Finance VP, Head of Strategy and Capital Markets.

Certain members of our management team will deliver their remarks in Mandarin, followed by an English translation. Moreover, a webcast replay will be available on our Investor Relations website.

I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Shen Peng. Please go ahead.

Peng Shen

Dear investors and analysts, thank you for joining Waterdrop's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. In this quarter, we maintained growth momentum and achieved a total revenue of CNY 1.45 billion, up 72.8% year-over-year and the net profit attributable to our ordinary shareholders of CNY 130 million. Since the first quarter of 2022, we have maintained profitability for 18 consecutive quarters.

Segment-wise, our insurance business continued to optimize user acquisition and conversion, driving 80.5% year-over-year revenue growth. Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding had accumulated [indiscernible] medical funds for 3.82 million patients as of the quarter end. Our digital clinical trial solution business performed strongly with quarterly patient enrollment up over 50% year-over-year. This growth trend were underpinned by deep integration of AI across our core business scenarios. As of the end of June, the company has filed 88 large language model patents, including 10 of them overseas.

With strong performance and cash reserves, we continue to prioritize shareholder returns. Our Board recently approved 2 new initiatives. Firstly, the Board has approved a cash dividend of $0.03 per ADS or $0.003 per ordinary share payable to holders of record on October 9, 2026. The aggregate dividend payment is approximately $10.8 million with payments to be made in early November.

Second, the Board approved a share repurchase program of up to $50 million over the next 12 months. Since the initial program launched in 2021, we have repurchased approximately 62.9 million ADS for $121 million as of August 31, 2026.

The company remains committed to sustainable development and to getting back to society in meaningful ways. As of June 30, 2026, Waterdrop Charity platform has partnered with 119 public charitable organizations and launched more than 15,600 charity programs.

Waterdrop remains focused on growth and investment in core businesses. We expect our current incremental investment to continue translating into solid user base and future product potential. We always regard technology as a core driver of this company's growth. Today, our AI capabilities are actively expanded across the platform, enabling us to better capture growth opportunities in our existing businesses and further sharpen our competitive edge. At the same time, we are actively piloting new AI-driven initiatives for global markets and have made early progress in [indiscernible] markets. For full year of 2026, Waterdrop targets more than 40% year-over-year growth in total revenue and over 10% growth in operating profit.

This concludes our overview of Waterdrop's business performance. Now we will walk you through each of our business segments in more detail.

Wei Ran

Hello, everyone. This is Ran Wei. Let me first update you on our insurance business. In the second quarter, insurance-related income reached CNY 1.33 billion, up 80.5% year-over-year and 15.4% quarter-over-quarter. Operating profit was CNY 180 million, up 20% from the previous quarter. With continued refinement in our AI-driven user insight and conversion capabilities, newly acquired customers rose 32.3% sequentially. The first year premiums of long-term insurance grew 33.4% sequentially as we capture market demand for insurance this quarter.

On the product side, our core strategy remains improving the affectability of insurance products. This quarter, we delivered several new products in line with this direction, including the launch of Rongyi Bao, the market's first long-term critical illness insurance product that requires no health disclosure and offers 5-year guaranteed renewability. We also expanded our Jixing Gaozhao product metrics, which now includes the market first specified disease insurance offering lifetime coverage with no health disclosure. During this quarter, products for users with pre-existing conditions contributed CNY 310 million FYP and disability insurance at CNY 84 million.

On the service side, we adopted differentiated scenario-based operations across customer touch points. In this quarter, AI applications across our user-facing interaction scenarios helped generating nearly CNY 100 million in FYP. Among them, AI Pro insurance generates FYP in millions each month. FYP facilitated by our AI Medical Insurance Expert rose by 25.6% sequentially. In WeCom scenario, we executed our strategies directly from the demand identification and user profiling to key moment engagement and batch operation contributing over CNY 10 million in FYP during this quarter.

Long-term insurance sales, the value of AI ultimately comes down to expanding what our life planners can do. As of quarter end, our underwriting assistant KEYI.AI had answered more than 13,000 underwriting questions. Since its launch, our AI Super Pre-Sales Assistant has constantly outperformed human life planners on annual premium per lead. And the number of users it served grew nearly 50% sequentially. Powered by multi-agent collaboration, our AI conversion model captures user preference from natural language interaction, turning them into durable profiles we can draw on over time and proactively surface topics tailored to each user, effectively extending the reach of every life planner we have.

That concludes our update on the insurance business for the second quarter.

Next, let me briefly update on Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding and Healthcare businesses. As of the end of June 2026, Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding had cumulatively contribution from around 499 million donors up to 3.82 million patients and raised a total of CNY 74.7 billion. This quarter, we continue to upgrade our AI driven risk control models, further improving asset concealment detection and sensitive identity detection. By combining semantic analysis of ID information, medical materials and user-generated content, the upgraded engine can better identify heating inconsistency and improve risk control efficiency.

