Teleconferência de Resultados da Waterdrop (WDH) no 2T26: Receita Sobe 72,8% com Crescimento em Seguros

Principais Destaques

• A Waterdrop Inc. (WDH) registrou receita operacional líquida de CNY 1,448 bilhão no segundo trimestre de 2026, um avanço de 72,8% em relação ao mesmo período do ano anterior, impulsionado por um crescimento de 80,5% na receita com seguros.
• O lucro operacional subiu 14,3% na comparação anual e 39,2% na comparação trimestral, atingindo aproximadamente CNY 111 milhões. O lucro líquido atribuível aos acionistas caiu 10,3% em relação ao mesmo período do ano anterior, mas avançou 27,9% na comparação sequencial, para cerca de CNY 126 milhões.
• A receita relacionada a seguros alcançou CNY 1,33 bilhão. A aquisição de novos clientes aumentou 32,3% em relação ao trimestre anterior, enquanto os prêmios de primeiro ano de seguros de longo prazo subiram 33,4%.
• As interações com usuários suportadas por IA geraram quase CNY 100 milhões em prêmios de primeiro ano. A administração afirmou que o objetivo da IA é contribuir por meio do crescimento da receita e da eficiência operacional, em vez de atuar como um negócio independente.
• A administração projeta um crescimento da receita total superior a 40% na comparação anual e um aumento do lucro operacional acima de 10% para todo o ano de 2026.
• O conselho de administração aprovou um dividendo de US$ 0,03 por ADS e um novo programa de recompra de ações de até US$ 50 milhões ao longo dos próximos 12 meses.

Principais Dados Financeiros

Desempenho Operacional e de Negócios

Seguros

A receita relacionada a seguros aumentou 80,5% na comparação anual e 15,4% na comparação sequencial, para CNY 1,33 bilhão. O lucro operacional do segmento subiu 20% em relação ao trimestre anterior, atingindo CNY 180 milhões.

A aquisição de clientes permaneceu aquecida. O número de novos clientes aumentou 32,3% na comparação sequencial, enquanto os prêmios de primeiro ano de seguros de longo prazo cresceram 33,4%. Produtos voltados para clientes com condições pré-existentes geraram CNY 310 milhões em prêmios de primeiro ano, e o seguro de invalidez contribuiu com CNY 84 milhões.

A Waterdrop continuou expandindo produtos com barreiras de cobertura mais baixas. As novas ofertas incluíram o Rongyi Bao, descrito pela empresa como um produto de doenças graves de longo prazo que não exige declaração de saúde e oferece renovação garantida por cinco anos. A empresa também expandiu o Jixing Gaozhao com cobertura para doenças específicas, oferecendo proteção vitalícia sem necessidade de declaração de saúde.

As aplicações de IA em cenários voltados para o cliente geraram quase CNY 100 milhões em prêmios de primeiro ano. Os prêmios de primeiro ano viabilizados pelo AI Medical Insurance Expert aumentaram 25,6% na comparação sequencial. A KEYI.AI respondeu a mais de 13.000 dúvidas de subscrição até o final do trimestre, enquanto o número de usuários atendidos pelo AI Super Pre-Sales Assistant cresceu quase 50% na comparação sequencial.

Financiamento Coletivo Médico e Ensaios Clínicos

Até 30 de junho de 2026, a Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding havia arrecadado CNY 74,7 bilhões para 3,82 milhões de pacientes, com contribuições de aproximadamente 499 milhões de doadores. A empresa continuou aprimorando os controles de risco baseados em IA para ocultação de patrimônio, riscos de identidade e inconsistências nos materiais enviados.

O negócio de soluções digitais para ensaios clínicos recrutou mais de 1.500 pacientes durante o trimestre, uma alta de 54% em relação ao ano anterior, elevando o recrutamento acumulado para mais de 17.000. O recrutamento para doenças crônicas aumentou 80%, embora a administração tenha ressaltado que esses estudos geralmente apresentam taxas mais altas de falha na triagem e exigem um cruzamento de dados de pacientes mais preciso e rápido.

A Plataforma E-Find assinou 167 novos projetos durante o trimestre. O número de empresas farmacêuticas e organizações de pesquisa de contrato que trabalham com a plataforma ultrapassou 255.

