汽车之家 (ATHM) 2026年第二季度业绩电话会：汽车需求走弱之际利润率上升

核心要点

• 汽车之家（ATHM）公布2026年第二季度净营收为12亿元人民币。 媒体服务带来营收2.80亿元人民币，线索服务带来营收5.60亿元人民币，在线市场及其他业务带来营收3.57亿元人民币。
• 毛利率从上年同期的71.4%提升至77.1%，而营业利润同比下降56.2%至1.30亿元人民币。归属于汽车之家的调整后净利润下降41.8%至2.77亿元人民币。
• 据QuestMobile数据，6月日活跃用户数达到7650万，实现同比增长。
• 线上购车试点在70天内完成了1,000多笔交易，吸引了400多家合作经销商和1,000多款车型参与。“汽车之家好车”已签约100多家加盟店。
• 管理层表示，中国乘用车市场在下半年可能继续承压。乘联会（CPCA）目前预测2026年全年乘用车零售销量将下降16%。
• 汽车之家提前完成了2亿美元的股票回购计划，并启动了一项新的4亿美元计划。公司还重申了在2026年支付至少15亿元人民币现金股利的承诺。

关键财务数据

截至2026年6月30日，现金、现金等价物、短期投资及其他长期投资合计为193.6亿元人民币。

业务与经营表现

汽车之家继续拓展其线上线下融合的新零售模式。授权经销商试点首先在深圳和西安启动，随后扩展至苏州、济南及山东其他地区。消费者可以在线上选车并支付定金，然后在线下完成签约和提车。

公司还推出了“汽车之家好车”，这是一个专注于下沉市场的线下加盟连锁品牌。目前已有100多家加盟店加入。管理层的目标是将汽车之家App的线上获客与加盟商及授权经销商的线下履约进行连接。

在人工智能（AI）领域，汽车之家于7月初推出了“奶酪车管家”。这款独立的智能汽车助手提供车型对比、购车指导和养车相关服务。目前该产品正在收集用户反馈，管理层计划进一步优化其底层模型、用户体验以及与线下服务的融合。

汽车之家的智驾频道目前已涵盖近200款主流车型。其“中国智造探索计划”全网播放量突破7000万次，并获得了20多家媒体的报道。

在二手车业务方面，汽车之家将检测体系从128项扩充至265项。公司在第二季度获得了二手车出口资质，并于7月初完成了首单出口交易。其多语言平台和履约网络已在100多个国家和地区产生了业务线索。

风险与关注事项

管理层指出国内汽车需求较为疲软。2026年前7个月，乘用车零售销量同比下降20%，而第二季度国内新车销量下降22%。当季新能源汽车销量下降8%，燃油车销量下降38%。

行业盈利能力同样恶化。管理层提及上半年汽车制造业利润下降20%，该行业的利润率降至3.8%的历史新低。

经销商面临的压力直接关乎汽车之家的线索服务业务。根据管理层引用的数据，77%的经销商上半年销售目标完成率不足90%，同时库存和亏损居高不下。

消费者需求分化日益加剧。上半年，5万元人民币以下车型的销量同比下降55%，而40万元人民币以上的高端新能源汽车销量则增长了46%。

分析师问答亮点

管理层预计，中国汽车市场将继续呈现内需疲软、结构分化以及出口支撑的特征。2026年前7个月，乘用车出口增长74%，其中新能源汽车占出口总量的一半以上。

在媒体服务方面，管理层表示“金九银十”的季节性需求叠加多款新车上市，可能会对下半年的复苏提供一定支撑。管理层同时强调，行业的可持续复苏仍取决于宏观经济环境以及消费者信心的提振。

汽车之家将品牌认知度、稳定的车源供应、标准化检测以及数字化一站式服务视为其二手车出口业务的优势。近期优先事项包括增加优质车源供给、扩大海外获客能力以及提升平台效率。

在线索服务方面，公司正在智慧店端运用AI直播和AI生成语音讲解，以降低运营成本、提高效率并提升转化率。管理层表示，这些产品升级旨在支持下半年及明年的经销商续约。

在股东回报方面，汽车之家在回购约1063万股美国存托股份（ADS）后，完成了2亿美元的股票回购。在新的4亿美元计划下，截至2026年8月14日，公司已耗资4360万美元回购约190万股ADS。上半年5亿元人民币的现金股利已于7月底发放。

业绩电话会完整文字记录

完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Autohome's Second Quarter and Interim 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 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. Mr. Song, please go ahead.

Sterling Song

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Autohome's Second Quarter and Interim 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 on today's call is our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. 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 your questions.