In our health care business, our performance exceeding expectations across several key metrics. We enrolled more than 1,500 patients in this quarter, up 54% year-over-year and cumulative patient surpassing 17,000. Growth was driven by the higher matching efficiency and stronger enrollment capability. Oncology projects remain our core focus, while chronic disease projects are growing most of the sequential growth this quarter. Although chronic disease studies have a larger patient pool, they typically carry a high screening failure rates and place greater demand on matching precision and speed.

Chronic disease enrollment increased 80% year-over-year in the second quarter, further validating our enrollment ability in high screening failures enrolling. Meanwhile, our proven enrollment track record is translating into deeper and broader trust among patient partners. In this quarter, E-Find Platform signed 167 new products and the number of pharmaceutical companies and CROs we partnered with surpassed 255. Going forward, we will continue to optimize operational efficiency and work with our partners to advance digitalization across the clinical business progression.

This concludes our update on the Crowdfunding and Healthcare businesses.

Jieru Li

Hello, everyone. This is Li Jieru. Next, I will walk you through our financial highlights for the second quarter of 2026. Before I go into details, please be reminded that all the numbers quoted here will be in RMB. And please refer to our earnings release for detailed information on our financial performance on both the year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis, respectively.

In the second quarter of 2026, Waterdrop delivered net operating revenue of CNY 1,448 million, up 72.8% year-over-year, maintaining a strong growth momentum. Our insurance business contributed about CNY 1,333 million in revenue, representing an 80.5% increase year-over-year. Net insurance businesses accounted for around 7.9% of total revenue, including CNY 63.6 million from Medical Crowdfunding service fees and CNY 35.2 million from our digital clinical trial solutions.

Total operating costs and expenses came in at about CNY 1,337 million in the second quarter, up 80.5% year-over-year. Operating costs were CNY 537 million, increasing 29% year-over-year. The increase was primarily driven by business scale expansion, including an increase of around CNY 63.8 million in cost of referrals and service fees as well as an increase of CNY 21.4 million in short message service costs and CNY 11.2 million in personnel costs, respectively.

Sales and marketing expenses reached nearly CNY 638 million compared with CNY 199 million in the same quarter of 2025. The year-over-year increase mainly reflect -- the year-over-year increase mainly reflected our active step-up in public domain traffic investment with marketing expenses for third-party traffic channels increasing by about CNY 450 million and marketing-related professional technical service fees increasing by around CNY 21.8 million. G&A expenses were CNY 93.4 million, up 27.2% year-over-year, mainly due to an increase of CNY 33.3 million in allowance for credit losses. This was partially offset by decreases of nearly CNY 10.5 million in personnel costs and share-based compensation expenses.

R&D expenses were CNY 68.8 million, up 32.4% year-over-year. The increase was mainly driven by cloud server fees, token fees and other IT support expenses, which rose by about CNY 11.1 million as well as an increase of CNY 6.3 million in personnel costs and share-based compensation expenses.

For this quarter, operating profit reached about CNY 111 million, up 14.3% year-over-year and 39.2% quarter-over-quarter. However, due to tax-related items and nonrecurring gains and losses, net profit attributable to shareholders was around CNY 126 million, down 10.3% year-over-year, but up 27.9% quarter-over-quarter.

As of June 30, 2026, cash and cash equivalents, short-term investments and other cash positions totaled about CNY 2.653 billion. Our cash reserves maintains ample and provide solid support for both business investment and shareholder returns.

In terms of shareholder returns, since the launch of our first share repurchase program, we have cumulatively repurchased 62.9 million ADS for approximately USD 120 million as of August 31, 2026. And recently, the Board approved the sixth share repurchase program under which we plan to repurchase up to $50 million over the next 12 months and also approved the sixth cash dividend of approximately USD 10.8 million.

Overall, both the quality and scale of growth in our core businesses improved this quarter. The continued deployment of AI across every scenario in our business is becoming an important driver of efficiency gains. Meanwhile, we are expanding proactively while investing prudently in new initiatives in global markets, which for now have very limited impact on our current period financial results. As these initiatives reach a larger scale, we will keep the capital markets informed in a timely manner. In the future, the company will remain committed to disciplined strategic investments and continue creating long-term value for users and shareholders.

That concludes the company's financial results for the second quarter of 2026. We will now move on to the Q&A session.

Tracy Lee

[Operator Instructions] We now proceed to take our first question, and it comes from the line of Amy Chen of Citi. Her question is, in terms of the Mainland Chinese business in Hong Kong, media have reported that Mainland tax authorities may tax policy dividends. Has management seen any change either in the international business or domestic business?

Wei Ran

Regarding recent market attention, our reading that what we are seeing reflects the enforcement of tax rules that have long been in place rather than a new policy specifically targeting Hong Kong insurance. In the near term, the media coverage have some effect on our customer sentiment as the differentated value of Hong Kong insurance products like multicurrency allocation, access to global health care resources and inheritance planning are clear and fundamental drivers of the Hong Kong insurance market has not changed.

Turning to the drivers of Mainland China insurance market today, the growth is driven by a rising health protection awareness, policy tailwinds for commercial health insurance, continued product innovation and the structural shift of household savings into long-term assets such as insurance in the current low interest rate environment.

