아고라(API) 2026년 2분기 실적 컨퍼런스 콜: 매출 성장과 음성 AI 모멘텀
아고라의 2026년 2분기 매출은 전년 동기 대비 18% 증가한 4,040만 달러를 기록하며 가이던스 상단을 초과했다. GAAP 순이익은 50.3% 증가한 220만 달러로 7분기 연속 흑자를 달성했다. 달러 기준 순유지율은 104%로 개선되었으나, 대화형 AI 사용량 확대와 규모의 경제 진입 지연으로 매출총이익률은 63.7%로 하락했다.
경영진은 3분기 매출을 4,100만~4,200만 달러로 예상하며, 연말까지 대화형 AI 매출 비중 5% 달성과 분기별 GAAP 영업이익 흑자 전환을 목표로 하고 있다. 대화형 AI는 콜센터 및 컴패니언 기기 분야에서 상용화 단계로 전환 중이나, 초기 비용과 파편화된 지역별 사용으로 손익분기점 수준에 머물러 있다. 향후 볼륨 증가와 기술 최적화를 통해 이익률이 개선될 것으로 전망한다.
핵심 요약
- 2026년 2분기 매출은 전년 동기 대비 18% 증가한 4,040만 달러를 기록하며 회사 가이던스 상단을 초과했고, 3분기 연속으로 성장 가속화를 나타냈습니다.
- GAAP 순이익은 50.3% 증가한 220만 달러(순이익률 5.4%)를 기록했습니다. 이는 아고라의 7분기 연속 GAAP 기준 순이익 흑자입니다.
- 달러 기준 순유지율은 실시간 참여 수요와 대화형 AI 도입 확대에 힘입어 전년 동기의 94%에서 104%로 개선되었습니다.
- 매출총이익률은 대화형 AI 사용량이 확대되었으나 아직 규모의 경제에 이르지 못함에 따라 전년 동기 66.8%에서 63.7%로 하락했습니다. 다만 기술적 최적화에 힘입어 1분기의 63.4%보다는 소폭 개선되었습니다.
- 경영진은 2026년 3분기 매출을 전년 동기 대비 15.8%~18.6% 증가한 4,100만~4,200만 달러로 예상합니다.
- 아고라는 연말까지 4분기 또는 기말 기준 대화형 AI의 매출 비중 5% 달성을 계속 목표로 하고 있으며, 2026년 말까지 분기별 GAAP 영업이익 흑자 달성을 목표로 하고 있습니다.
핵심 재무 데이터
| 지표 | 2026년 2분기 | 변동 / 코멘트 |
|---|---|---|
| 매출 | 4,040만 달러 | 전년 동기 대비 18% 증가 |
| 달러 기준 순유지율 | 104% | 2025년 2분기 94%에서 상승 |
| 매출총이익 | 2,570만 달러 | 전년 동기 대비 12.5% 증가 |
| 매출총이익률 | 63.7% | 2025년 2분기 66.8%, 2026년 1분기 63.4% |
| 연구개발비(R&D) | 1,540만 달러 | 10.2% 증가, 매출의 38.1% |
| 영업 및 마케팅비 | 640만 달러 | 1.5% 감소, 매출의 15.9% |
| 일반관리비 | 550만 달러 | 9.5% 감소, 매출의 13.5% |
| GAAP 영업손실 | 100만 달러 | 전년 동기 310만 달러 손실에서 개선 |
| GAAP 순이익 | 220만 달러 | 50.3% 증가, 순이익률 5.4% |
| 영업활동 현금흐름 | 마이너스 210만 달러 | 2025년 2분기 마이너스 40만 달러 |
| 현금, 예금 및 은행 발행 금융상품 | 3억 6,170만 달러 | 연간 보너스 지급 및 자사주 매입으로 인해 잔액 감소 |
아고라는 2분기 동안 약 370만 달러에 약 100만 ADS의 자사주를 매입했습니다. 2026년 6월 30일 기준 현재 프로그램에 따른 누적 자사주 매입액은 약 4,460만 ADS, 1억 5,990만 달러에 달했습니다. 발행 ADS 수량은 2025년 말 8,730만 주에서 8,380만 주로 감소했습니다.