Before we begin, please note that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions 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. Mr. Zeng, please go ahead.

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted] Hello, everyone. This is Craig Zeng, Chief Financial Officer of Autohome. Thank you for joining our earnings conference call today. In the second quarter, our innovative business continues to make steady progress driving Autohome's upgrade towards a comprehensive automotive service ecosystem for our new retail business with the authorized dealer model in pilot operation and expanding into more cities. We launched the off-line franchise chain brand, Autohome Good Car, further extending our off-line service network. In addition, our global expansion into used car trading is advancing strategy. Our cross-border export platform completed its first transaction in July, providing valuable experience to further expand our service capabilities.

We also made major strides in AI, particularly in cutting-edge AI agent technology. In early July, we unveiled our proprietary intelligent agent product Cheese Car Butler and open it for public data as the automotive industry's first stand-alone agent product, it represents not only a pioneering exploration of intelligent applications but also a key milestone in enriching our product portfolio and establishing a differentiated competitive edge for us. Specifically, in the second quarter, we made solid progress across content offerings, product capabilities and traffic alliances. On account of that, in May, we launched our annual IP China Intelligent Manufacturing Exploration Plan jointly created with the News and Publicity Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Six episodes will be released throughout the year, covering exciting technological trends including the low-altitude industry intelligence cockpits, intelligence driving and embodied AI, the premier episode focused on flying cars combining immersive visits to the front line of intelligence manufacturing with a fresh, innovative use our story-telling perspective to make cutting-edge technologies more relatable and engaging for younger users.

This series also marks our first major content initiative following Autohome's brand refresh. Since launch, the program sparked lively discussion on social media, was covered by our 20 leading media outlets and generated over 70 million views across various platforms. On the product side, we launched our intelligent driving channel, which systematically profiled the intelligence driving capabilities of nearly 200 mainstream models and provide easy comparisons to help users understand differences across models and those cars efficiently. In addition, we continue to advance collaboration across our multi-platform, multi-scenario traffic ecosystem. A notable example was our partnership with Alipay in June and which our mini program became the true provider of comprehensive automotive services for Alipay's auto live channel, offering differentiated content to match the varied needs of first-time buyers, repeat buyers and those upgrading their vehicles.

According to Questmobile, in June, our daily active users steadily increased year-over-year. reaching $76.5 million. In the new energy vehicle sector, in late April, we launched a pilot online car purchase model in Shenzhen and Xi'an in partnership with authorized dealers. Under this model, local partners, dealerships posted competitive pricing on the mall enabling consumers to select the vehicle and place a deposit online and then complete the contract signing and delivery off-line. During this pilot period, over 400 dealers gone across these two cities, offering more than 1,000 models and over 1,000 transactions were completed within 70 days receiving positive feedback from both our dealer partners and users.

Based on the experience gained from the pilot cities in the second quarter, we replicated this model to three additional cities, Suzhou, Jinan and Shandong, steadily broadening our network coverage in Northern and Eastern China. At the same time, to address the service gap in low-tier cities we launched our off-line franchise chain brand, Autohome good car at the end of June with a focus on the underserved low-tier cities to precise traffic redirection and the standardized operating under management systems and streamlined resource support system will help dealerships in low-tier cities achieve scalable growth.

At present, over 100 franchise stores joined Autohome Good Car. Going forward, the Autohome APP will remain the core of our online customer acquisition efforts while offline Autohome Good Car franchisees and authorized dealer stores will handle vehicle delivery. Through standardized services, we aim to support users throughout the entire vehicle life cycle from vehicle discovery, selection to purchase and ownership. AI and the models powered by Autohome's proprietary large language model, we launched Cheese Car Butler, our intelligent agent product for the automotive vertical. The agent leverages our core assets accumulated in the automotive field, including our professional content, product database, MCN ecosystem and offline service network to provide users with a broad range of services, including multidimensional vehicle comparisons, vehicle purchase guidance and maintenance services, et cetera, establishing a unique, differentiated, competitive advantage.

Currently, Cheese Car Butler is available to users and has entered the feedback collection phase with the initial market response being positive. In the future, we will continue to enhance the underlying model capabilities, optimize the product's interactive experience and gradually integrate more offline service resources to steadily improve the product value and service quality.

In the used car business, we continue to develop both our core domestic and overseas platforms for our full process used car sales service platform. We continue to improve service quality through greater standardization. Recently, we completed an upgrade and in duration of our vehicle inspection system, expanding the number of inspection items from 128 to 265 including 82 newly added assessments specifically designed for new and used vehicles, further improving the accuracy and the reliability of our inspection reports. For our cross-border used car export service platform, we formally obtained the official export qualifications during the second quarter. We also established an online multilingual international website and an offline fulfillment network with business leads spanning over 100 countries.

