Autohome (ATHM) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Margin Gains, Profit Declines

Key Takeaways

• Autohome reported Q3 2026 net revenue of RMB 1.31 billion, including RMB 547 million from online marketplace and other services, RMB 526 million from lead generation, and RMB 241 million from media services.
• Gross margin increased to 67.2% from 63.7% a year earlier, while operating profit declined to RMB 96 million from RMB 147 million.
• Adjusted net income attributable to Autohome fell to RMB 253 million from RMB 407 million in Q3 2025. Operating cash flow was RMB 360 million.
• Average mobile daily active users rose 3.4% year over year to 79.14 million in September, according to QuestMobile.
• Autohome Mall reached 38 cities, with more than 1,700 authorized dealers and over 600 vehicle series. Autohome Good Car operated more than 170 franchise stores, with cumulative transactions exceeding 700 vehicles.
• The company had repurchased approximately 7.06 million ADSs for USD 155 million as of October 30 under its USD 400 million authorization. The board also approved a dividend of USD 1.58 per ADS, representing an aggregate payment of approximately RMB 1 billion.

Core Financial Data

Cash and investments included cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments, and other long-term investments.

Business and Operating Performance

Autohome continued to expand from automotive information services into transactions and offline fulfillment. Its online car-purchasing platform, Autohome Mall, covered 38 cities at the end of the quarter. Management said the combination of authorized dealers, Autohome Good Car franchise stores, and online traffic is beginning to create network effects across its online-to-offline ecosystem.

The company launched Cheese Car Butler on September 5. Built on the proprietary Cangjie Automotive large language model, the AI agent covers vehicle browsing, selection, purchasing, and ownership services. It connects online consultations with services including test-drive appointments, fixed-price transactions, valuation, inspections, charging, and maintenance.

Management said AI investment is already reflected in costs and product development, but AI has not begun generating revenue at scale. The technology is currently being used to improve products, operating efficiency, and existing revenue-generating businesses.

The domestic used-car platform expanded its standardized end-to-end sales-service pilot to six cities. Services include customer acquisition, appointment scheduling, 265-point vehicle inspections, buyer-seller matching, auctions, agreement signing, and ownership transfers.

For cross-border used-car exports, the platform averaged more than 3,000 online vehicle listings per day during the quarter. Monthly transactions increased after the first export order was completed in July, although management said total volume remains relatively small.

Management Outlook

Management expects China’s domestic auto market to remain under pressure in the short term but believes it is near a bottom. The company expects stabilization and a low-single-digit increase in 2027, consistent with the China Passenger Car Association’s forecast for passenger-vehicle retail growth of 0% to 5%, with a midpoint near 2%.

For 2026, management projected full-year passenger-vehicle retail sales of 18.5 million units, down 22% year over year. It also expects Q4 retail sales to decline by 20% to 25% from the prior-year period.

Management expects new energy vehicles to remain the main industry growth driver. NEV penetration reached 67% in September, while the top 10 NEV brands represented 72% of NEV retail sales during the first nine months of 2026.

Risks and Areas to Watch

• Domestic auto demand remains weak following the high base created by prior-year subsidies and the pull-forward of demand.
• Auto industry profitability remains under pressure. Management cited an industry profit margin of 3.3% for the first nine months of 2026.
• Management expects further consolidation among weaker automakers and dealers, particularly joint-venture brands, internal-combustion-engine vehicle businesses, and financially fragile dealers.
• High international oil prices could weigh on demand for traditional internal-combustion-engine vehicles.
• AI products are not yet generating revenue at scale, while cross-border used-car transaction volumes remain relatively small.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

Offline retail network: Management emphasized channel quality and business synergies rather than store count alone. The objective is an integrated fulfillment network combining Autohome Mall, authorized dealers, Autohome Good Car franchise stores, and CARtech-related capabilities.