비즈니스 및 운영 성과
대화형 AI는 아고라의 2026년 2분기 실적 발표에서 주요 신규 성장 테마였습니다. 경영진은 특히 콜센터 애플리케이션 분야에서 개념 검증(PoC) 프로젝트에서 상용화 단계로 전환하는 고객이 늘고 있다고 밝혔습니다.
현재 음성 AI 에이전트 구축 사례로는 아웃바운드 마케팅, 리드 자격 검증, 정보 수집, 미팅 일정 관리, 시장 조사가 포함됩니다. 경영진은 에이전트가 일부 아웃바운드 마케팅 업무에서 인간 상담원과 유사한 전환율을 기록하는 동시에, 더 높은 통화 처리 용량과 개선된 단가 경제성을 제공한다고 설명했습니다. 고객사가 개발 중인 기타 잠재적 응용 분야로는 금융 서비스 아웃리치, 게임 이용자 유치 및 유지, 채권 추심 등이 있습니다.
아고라는 또한 대화형 AI를 컴패니언 기기로 확장하고 있습니다. 회사는 일본 및 기타 시장에서 진전이 있다고 발표했으며, 스마트 기기와 로봇에 사용되는 전용 LTE 반도체를 지원하기 위해 반도체 제조업체들과 협력하고 있습니다.
주력 사업인 실시간 참여 분야에서는 중국 소셜 엔터테인먼트 및 교육 부문의 수요가 지속적으로 회복되며 안정적인 모습을 보였습니다. 미국 및 기타 글로벌 시장에서는 대형 쇼핑, 금융 서비스, 게임 유즈케이스의 수요가 계속 증가했습니다.
아고라는 인간 개발자와 AI 코딩 에이전트가 실시간 참여 및 대화형 AI 애플리케이션을 구축할 수 있도록 지원하는 '아고라 스킬스(Agora Skills)'와 '아고라 CLI(Agora CLI)'도 출시했습니다. 그라디움(Gradium)과의 파트너십을 통해 개발자들은 추가 지연 시간 비용 없이 설정만으로 아고라의 대화형 AI 엔진 내에서 그라디움의 텍스트 음성 변환(TTS) 기술을 활성화할 수 있습니다.
경영진 가이던스
아고라는 2026년 3분기 매출을 전년 동기 대비 15.8%~18.6% 증가한 4,100만~4,200만 달러로 예상합니다. 경영진은 이 전망치가 현재의 예비 견해를 반영하며 시장 및 영업 환경 변화에 따라 변경될 수 있다고 언급했습니다.
회사는 4분기 또는 연말 연환산(run-rate) 기준으로 대화형 AI의 매출 비중 5% 달성을 목표로 하고 있습니다. 경영진은 2026년 전체 매출에 대한 대화형 AI의 기여도가 5% 미만이 될 것임을 명확히 했습니다.
아고라는 또한 2026년 말까지 분기별 GAAP 영업이익 흑자 달성을 목표로 하고 있습니다. 장기적으로 경영진은 규모가 확대되고 비용 최적화에 주력하게 되면 대화형 AI의 매출총이익률이 실시간 참여 사업과 유사하거나 더 높아질 수 있다고 믿고 있습니다.
리스크 및 주시해야 할 포인트
대화형 AI 매출총이익률은 도입 규모가 아직 적고 사용 지역이 여러 국가에 분산되어 있어 손익분기점 수준에 머물러 있습니다. 경영진은 현재 비용 최적화보다 고객 경험을 우선시하고 있습니다.
AI 유즈케이스를 초기 개념 검증에서 일관되고 확장 가능한 상용 생산으로 전환하는 데는 수개월이 걸릴 수 있습니다. 콜센터 자동화는 또한 서로 다른 요구사항을 가진 여러 독립된 워크플로우를 다루므로, 상용화는 단일 제품 출시가 아닌 다년간의 프로세스가 됩니다.