In early July, we successfully completed the first used car export order on our platform, making a breakthrough from zero to one for our business. In the next phase, we will focus on three key areas: high-quality vehicle supplies upstream; expanding overseas customer acquisition downstream; and improving platform operational efficiency. All of this supports our all-out efforts to create a new one-stop channel for used car exports.

In summary, since the beginning of the year, we achieved meaningful progress across all businesses. While steadily managing our businesses, we've consistently delivered on our commitment to shareholder returns, the USD 200 million stock buyback program announced in March 2026 was completed ahead of schedule in less than 6 months. In late July, we announced a new 12 months USD 400 million repurchase plan, demonstrating our strong confidence in the company's long-term value. In addition, the RMB 500 million cash dividend for the first half of the year was distributed at the end of July.

Looking ahead, we will continue to deepen our new business development, provide high-quality services to users and partners and deliver sustainable returns to our shareholders.

With that, let me briefly walk you through the key financials for the second quarter of 2026. Please note that I will reference RMB only in my discussion today, unless otherwise stated. Net revenues for the second quarter were CNY 1.2 billion. To break it down further, Media Services revenues were CNY 280 million. Lease generation services revenue were CNY 560 million, and the online marketplace and others revenues were CNY 357 million. With respect to costs, cost of revenue in the second quarter was CNY 274 million, compared with CNY 503 million in the second quarter of 2025. Gross margin in the second quarter was 77.1% compared with 71.4% in the same period last year.

Turning to operating expenses. Sales and marketing expenses in the second quarter were CNY 552 million, compared with CNY 630 million in the second quarter of 2025. Product and development expenses were CNY 223 million compared with CNY 263 million in the second quarter of 2025. General and administrative expenses were CNY 96 million compared with CNY 133 million in the same period last year.

Overall, we recorded an operating profit of CNY 130 million in the second quarter compared with CNY 297 million in the same period of 2025. Adjusted net income attributable to Autohome was CNY 277 million in the second quarter compared with CNY 476 million in the corresponding period last year. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per share in the second quarter were CNY 0.62 and CNY 0.61, respectively, compared with CNY 1.01 for both in the corresponding period of 2025. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS in the second quarter were both CNY 2.46 compared with CNY 4.06 and CNY 4.04, respectively, in the corresponding period of 2025.

As of June 30, 2026, our balance sheet remains robust. Cash, cash equivalents, short-term investments and other long-term investments totaled CNY 19.36 billion. We generated net operating cash flow of CNY 261 million in the second quarter of 2026. On March 5, 2026, our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program, under which we are committed to purchase up to USD 200 million of Autohome's ADS over a period not to exceed it as of July 30, 2026. We have completed this share repurchase program ahead of schedule with a total approximately [ USD ] 10.63 million ADS repurchased.

In addition, on July 28, 2026, our Board of Directors authorized a new share repurchase program under which we may repurchase up to USD 400 million of Autohome ADS over the next 12 months as of August 14, 2026. We had repurchased approximately USD 1.9 million ADS for a total cost of approximately USD 43.6 million.

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

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Thomas Chong of Jefferies.

分析师问答

Thomas Chong

[Interpreted] I have two questions. The first one is about the auto industry, which is softer than market expectations. Can management comment about the second half industry outlook? And my second question is about the export of used car business. Can management comment about our competitive edge and the latest business progress?

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted] Thank you for your question. I will answer your question. Since the beginning of this year, the overall retail sales in the auto market has remained under pressure. In the first 7 months, domestic retail sales of passenger vehicles declined by 20% year-over-year, while the domestic new vehicle sales fell by 22% year-over-year in Q2. Even the new energy vehicle, EV, which has previously been the primary growth driver, it already see a sales decline of 8% in Q2 year-over-year for consecutive periods. And the traditional ICE that is internal combustion engine vehicles performed even worse. The sales declining 38% year-over-year in Q2. At the same time, the industry -- the auto industry profitability has been deteriorated in the first half of the year. The profit for the auto manufacturing industry declined by 20% year-over-year, with the profit margin at just 3.8%, which is a historical low.

The market expectations for the overall industry sales at the beginning of the year was optimistic. But now this expectation has been revised downward. The China Passenger Car Association, CPCA, now forecast that the full year for 2026 passenger vehicle retail sales will decline by 16% year-over-year. So it brings the overall total annual sales to fill them 20 million units. So this means that the overall China auto market will continue to face quite a lot of pressure in the second half this year. And we expect the auto industry to be characterized by a combination of weak domestic demand, structural differentiation and exports providing support.