Shareholder returns: Autohome completed a previous USD 200 million repurchase program ahead of schedule. Under the new USD 400 million authorization, nearly 40% had been executed by the end of October. The company plans to continue repurchases under its established strategy.

The approved cash dividend is USD 1.58 per ADS or USD 0.395 per ordinary share. Holders of record as of January 5, 2027, are expected to receive payment around March 15, 2027, for ordinary shares and March 22, 2027, for ADSs.

Used-car expansion: Initial results from the six-city domestic pilot were encouraging in transaction conversion and user satisfaction, according to management. The company plans to refine the model before pursuing broader replication.

AI impact: Management views AI agents as a new hub connecting users with automotive services and enabling more precise service distribution. Near-term financial benefits are expected to come through product improvements and operating efficiency rather than direct AI revenue.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Autohome's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. A live and archived webcast of today's call will be available on Autohome's IR website.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Sterling Song, Autohome's IR Director. Please go ahead, Mr. Song.

Sterling Song

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Autohome's third quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Earlier today, Autohome distributed its earnings release, which can be found on the company's IR website at ir.autohome.com.cn. Joining me today on today's call is our Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Craig Yan Zeng. Management will go through the prepared remarks first, which will be followed by a Q&A session where they will be available to answer all your questions.

Before we begin, please note that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provision of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in our public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Autohome undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable laws.

Please also note that Autohome's earnings press release and today's conference call include discussions of certain unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release.

I will now turn the call over to Autohome's CFO, Mr. Craig Yan Zeng, for opening remarks. Craig, please go ahead.

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted]

Thank you, Sterling. Hello, everyone. This is Craig Zeng, CFO of Autohome. Thank you for joining our earnings conference call today.

In the third quarter, we made solid progress in upgrading towards a comprehensive automotive service ecosystem with our innovative businesses developing steadily. On the user side, we stepped up our efforts to systematically develop our content and the tool matrix, our user base maintained stable year-over-year growth, further strengthening our platform moat. On the innovative business side, our new retail business refined its model and scaled up its service network, further broadening its city coverage. Our used car business advanced the development of both domestic and overseas platforms. Our full process used car sales service platform continued to improve its standardized service system, while our cross-border used car export service platform achieved growth in both the supply of quality vehicles and export transaction volumes.

In early September, we officially launched our proprietary automotive service AI agent application, Cheese Car Butler by deeply integrating AI capabilities with our dual service ecosystem of users and merchants. We are driving the shift in automotive services from purely information matching towards trusted decision-making and reliable fulfillment. This also represents a key strategic innovative for Autohome in the AI plus automotive services' sector.

On content, we continue to advance our brand recognition. In partnership with Mango Excellent Media, Autohome produced a variety entertainment Gala, August 18 Global Automobile Festival, which was broadcast across platforms. The Gala featured celebrity and influencer challenge quizzes and other interactive format, driving traffic growth and raising brand awareness. The live broadcast event was received positively with total impressions across all channels exceeding 1.8 billion.

On the product side, our vehicle model library launched the at a Glance feature, which helps users understand the vehicle in a single glance by tracking and integrating scattered vehicle information into a single image covering 8 major highlights and 5 scenario-based tools for each vehicle. This allows users to understand the key selling points of a vehicle more quickly and intuitively. In parallel, to address the complexity of configuring new energy vehicles, we also launched the Configuration Selector tool, which simplifies the configuration selection process and lowers the barrier to decision-making for users.

According to QuestMobile data, Autohome's average mobile DAUs grew 3.4% year-over-year to 79.14 million in September. This report also showed that Autohome ranked first by citation rate as an automotive information source across 6 major AI platforms for 3 consecutive months from June to August. This demonstrates that the professional content accumulated by Autohome over the years continues to be valued now in new information service scenarios.