Waterdrop serves as diversifying the customer base across multiple markets and multiple service models and our business mix remains solid, and we're confident in serving user demand wherever it rises.

Tracy Lee

We will now take our next question from [indiscernible] of CICC. The question is, we have noticed that several insurers have recently launched health insurance products targeting customers with preexisting conditions. How does management evaluate this opportunity in this category? And what is product strategy in this area?

Wei Ran

As checkups become more common, the chronic illness and living with pre-existing conditions are far more typical. So a clean standard life is actually quite rare. And traditional health care insurance have a long focus on healthy lives and moving the people with pre-existing conditions still go unprotected. The industry consensus is clear, we're shifting from ensuring more healthy people to protecting the health of more people. This is both the real demand side opportunity and a clear path of commercial insurance expanding its coverage. And early practice with federal-level inclusive health plans, that logic is moving to more the commercial medical insurance, critical illness insurance, disability insurance and others. This is not simply diluting underwriting, it is segmenting the disease risk and building differentiated underwriting and claims. So the certain risk can actually be written and paid. For Waterdrop, lowering coverage threshold is central to our product strategy.

On the supply side, we break the demand down by scenario, age and condition, and co-design terms and coverage with our insurer partners. On the acquisition side, we use platform and AI insights to match the right products to the right customer. So people with pre-existing conditions can actually find something that works for them.

Longer term, our view is that health cover for people with pre-existing conditions can become more like auto insurance, people can actually buy it, claim on it and renew it. Accessibility and sustainability will have to move together.

Tracy Lee

We will now take our next two questions from [indiscernible] of Guotai Junan International. The question is, is there a clear time line for AI agent to start generating commercial value? And how will AI investment impact on R&D expenses ratio going forward? And what other new initiatives is the company currently exploring?

Peng Shen

As previously introduced, our AI is planning across four value chains: acquisition, risk screening, and claims, and it grows series by stage. We are not commercializing AI as a strong stand-alone business and its value will show up in our top line growth and bottom line growth we deliver. And as we introduced earlier in the user targeting and conversion, our AI directly support the user computation and the purchase decision, giving nearly CNY 100 million in FYP.

And in our long-term insurance advisory tools like our KEYI.AI and our AI Pre-Sales Assistant can help our life planners work more efficiently and efficiently and close more cases. On our operation, our AI customer service and quality inspection application have fully absorbed the actual volume as we scale.

In our R&D side, the overall R&D ratio is stable, but we are actively shifting resources towards AI, both in the talent and in token cost. As usage scales, the spend will grow naturally, but we are disciplined about ROI under each scenario, and we will keep the overall ratio to a reasonable range.

And turning to our new initiatives, we are incubating a portable AI office assistant, a smart hardware product that leverage our AI know-how, in-house R&D and China's supply chain strength. It is in pilot sales across major global markets with some encouraging early feedback that said it's still an early stage and its financial impact is limited for now. And the experience we are gaining along the way, both for the business and for the company overall is generally valuable.

Tracy Lee

We will now take our next question from Kate Liu of UOB Kay Hian. Her question is, from product and supply perspective, which insurance category does the management view as having strongest growth potential?

Wei Ran

There are two forces that reshaping our health insurance like the raising health protection awareness and aging population. So the market is shifting from standardized products to more tailored to actual needs. Demand driven coverage, including our insurance for pre-existing conditions, mid- to high-end medical insurance and products bundled with health management and elderly care services. A demand that traditional products never really served is being unlocked. We will keep building in this area. And this category play right into the strength we have built through our online platform. We can reach broadly and target precisely leveraging our AI capability and spot protection gap and specific customer groups, matching them with the right products and deliver better, faster service at the point of user consultation. So we will keep building on what we are uniquely good at.

Tracy Lee

Okay. We will now take our next question from [ Xinyu Mo ] of China Securities. The question is, noticing the strong growth in Q2, could you walk us through your recently customer acquisition investment outcomes and what we can expect on the cost side for the rest of 2026 and into 2027?

Peng Shen

We are still in an investment circle in the user acquisition in Q2, and that speed is already show up in the numbers like insurance revenue and operating profit both grew further from the last quarter. And the new users were actually up more than 30% sequentially. This is a combined result of better reach out and conversion and product supply.

And in terms of the user acquisition strategy, we are -- actually we are not simply pursuing the cost reduction. What matters most for us is how we leverage AI capability to better align our product supply with our user profile and improving conversion efficiency. So currently, AI has been embedded across the entire process from our customer acquisition to service and is continually improving our efficiency across our core scenarios.

For the second half of 2026 and the full year 2027, our strategy direction remains consistent. We continue to expect to maintain an active user acquisition pace, exceeding our reach to target customer segments and broadening user acquisition coverage. And at the same time, we expect the user value generated by the current period acquisition to be gradually realized through renewals and upsells and cross-sells over the sequential user life cycle.

Tracy Lee

We have received no further questions online, and this concludes our Q&A session for today. Thank you to all the investors and analysts for joining us today.

Betsy, operator, back to you.

Operator

We are now approaching the end of the conference call. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. You may now disconnect. Have a good day.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]