From the industry level, we can see the new energy transition is accelerating and auto export is becoming a new growth driver. So for the China auto market, now it has entered into an existing market stage with a weak domestic demand are becoming a major problem -- major constraint on growth. And at the same time, you can see the penetration rate for EV continue to pick up.

So in April, it is -- the penetration rate is 60%. And now in July, it climbed further to a new high of 65%. So in contrast to the weak domestic demand, the auto export has maintained a strong growth momentum. During the first 7 months of 2026 passenger vehicle exports increased by 74% year-over-year with EV accounting for more than half of the total export volumes. And with the weak domestic demand and strong overseas growth simultaneously, auto exports has become a key engine for automakers to offset the weak domestic demand and drive profit growth. From the market level, we can see there's an increasing structure differentiation and the consumers are increasingly in a mode -- they are in a mode of wait and see.

So currently, the market is experiencing clear structural differentiation across segments by price range, you can see the old market is diverging at both ends. The entry-level market for vehicles priced below RMB 50,000 has contracted sharply declining 55% year-over-year in the first half. On the other side, sales of high-end EV priced above RMB 400,000 surged 46%, demonstrating greater market readiness. So overall, the sales of traditional ICE and low-end EVs continue to decline, while the middle to high-end EVs have emerged as a growth segment.

So in summary, the auto market in the first half of this year can be characterized as cold domestically, hot overseas. Domestic demand weakened year-over-year, while EV penetration continued to increase, and auto exports became the primary growth driver for the overall industry as China's auto market enters an existing market competition stage. Currently, only those companies who can capture consumers' needs throughout their entire life cycle and provide value-added services across the entire customer journey will be best positioned for the future developments in the transforming period in the market. So this is also one of the key areas we will continue to focus on and explore going forward.

The second question about the used car export, the used car export market is sufficiently fragmented with a sufficiently large and diverse supply of used car vehicles. So this is favorable for us to build our long-term competitive advantage and sustainable barriers for entry. And if the market was more highly concentrated, it would be more difficult for platform companies.

And for our advantages in this area, first is the brand, strong brand from Autohome, we are the leading auto vertical media platform. So we have a strong brand recognition and credibility and also, we are newly listed. This also help us in our brand. Second is the stable supply, used car vehicle supply and a standardized system. We have access to a stable and compliant supply of used cars supported by a standardized industry-led vehicle inspection system, which can enable comprehensive assessments of the vehicle condition. So overseas buyers value accurate and complete and comprehensive vehicle inspection report as well as those maintaining and insurance claims record.

So Autohome can provide a base. So this gives overseas buyers greater confidence in their purchase process. Third is the digital one-stop service. This is our advantage. We leverage our online digital tools to improve the operational efficiency, including the 24/7 customer support, those matching of the vehicle supply and those multilingual website services, et cetera. So all these capabilities facilitate more effective communication between buyers and sellers. For our business program update on the used car in the second quarter, we just mentioned we officially obtained the government qualification for the used car exports. And we successfully completed the first used car export transaction on our platform.

So this represents an important zero to one breakthrough for this business segment. And for the work ahead of us, on one hand, we'll expand our high-quality used car vehicle sourcing. On the other hand, we will focus on expanding our overseas customer base. And also at the same time, we will continue to optimize our used car export service platform and improve the overall operation efficiency with the goal to build a one-stop new channel for the used car exports..

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Zhang Xiaodan of CICC.

Xiaodan Zhang

[Interpreted] First of all, the company has recently taken proactive steps on shareholder returns. How do you view the sustainability of the shareholder return program going forward? And over the medium to the long term, how will you balance the cash reserves as well as the shareholder returns? And secondly, regarding the new retail business, what is the company's current strategic positioning for this segment?

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted] Thank you for your question. Autohome has always placed a strong emphasis on the shareholder return and the long-term market value management. To further enhance our shareholder return mechanism and improve investment value we have established a dual track return framework, combining a regular cash dividend policy with share repurchases, making our shareholder return policy more transparent and predictable.

For the share repurchase, as we just mentioned, the USD 200 million share buyback program, we completed ahead of schedule at the end of July. And also on July 28, we -- the company announced a new USD 400 million share repurchase program. And as of last week, approximately 10% of this buyback program has been completed. So going forward, in the future, we will continue to actively execute this buyback program in the open market in accordance with our established strategy.