제품 믹스 또한 단기적인 고려 사항입니다. 대화형 AI 사용 증가는 기술적 최적화로 순차적인 소폭 개선을 이뤄냈음에도 불구하고 전체 매출총이익률의 전년 동기 대비 하락에 기여했습니다.
경쟁은 여러 기술 레이어에 걸쳐 있습니다. 경영진은 트윌리오(Twilio)의 통신 API 및 전화번호 기능을 언급하는 한편, 아고라는 음성 모델, 오디오 처리, 저지연 클라우드 인프라 및 에이전트 레이어를 중심으로 시장 입지를 구축하고 있습니다.
2분기 영업활동 현금흐름은 GAAP 순이익 흑자에도 불구하고 전년 동기의 마이너스 40만 달러에서 악화된 마이너스 210만 달러를 기록했습니다.
애널리스트 Q&A 주요 내용
경영진은 미래 콜센터 시장을 IVR 기술이 처리하는 단순 업무, 사람이 담당하는 매우 민감하거나 중요한 업무, 지능형 음성 AI 에이전트가 처리하는 광범위한 중간 영역의 세 가지 세그먼트로 설명했습니다. 아고라는 이 중간 세그먼트가 시장의 상당 부분을 차지할 것으로 예상합니다.
AI 수익성과 관련해 경영진은 현재의 낮은 매출총이익률 원인을 제한적인 규모, 파편화된 지역별 사용, 비용보다는 성능을 우선시한 초기 강조 때문으로 돌렸습니다. 볼륨 증가와 기술적 비용 최적화를 통해 시간이 지남에 따라 이익률이 개선될 것으로 예상됩니다.
자본 환원과 관련해 회사는 토니 자오(Tony Zhao) CEO가 발표한 2,000만 달러 규모의 추가 장내 자사주 매입이 거래 금지 기간 및 법적 제한으로 인해 시작되지 않았다고 밝혔습니다. 모든 매입은 관련 조건에 따릅니다. 경영진은 아고라의 비상장화 전환을 고려하지 않고 있으며 현재 특별배당도 계획하지 않고 있다고 말했습니다.
실적 발표 콜 전문
전체 실적 발표 컨퍼런스 콜 녹취록
경영진 발표
Operator
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Agora Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
The company's earnings results press release, earnings presentation, SEC filings, and a replay of today's call can be found on its IR website at investor.agora.io.
Joining me today are Tony Zhao, Founder, Chairman and CEO; Jingbo Wang, the company's CFO.
During this call, the company will make forward-looking statements about its future financial performance and other future events and trends. These statements are only predictions that we -- based on what the company believes today and actual results may differ materially. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that could affect the company's financial results and the performance of its business, and which the company discussed in detail in its filings with the SEC, including today's press release and the risk factors of other information contained in the final prospectus relating to the initial public offering. Agora Inc. remains no obligation to update any forward-looking statements the company may make on today's call.
With that, let me turn the call over to Tony. Hi, Tony.
Bin Zhao
Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone, to our earnings call. Let me begin with a review of our operating results for the quarter. I'm pleased to report another quarter of accelerating top line growth as well as our seventh consecutive quarter of GAAP profitability. Total revenues for the second quarter of 2026 reached $40.4 million, an increase of 18% year-over-year. This performance reflects both the continued strength of our core real-time engagement business and the growing contribution from our conversational AI products as more customers move from proof of concept to commercial production.
Our GAAP net profit for the quarter was $2.2 million, up 50% year-over-year, which demonstrates improved operating leverage and disciplined cost management across the organization. Our most important progress this quarter occurred in call center across the globe. We are seeing strong momentum in adoption of our voice AI agent. Trained on the best sales and customer service playbooks, this agent delivered consistent high-quality performance across every conversation. They do not experience fatigue, lose focus or vary in performance based on workload or time of day. They also maintain calm and steady interactions even during challenging calls.