In the new energy vehicle sector, we accelerated the build-out of our dealer ecosystem across all channels and regions. By the end of the third quarter, Autohome Mall's online car purchasing model has reached 38 cities nationwide with more than 1,700 authorized dealers and over 600 vehicle series listed on the platform. This large-scale authorized dealer network has broadened vehicle supply, removed regional barriers to car purchases and strengthened the online automotive e-commerce transaction chain. Meanwhile, Autohome Good Car steadily expanded its offline footprint and store count. At the end of the third quarter, Autohome Good Car had over 170 franchise stores with cumulative transactions of over 700 vehicles. As new retail offline channels take shape and our footprint across higher and lower cities develops, Autohome's transaction service system is becoming increasingly complete with our online assets and offline channels working synergistically, the network effects of our O2O ecosystem are beginning to emerge.

Our AI and large language models, we officially launched our AI native application, Cheese Car Butler on September 5. The product is built on our proprietary Cangjie Automotive large language model, it covers the entire user journey of browsing, selecting, buying and using vehicles, leading intelligent online consultations with offline store services. For users, Cheese Car Butler aggregates extensive reviews and word-of-mouth data from real car owners to offer credible references for car purchase decisions. It also integrates one-stop services, including incentives and discounts, test drive appointments, fixed price transactions, valuation and price comparison, on-site inspections, charging and maintenance fulfillment to support users throughout the entire vehicle life cycle.

For merchants, the product covers mainstream 4S dealerships, used car dealers and automobile service providers across the industry, empowering dealers and aftermarket service providers in their digital operations. Cheese Car Butler is an innovative product that combines Autohome's long accumulated automotive content, data, industry resources and user service experience with AI capabilities. Going forward, we will continue to refine the user experience and improve service quality, making it easier for users to access authentic information and find the offline service resources they need.

Our used car business, we focused on the full process car scale service platform and launched pilot operations in Nantong and Changzhou at the beginning of the year. During the pilot period, both transaction efficiency and user satisfaction saw improvements, preliminary proving the feasibility of our business model. In the third quarter, we expanded the pilot to 6 cities through refined operations tailored to regional markets. We continue to hone our standardized service system, laying a solid foundation for replicating the model nationwide. For cross-border export service platform, we strengthened the integration of our online multilingual international sites and our offline fulfillment networks by connecting online vehicle supply displays and inquiry conversion with offline vehicle condition verification, customs clearance and logistics. We improved the collaborative efficiency of the entire cross-border transaction process. We also continue to expand our supply of high-quality vehicles.

In the third quarter, the platform averaged more than 3,000 vehicles listed for sale online each day. Since the platform completed its first export order in July, monthly transaction volume has continued to rise, demonstrating very sound business momentum. Overall, the full process car sales and cross-border export service platforms are developing steadily with model validation, regional expansion and operational chain efficiency improvements progressing in parallel, building momentum for further expansion and nationwide deployment.

In summary, we further solidified our traditional information platform, reinforcing user mindshare and our traffic base while actively developing our transaction business and accelerating the deployment of AI agent applications to build a differentiated competitive advantage. At the same time, in keeping up with our long-standing commitment to maximizing shareholder value, our Board approved a cash dividend plan for the second half of the year, and we continue to actively repurchase shares in the open market. Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in key strategic priorities that can strengthen our long-term competitiveness while maintaining a streamlined cost structure, creating sustainable value for users, customers and shareholders through a more efficient automotive service ecosystem.

With that, let me briefly walk you through the key financials for the third quarter of 2026. Please note that all amounts discussed today are in RMB unless otherwise stated.

Net revenues for the third quarter were RMB 1.31 billion. Specifically, media services revenues were RMB 241 million. Lead generation services revenues were RMB 526 million and online marketplace and others revenues were RMB 547 million.

With respect to costs, cost of revenues in the third quarter was RMB 431 million compared with RMB 646 million in the third quarter of 2025. Gross margin in the third quarter was 67.2% compared with 63.7% in the same period last year.

Turning to operating expenses. Sales and marketing expenses in the third quarter were RMB 575 million compared with RMB 620 million in the third quarter of 2025. Product and development expenses were RMB 195 million compared with RMB 279 million in the third quarter of 2025. General and administrative expenses were RMB 91 million compared with RMB 125 million in the same period last year.