For the cash dividend in March, the company announced the RMB 500 million cash dividend for the first half of this year, and this was successfully distributed to all our shareholders by the end of July. And also this year, we will continue to to execute our commitment to pay at least RMB 1.5 billion in cash dividends for the full year. For our long-term capabilities, Autohome has a healthy balance sheet, and we have ample cash reserves and a stable business operations, so this gives us capacity to deliver sustainable -- stable and long-term returns to all shareholders. So in the future, we will continue to improve operational efficiency and strengthen the relevance of our business, ensuring we can fulfill our commitment to all the shareholders.

For the new retail business, it is an important strategic initiative for Autohome as we build our transaction ecosystem and address gaps in our offline service capabilities. For online, we are leveraging the Autohome APP to build an automotive transaction service platform also hold more. For off-line, we leverage offline car purchase and Autohome Good Car to expand off-line service network, connecting online demand with off-line service fulfillment.

So on the online to offline scenarios, we are leveraging our AI technologies to provide end-to-end support, including the vehicle selection through our AI car selection system and purchase support through AI price inquiry, et cetera. So going forward, we are planning to expand AI-able services into the vehicle ownership stage.

In terms of our new retail business update and progress as you can see that the implementation has been moving at a relatively rapid speed. For online car purchase it began its pilot program in late April, and now it's expanded to five cities, Xi'an, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Jinan and Shandong, primarily targeting at high-tier cities. For Autohome Good Car, it opened up a franchise program in late June and has now more than 100 franchise stores with a primary focus on low-tier markets. So ultimately, our goal is to become a comprehensive automotive service ecosystem that deliver value throughout the entire auto life cycle from car discovering to car selection to purchasing, owning and eventually replacing.

Operator

Our next question comes from Ritchie Sun of HSBC.

Ritchie Sun

[Interpreted] I want to ask management about how do you feel the recovery timing as well as the drivers behind the auto market and especially for the media services, how would you view the trend in the second half of this year?

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted] Regarding the drivers for the auto industry recovery, as we just mentioned, the auto market sales for the whole year expected to decline about 16% year-over-year. This has been a downside. However, it doesn't mean there is not any growth opportunities in the market. For example, the vehicles prepaid and replacement will will still contribute more for more new vehicle purchasing demand. And we just mentioned that sales of the high-end NAV price over RMB 400,000, it's increased 46% year-over-year.

So the -- so in our opinion, a sustainable stabilization and recovery of the auto market still depend on improvement in the broader macroeconomic environment and the strengthening of the consumer confidence. And export -- auto export is another important growth opportunity. In the first half of this year, the passenger vehicle, PV, exports increased by more than 70% year-over-year. And the EV exports surging 124%. And for EVs, it accounted for over 50% of the total passenger vehicle exports. So it represents new opportunities in the auto market.

For the -- regarding the media business in the second half of this year, as you know, there is always saying that Golden September and Silver October. And besides, there will be a multiple of new car new vehicle and a new car launching in the market. So in our opinion, we believe the market will show kind of a recovery in second half of this year.

Operator

Next question comes from the line of Brian Gong of Citi.

Brian Gong

[Interpreted] Given the pressure over auto dealers, how does management think about outlook for our sales lease business?

Yan Zeng

[Interpreted] For the lease, the lease generation performance is highly related with the overall sales volume in the market. In Q2, the market and the sales of the autos decreased. So that is the main reason for the lease generation segment. So on 1 hand, for dealer continue to face significant operating pressures in the market as many of them failed to meet their sales targets for the first half this year.

And according to the statistics data from the China automobile dealer association, CAPA, 77% of the dealerships achieved less than 90% of their half -- first half year sales target. And so many of those dealers, they respond with more losses and with high volumes of inventory. So that's why we believe -- as we just mentioned, the sales volumes for the new cars still face pressure and a decrease for second half of this year.

So we still see some opportunities in the market. On one hand, we are increasing our traffic and upgrading our products to improve the quality and the content quality of the leads and lay solid foundation for the renewal of our dealership product, for example, the [ Trishan ] fleet for the second half of this year and the next year as well.

I'll give you some examples. For example, we take -- we're using our AI technology. We use the AI live streaming. We are leveraging the AI technology to empower dealers new media live streaming operations, so we can help them to reduce costs and improve their efficiency, and increase their operational efficiency and help them to enhance their conversion capabilities. And also, we have smart stores, so we can upgrade the intelligent driving tour function.

So when users browse a dealer's online store AI-generated voice commentary can match the content on the screen, and it can be played automatically. So it can help to create an immersive watch and listen experience, helping to increase the number of users who will submit and leave their contact information. So respect through those products and service upgrades and technologies, we can help -- we can build a solid foundation for the renewal of our products next year.

Operator

No further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Yan Zeng

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

Operator

That does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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