Further, customers are now seeing substantial cost savings from deploying our voice AI agent. Indeed, we're beginning to see them match or even surpass human performance in an increasing number of tasks in achieving target business outcomes. The first example is outbound marketing and buyer interest capture. Our voice AI agents are now being used to initiate calls, qualifying leads, collect information and schedule meetings with prospect customers at a similar conversion rates with human reps. Our voice AI agent also outperformed in 2 other important areas: the volume of calls they can handle and unit economics they deliver. The second example is market survey. Our voice AI agent can conduct in-depth interviews for consumer insights and product feedback, while capturing structured data throughout each conversation.
The high concurrency of our solution compresses the time it takes to conduct large-scale survey that traditionally takes weeks or days into just a few hours. Marketing and surveying are only 2 examples of how voice AI agent can reshape call center worldwide. We see similar opportunities in financial services outreach, gaming user acquisition and retention, debt collection and many other areas. We are already working with customers across these sectors, and we expect several of them to move from proof of concept to large-scale deployment in the coming quarters.
At the same time, we continue to invest in our developer ecosystem. This quarter, we launched Agora Skills and Agora CLI. Agora Skills package our platform knowledge for the AI coding assistants, including Claude Code, Cursor or Codex and work with our latest SDKs and best practices when building real-time engagement or conversational AI applications. The Agora CLI complements this with a single command-line interface for coding agents to do their work. Together, these tools make it easier for both human developers and AI coding agents to build and deploy real-time engagement applications with us. We're also continuing to strengthen our technology ecosystem through strategic partnerships. This quarter, we announced a partnership with Gradium, a leading voice AI platform recently founded by the research team behind WuXi and TBK, two speech models with strong recognition in the open source community.
Through our partnership, developers can enable Gradium TTS within our conversational AI engine through a simple configuration without introducing additional latency costs. Looking ahead, we will first remain laser focused on accelerating the transition of our conversational AI solutions from pilot to production across use cases. Each use case will present its own set of challenges, but each will also help us refine our technology. We believe that continued improvements in our solutions will unlock additional demand and drive industry shift towards AI-led workflows in call centers.
Second, we will continue to invest in our real-time infrastructure. Our software-defined real-time network or SD-RTN, has long been a foundational advantage for us. As we expand into human to AI interactions, the importance of this infrastructure does not diminish. On the contrary, it becomes more critical because smooth conversations require ultralow latency inference and transmission. We are confident that our investment in real-time inference and the communication infrastructure will serve as a decisive factor in our ability to compete and succeed in the conversational AI arena.
And third, we will continue to strengthen our partner ecosystem and build up developer venture. On October 23 and 24, we will host our iconic and annual conference, IRTE, or Intelligent Real-Time Engagement in Beijing. We look forward to bringing together developers partners, enterprises and industry leaders to explore the next phase of real-time engagement and conversational AI.
In summary, we believe the center of gravity in the AI industry is increasingly shifting from model capabilities towards infrastructure and hardness layer required to operate voice AI agents reliably at scale. At the intersection of real-time engagement, AI and global infrastructure, we believe Agora is uniquely positioned to help enterprise market to help enterprise make this transition and create sustainable long-term value for both our customers and shareholders. Before I conclude, I would like to thank our customers, developers, partners, and shareholders for their continued trust and support and our global Agora and Shenghong teams for their dedication and innovation.
With that, let me turn it over to Jingbo, who will review our financial results.
Jingbo Wang
Thanks, Tony. Hello, everyone. Let me start by first reviewing financial results for the second quarter of 2026, and then I will discuss the outlook for the third quarter. Total revenue for second quarter reached $40.4 million, above the high end of the guidance range and representing 18% year-over-year growth. This marks our third consecutive quarter of accelerating growth, driven by continued expansion of our real-time engagement services across sectors such as e-commerce as well as growing customer adoption of our conversational AI solutions. Our dollar-based net retention rate for the quarter was 104% compared to 94% in the second quarter of 2025. This represents a meaningful improvement and moves us back above 100%. Gross profit for the quarter was $25.7 million, representing 12.5% increase year-over-year. Gross margin was 63.7% compared to 66.8% in the same period last year and 63.4% in the first quarter of 2026. On a year-over-year basis, the decline was primarily due to product mix change as conversational AI products continue to see growing usage during the quarter, but has remained at a subscale stage. On a sequential basis, the increase was mainly driven by technical optimization.