Overall, operating profit was RMB 96 million in the third quarter compared with RMB 147 million in the same period of 2025. Adjusted net income attributable to Autohome was RMB 253 million in the third quarter compared with RMB 407 million in the corresponding period of last year.

Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per share in the third quarter were RMB 0.61 and RMB 0.66 respectively, compared with RMB 0.87 and 0.86 in the corresponding period of 2025. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS in the third quarter were RMB 2.43 and RMB 2.42, respectively, compared with RMB 3.47 and RMB 3.45 respectively in the corresponding period of 2025.

As of September 30, 2026, our balance sheet remains robust. Cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments and other long-term investments totaled RMB 17.65 billion. Net cash provided by operating activities for the third quarter was RMB 360 million.

On July 28, 2026, our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program under which we may repurchase up to USD 400 million of Autohome ADS over the next 12 months. As of October 30, 2026, we have repurchased approximately 7.06 million ADS for a total cost of approximately USD 155 million.

In addition, in accordance with our dividend policy, our Board has approved a cash dividend of USD 1.58 per ADS or USD 0.395 per ordinary share payable in U.S. dollars to holders of ordinary shares and ADS of record as of the close of business on January 5, 2027. The aggregate amount of the dividend will be approximately RMB 1 billion and is expected to be paid for holders of ordinary shares and ADS of the company on or around March 15, 2027, and March 22, 2027, respectively.

That concludes our financial summary. Now we are ready to open up the Q&A session.

Operator, please open up the line for the Q&A session.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Brian Gong from Citi.

Question-and-Answer Session

Brian Gong

[Interpreted]

I have 2 questions. First is what's our view on the auto sales industry right now? And do you expect a recovery for the industry for next year? And is there any change for the industry trend? And secondly, what is the progress on our offline store currently? Could you share your plan over short term and medium term?

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted]

Thank you for your question. First, we do expect the domestic auto market remain under pressure in the short term. And -- but we believe it is already at the bottom for the moment. For next year, we believe there is likely to be some kind of recovery and stabilization.

This year in the third quarter, we didn't see the euro strength from the traditional golden September or October is a strong sales season. This is partly because first, the high base of last year's subsidy policies and the subsidy induced demand pull back, pull forward as well as the consumer sentiment decreased such factors, et cetera. And for this year, the full year retail sales of passenger vehicles is projected to be 18.5 million units, which is a decrease of 22% year-over-year. So this means that the overall retail sales in the fourth quarter is still to be -- to decline by 20% to 25% year-over-year.

The China Passenger Car Association, which is CPCA, it forecast that the domestic passenger vehicle retail sales will grow between 0% to 5% next year. The middle point is approximately 2%. And so this is in line with our judgment as we communicated with the market or investors in the past, our forecast is a low single-digit increase for the China auto market. So this is in line with our judgment and forecast.

And for the auto industry next year, we have several key judgments or observations. First is that the overall sales are expected to remain relatively stable and the growth will continue to be driven primarily by the NEV, New Energy Vehicles. The NEV penetration rate in September has reached a record high of 67%. And going forward, the leading domestic automakers are likely to strengthen their market position, market shares while the weaker brands or weak players may face more accelerated wave of market consolidation and the market exits. And on the cost side, there's a high international oil price. So it may also weigh on consumer demand for the traditional ICE part.

And profitability across the auto industry will still remain under considerable pressure. For the first 9 months this year, the industry -- the auto industry profit margins has been compressed to 3.3%. So the strategy of simply relying on the price cut, price reduction to drive sales is becoming more and more difficult. And those leading automakers or leading brands with strong technological capabilities and strong overseas operations, they are likely to be the first to return to better profitability, while those weaker brands or weaker players in the industry will continue to exit the market. So the channels are also shifting away from the selling cars, making money to relying on turnover and rebate for continuous operations. So the pressure is -- we believe the pressure is mostly concentrated on those joint venture brands especially ICE vehicles and some weaker second-tier brands as well as dealers with more fragile financial condition.