Retorno aos Acionistas

O conselho de administração aprovou um dividendo em dinheiro de US$ 0,03 por ADS, ou US$ 0,003 por ação ordinária, pagável aos acionistas registrados em 9 de outubro de 2026. Espera-se que o pagamento total seja de aproximadamente US$ 10,8 milhões, com distribuição prevista para o início de novembro.

A Waterdrop também autorizou um programa de recompra de ações de até US$ 50 milhões ao longo dos 12 meses seguintes. Em 31 de agosto de 2026, a empresa havia recomprado cumulativamente 62,9 milhões de ADSs por aproximadamente US$ 120 milhões desde o lançamento de seu primeiro programa de recompra.

Projeções da Administração

Para todo o ano de 2026, a administração projeta um crescimento superior a 40% na receita total na comparação anual e um aumento de mais de 10% no lucro operacional.

A empresa espera manter um ritmo ativo de aquisição de clientes ao longo do segundo semestre de 2026 e de todo o ano de 2027. A administração prevê que o valor advindo da aquisição atual de clientes seja realizado progressivamente por meio de renovações, venda ascendente (upselling) e venda cruzada (cross-selling) ao longo do ciclo de vida do cliente.

A Waterdrop espera que sua taxa de despesas gerais com P&D permaneça estável e dentro do que a administração considera um patamar razoável, enquanto direciona mais talentos e gastos relacionados a tokens para a IA. Os gastos podem aumentar à medida que o uso se expandir, sujeitos à disciplina de retorno sobre o investimento por aplicação.

Riscos e Pontos de Atenção

• As despesas de vendas e marketing subiram acentuadamente com o aumento dos investimentos da Waterdrop em canais de tráfego de terceiros. O prazo e a escala dos retornos desses gastos com aquisição de clientes continuam sendo considerações operacionais importantes.
• O lucro líquido atribuível aos acionistas recuou na comparação anual, apesar do aumento da receita e do lucro operacional, refletindo itens fiscais e ganhos e perdas não recorrentes.
• A administração afirmou que notícias veiculadas pela imprensa sobre o cumprimento das regras fiscais existentes sobre dividendos de apólices afetaram o sentimento dos clientes no curto prazo em relação aos seguros em Hong Kong, embora não considere a questão como uma nova política voltada especificamente para esse mercado.
• Estudos clínicos de doenças crônicas contam com grupos maiores de pacientes, mas também apresentam taxas mais elevadas de falha na triagem, aumentando as exigências em relação à precisão e velocidade no cruzamento de dados.
• O assistente portátil de escritório por IA e a iniciativa correlata de hardware inteligente da Waterdrop permanecem em estágio inicial de vendas piloto. A administração afirmou que o impacto financeiro atual dessas iniciativas é limitado.

Destaques da Sessão de Perguntas e Respostas com Analistas

Seguro em Hong Kong e tributação de dividendos de apólices: A administração caracterizou a atenção recente como o cumprimento de regras fiscais já existentes, e não como uma nova política voltada especificamente para seguros em Hong Kong. Ela reconheceu um efeito de curto prazo no sentimento dos clientes, mas afirmou que os fatores impulsionadores da demanda — como alocação em múltiplas moedas, acesso a recursos globais de saúde e planejamento sucessório — permanecem intactos.

Seguros para condições pré-existentes: A Waterdrop vê essa categoria como uma oportunidade de crescimento impulsionada pela demanda. Sua estratégia combina estruturas diferenciadas de subscrição e sinistros com cruzamento de dados baseado em IA por estado de saúde, idade e cenário do cliente. A administração identificou a cobertura para condições pré-existentes, seguros médicos de médio a alto padrão e produtos combinados com gestão de saúde ou serviços de atendimento a idosos como áreas de forte potencial.

Comercialização de IA: A administração não planeja comercializar a IA primordialmente como um negócio independente. Ela espera que o valor da IA se reflita em uma maior conversão, no crescimento da receita e na eficiência operacional na aquisição, triagem de risco, serviços de consultoria e sinistros.

Gastos com aquisição de clientes: A administração declarou que o objetivo não é simplesmente reduzir os custos de aquisição, mas sim melhorar a adequação entre produtos e clientes e aumentar a conversão por meio da IA. A Waterdrop planeja continuar expandindo seu alcance enquanto busca retornos de mais longo prazo com renovações e venda cruzada (cross-selling).

Transcrição Completa da Teleconferência de Resultados

Transcrição completa da teleconferência de resultados

Comentários da administração

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.]