Turning to expenses. R&D expenses were $15.4 million in Q2, up 10.2% year-over-year. R&D expenses represented 38.1% of total revenue in the quarter compared to 40.8% in the same period last year. The increase was primarily due to our continued investment in conversational AI products. Sales and marketing expenses were $6.4 million in Q2, down 1.5% year-over-year. Sales and marketing expenses represented 15.9% of total revenue in the quarter compared to 19% in the same period last year. The decrease was primarily due to disciplined expense management. General and administrative expenses were $5.5 million in Q2, down 9.5% year-over-year.
G&A expenses represented 13.5% of total revenue in the quarter compared to 17.6% in the same period last year. The decrease was primarily due to a lower allowance for current expected credit loss as customer credit conditions and collection outcomes improved. Turning to operating results. We recorded GAAP operating loss of $1 million in the second quarter compared to a loss of $3.1 million in the same period last year, thanks to continued improvement in operating leverage. Based on our current business momentum, our goal is to achieve quarterly GAAP operating profitability by the end of this year. Moving on to the bottom line. We delivered net income of $2.2 million in Q2, up 50.3% year-over-year and representing a net income margin of 5.4%.
Now turning to cash flow. Operating cash flow was negative $2.1 million in Q2 compared to negative $0.4 million in the second quarter of 2025. Moving on to balance sheet. We ended Q2 with $361.7 million in cash, cash equivalents, bank deposits and financial products issued by banks. The decrease in our cash balance was mainly due to annual bonus payments as well as share repurchase during the quarter. During Q2, we repurchased approximately 1 million ADS for approximately $3.7 million. As of June 30, 2026, we have repurchased approximately 44.6 million ADS in total for approximately $159.9 million under the current share repurchase program.
As of June 30, 2026, we had 83.8 million ADS outstanding, compared to 87.3 million ADS at the end of 2025. The current share repurchase program will expire at the end of February 2027. Now turning to guidance. Based on currently available information, we expect total revenue for the third quarter of 2026 to be between $41 million and $42 million, representing year-over-year growth of 15.8% to 18.6%. This outlook reflects our current and preliminary views on the market and operational conditions, which are subject to change.
In closing, this was another strong quarter for us, both in terms of revenue growth and profitability. At the same time, we are increasingly encouraged by usage momentum and commercial potential in conversational AI, and we'll continue to invest with discipline to support our long-term growth. Thank you all for joining today's call.
Let's open it up for questions.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question is going to come from the line of Harry Zhuang with BofA Securities.
질의응답
Harry Zhuang
Congratulations on the strong results and guidance. I have 3 questions. The first one is regarding the demand. How is the demand trend in overseas and domestic market? And what are the key sectors driving the growth? Second one is regarding AI. We're happy to see that the call center application levers growing really fast. And what are the other data scenarios that could drive meaningful conversational AI demand growth? And what will be the revenue contribution from conversational AI by end of the year and the gross margin trend? And lastly, about the competition, could management share the latest competitive landscape in overseas market against our major competitors?
Jingbo Wang
Okay. In terms of demand, I will talk about the RTE side and Tony can talk about the AI side. So on RTE side, actually things haven't changed that much overall what we see this quarter in both China and U.S. and international markets, largely the same as the last quarter. So in China, thanks to a more stable operating environment. So demand from social entertainment, and education customers continue to recover. So I think they're looking pretty stable here. On the U.S. and international side, demand from large shopping, financial services, gaming use cases continue to grow. So demand looks healthy on the RTE side.