And for industry growth drivers, they are shifting from the domestic purchase towards replacement demand and overseas exports. Overseas exports are expected to maintain a strong growth momentum this year. At the same time, automakers' international expansion strategy will gradually evolve beyond simple exporting finished complete vehicles to include overseas manufacturing facilities or localized supply chains and more comprehensive brand operations in international market, et cetera.

So in summary, we believe in the future, the auto market will face both challenges and opportunities. Domestic demand will remain under pressure, and the industry has entered a period of deep structural adjustment characterized primarily by the competition for existing market shares. And market share is expected to concentrate among those leading brands or leading companies with core technological capabilities or comprehensive ecosystem deployment and strong brand equity.

And for Autohome, we will continue to invest in several key areas, which include content, AI agents and end-to-end platform for vehicle purchasing and selling services and cross-border service platform, et cetera. Our goal is to provide users with more convenient and efficient services throughout the entire vehicle ownership life cycle covering the car browsing, selecting, buying and using. And we will also help our business -- customers navigate changes in the industry by improving transaction conversion, driving the sales growth and reducing their costs. So this will be the core direction we will explore and develop in the future.

In the past several quarters, we have been focusing on expanding our offline retail network. In high-tier cities, we are expanding our city coverage and diversifying the supply of vehicles through the authorized dealerships. We currently have more than 1,700 participating dealerships. And in those low-tier cities, we are strengthening our service capabilities in low-tier markets through the Autohome Good Car franchise stores with more than 170 franchise locations currently in operation.

While the number of our stores is one important metric, but we place even greater emphasis on the channel quality and on the ability to achieve business synergies. Our core objective is to build an offline fulfillment network centered on Autohome Mall gradually establishing an integrated service network comprising of Autohome Mall plus authorized dealers plus Autohome Good Car franchise stores plus CARtech synergies. As online traffic and vehicle supply continues to increase, continues to grow and our offline distribution network becomes increasingly established, so the coordinated development of our online to offline transaction ecosystem will enable us to better meet the needs of both our business partners and our users.

The next question, please.

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Chen Yang from CICC.

Chen Yang

[Interpreted]

I have 2 questions. The first one is about over the past few years, the company has been very proactive in shareholder returns. Could we expect the company to maintain a similar pace and scale of shareholder returns going forward? The second one is, given the challenging industry environment, how have new energy vehicles brand has been performing?

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted]

Okay. Thank you for your question. Autohome has always placed great importance on the shareholder return and the market cap management for a long time. We have established a good shareholder return framework, combining a regular dividend policy with share repurchase. On the share repurchase or share buyback, at the end of July this year, we completed our USD 200 million share repurchase program, which was announced in early March, quite ahead of schedule. And in July, the company's Board of Directors authorized a new share repurchase program with a duration of 12 months and a total value of USD 400 million. As of the end of October, last month, approximately USD 155 million or nearly 40% of the authorized amount has already been executed. So going forward, we will continue to actively execute the share buyback program in the open market in accordance with our established strategy.

On the cash dividends, at the end of July this year, we successfully completed the distribution of approximately RMB 500 million dividends to shareholders. The RMB 1 billion dividend program announced today will be completed in the first quarter of next year. And of course, we will be sure to keep shareholders informed in a timely manner of any future progress or update in our dividend policy.

Autohome has ample cash reserves, and we keep a healthy balance sheet. We have also made notable progress in the new retail business, used car transactions as well as the AI agents. So going forward, we'll continue to optimize our operating efficiency while maintaining a disciplined and a prudent approach to our business investment.