Bin Zhao
Yes. And on the AI side, I think it's fair to say, our vision has been validated and reinforced in our daily business with rapid development and continued improvement we achieved on the ground. In call centers, as I mentioned in the remarks, with AI agents matching and sometimes even surpass human reps on certain tasks with solid verifiable business outcome for the enterprise customers. This is just the beginning of a very, very long run, and I believe we will witness the transition from human call center reps to AI agents around the world besides how large language model has reshaped the software engineering. This is actually a very good thing for people and the society because it will free people from very tedious and stressful line of work. Keep talking to different persons for hours about the same task and keep the conversation strictly professional is very exhausting and emotionally draining.
Jingbo Wang
Yes. So in terms of the use case for conversational AI, I can talk about 2 verticals: call center and companionship devices. But Tony already talked about a lot -- covered a lot on the call centers. But I want to highlight 1 point. When we talk about cost centers, it's not a single use case. It's a collection of many, many use cases, each with different features and different knowledge. And when we talk about these use cases, actually, in terms of difficulty for replacement by those AI agents, actually they form a spectrum from the easy ones on the left-hand side to the hard ones on right-hand side. And now we are only beginning to explore a few use cases on the license side, such as outbound marketing survey. But these are low hanging fruits. As we continue to refine our solutions and accumulate more experience working with our customers, we will convert more and more use cases from impossible to proof of concept to real-world production. So it has a very long run rate. It's not one single use case we can counter in 1 quarter or in 1 year. It's going to be a multiyear process.
And secondly, on the companionship device, we talked with our customers in the past. In this quarter, we actually expanded into new markets in Japan and other countries, and the initial feedback has been quite encouraging. We also partnered with several chip makers to make our solution compatible with more chips because these are not mobile phone chips, these are very specialized LTE chips and this will make our solution available on a wider range of smart devices, including robots. So overall, we are still targeting a 5% revenue contribution from conversational AI by the end of this year. Competition. Tony, do you want to talk about competition?
Bin Zhao
Okay. You want to talk about gross margin or not?
Jingbo Wang
Not at this time.
Bin Zhao
Okay. So about competition, especially on conversational AI, conversational AI has several distinct technology layers from the agent layer that orchestrate and optimize the call center or the call experience to model layer that includes large language model and voice models such as ASR or TTS. And finally, infra layer such as telecom APIs and cloud. Different layers -- different players attack this market from different angles. For example, Twilio would leverage its strength in telecom API and phone numbers from their CCaaS business. And we are focused on the voice models, audio preprocessing and post-processing, low-latency cloud infrastructure and agent layer to deliver the best possible call experience.
Given the huge potential of the conversational AI market, it is natural to have competition. In fact, a lot of the technology in conversational AI involves audio processing, such as handling noise echos or packet loss. Obviously, we have a lot of experience in those areas which can hugely improve conversational AI experience. So we remain confident about our position in this market.
Jingbo Wang
Harry, does that answer your question?
Harry Zhuang
Yes. They were helpful. Congratulations again on the results.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Yue Xu with China Securities Co.
Yue Xu
Congrats on another strong quarter. My first question is in regards to conversational AI. So could you please update on conversational AI revenue progress and the projected contribution to full year value? My second question is the conversion cycle for AI use cases. Could you disclose the current backlog for this AI use cases and foreign maybe just customer accounts? And how would you view the trend for AI revenue for coming quarters, maybe next year?
Jingbo Wang
Thank you. Thanks for question. So we already talked a lot about the use cases. So first of all I want to explain that, it actually takes quite some time for a use case to really ramp up from the start of the POC point where AI agents can deliver consistent performance and can be deployed at scale. It only takes several months. And I talked about there are many, many use cases we need to attack them one by one. And also, we can do a few in parallel but still is going to take -- is going to be quite a process. So as I mentioned earlier, we're targeting 5% revenue contribution by the end of the year.
So basically our goal is in Q4 or in terms of the run rate, AI run rate, we want to achieve 5% by the end of the year. Obviously, that means for the full year of 2026, it's not going to be 5%. It's going to be smaller than that. But as we -- if we achieve 5% by the end of the year, and given the strong pipeline we already have on hand, which will only become bigger by the end of the year. We believe there will be still significant room for growth next year. Yes. So we remain quite optimistic at how we are looking in this market.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Zongxuan Yang with Citic Securities.
Zongxuan Yang
Okay. I just have one question regarding to our AI business. So have you ever given any guidance on the long term for about 3 to 5 years for the AI penetration rate for our total revenue and also for the gross margin guidance?
Bin Zhao
I'll take the question. In the end, the call center market will have 3 segments. First is easiest tasks, such as simple notifications. This will be handled by IVR-based technology, which has no real intelligence but can understand simple keywords from human. The second would be the hardest task or most important tasks such as handling complaints from high-value customers or emergency situation, which will continue to be handled by humans. Even if AI agent is technically able to handle the task, in some cases, only humans can take certain responsibilities, such as in the 911 call. The third would be everything else in the middle of the previous tool, those will be handled by voice AI agents with real intelligence. It's hard to say exactly how big this part will be, but it will be a significant portion of the entire market.
Jingbo Wang
So yes. So Tony talked about the 3- to 5-year outlook for the call center market, which is a huge market. There are literally close to 20 million people working in call center today in the world. And as Tony said, there will be 3 categories in the future. And probably in the middle category will be the biggest, and that will be handled by voice AI agents. So even taking a small part of the market that would be transformational for our company. So at this point, it's hard to give a clear number as this market is still at a very, very early stage. And the overall penetration of AI agents is still very low. So it's hard to say exactly how this will become, but it certainly will be a transformation for us.
And in terms of the gross margin. Today, the gross margin is not high for us. We talked about that last quarter, it's crossing the negative positive line, but it's still around there. But it's not because fundamentally -- any fundamental reason is because, one, we are subscale. The volume is more and volume happened at different geographies. So at each single geography, or even smaller. So subscale. And secondly, we haven't really focused much on the technical optimization. Right now, our optimization is more focused on the experience about the cost. So once we have larger schedule and also be more focused on the technical activation on cost, we believe in the end, the gross margin will be similar to if not higher than what we have right now in the RTE business.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of [ Tristan Yang ] with [ DoubleLine Capital ].
Unknown Analyst
Nice results today. Tony, regarding your announcement to purchase the additional $20 million of shares on the open market, I'm wondering how much have you purchased to date? And then what valuation do you believe appropriately reflects Agora's intrinsic value? And then given your existing ownership stake, have you considered taking the company private or returning additional capital to shareholders through a special dividend or an accelerated buyback program?
Jingbo Wang
Let me answer this question because it's more quite technical. So definitely, Tony has not started due to certain blackout and legal restrictions. But once these are cleared, he will start repurchase -- so obviously, insider and he has previous purchase in the past at beginning of this year. So there are certain legal restrictions. So as to the $20 million, that has not started yet. We have returned up to this point, about $160 million of capital back to the shareholders through share repurchase. And that compares to what about $400 million, $350 million of market cap of the company, which is substantial and probably among the most substantial among any public company in the world. So we will continue to do that. But at this point, we have not considered a special dividend, which we might consider in the future, but not at present.
Bin Zhao
I think my purchase will start in like 2, 3 weeks, right? September, October.
Jingbo Wang
Yes. Yes, subject to certain conditions.
Bin Zhao
Okay. I don't think we will consider take the company off the market. We will want to keep communicate with capital market and for ourselves focused on business operation and improve our overall technical and operation strengths. We're still very confident that the future of our direction has a very big potential. And we think by focus on our business operations and technical advancement, we will be able to make a lot of value for our customers, our shareholders and our employees.
Operator
Showing no further questions. This will conclude today's Q&A session. Thank you, everybody, for attending the company's call today. As a reminder, a recording and the earnings release will be available on the company's website at investor.agora.io. And if you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail the company. Thank you. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.
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