For the NEV. So in terms of sales volume and the penetration of NEV brand, in this September, the NEV penetration rate has already reached as high as 67%, which is 2/3. So in the first 9 months of the year, although the NEV retail sales fell 13% year-over-year, but it still outperformed the overall new vehicle market, so it demonstrates a lot of resilience. So during the first 9 months of the year, the top 10 NEV brands accounted for 72% of total NEV retail sales volume. So half of that are from the traditional automakers.

From an industry landscape perspective, the brand differentiation remains quite clear, very evident. Although the overall NEV sales declined, so some brands, they still delivered a strong year-over-year growth in the first 9 months. So this is attributable to those brands early product lineup planning and their channel buildup.

Next question, please.

Operator

We will now take our next question from Thomas Chong of Jefferies.

Thomas Chong

[Interpreted]

Can you just share an update on the progress of the company's used car business.

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted]

Okay. Thank you for your question. For our used car business, it is currently making progress along the 2 parallel tracks. One is the domestic market, the other is the overseas market. Our domestic full process used car sales service platform is upgrading from an information matching platform to a standardized transaction platform. From customer acquisition, we cover the entire chain of services from appointment scheduling, vehicle inspection, buyer and seller matching and then to final delivery.

On customer acquisition, we cover both on-platform and off-platform customer acquisition channels. On the appointment scheduling, we can provide dedicated one-on-one customer service representatives. On the vehicle inspection, we can offer 265 professional inspection items benchmarked against the industry standards, providing a comprehensive vehicle condition assurance system.

On the matching buyers with sellers, we can leverage our Cangjie large language model to intelligently match vehicles based on dealers' operational preferences as well as TTP to conduct nationwide auction. And finally, we provide other services for online agreement signing and ownership transfer, et cetera.

So in the third quarter, we piloted this standardized end-to-end vehicle selling service model in 6 cities across China. Initial results in terms of transaction conversion and the user satisfaction have been quite encouraging. So we will further refine this model and replicate nationwide in the future.

For our cross-border export services platform, we are focused on improving the vehicle supply and operational efficiency. Following the successful completion of our first end-to-end export transaction in July, so the number of transactions has increased month by month in the past few months. But of course, the total volumes are still relatively smaller amount. And we are still working to optimize coordination between our online international platform and our offline fulfillment network. And hopefully, we can improve the operational efficiency in the future. And for our existing information services, auction services and data services, they are all established business lines and continue -- still continue to develop. And the overseas business represents additional growth opportunities for us.

Next question, operator.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ritchie Sun from HSBC.

Ritchie Sun

[Interpreted]

I would like to ask how does management assess the challenges and opportunities brought by AI agent to the traditional business? And what are the actual impacts that have already been felt or realized in our revenue and cost?

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted]

Thank you for your question. On the impact of AI agents on our traditional automotive industry business from 2 levels. Level 1 is from the user interaction level. AI agents have become the new central hub connecting the users with services with conversational interactions increasingly replacing traditional platform entry points. And second, from the service delivery level, AI agent enables intelligent service distribution. So traditional service models used by vertical automotive media platforms, which have historically focused on content placement and a broad market coverage must evolve towards more precise targeting.

And for Autohome, we have made some achievements of progress in the AI. Here, I can give you several examples. One example is the Cheese Car Butler, which was officially launched September of this year. It enables users to find service providers they need and also enables offline service providers to find online users. Another example is our Cangjie large language model, which serves as our underlying technology foundation. It enables us to establish a comprehensive AI empowerment framework, which can improve internal staff efficiency and empower business partners and enhance services for users.

So the investment in technology and products are already reflected in our financial statements and financial results. However, AIs are not already begun to generate revenue in scale. Instead, they serve as the underlying technological capabilities across our various products. helping us optimize the product offerings and improve operational efficiency. So in this way, AI can support and strengthen our existing revenue generating more business. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have now come to the end of the Q&A session. I'll now turn the call back to management for closing remarks.

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted]

Thank you very much, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again on our next quarter's conference call and to sharing the latest updates on Autohome's corporate strategy and business development. Should you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us at any time. Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

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