汽车之家 (ATHM) 2026财年第三季度业绩电话会：利润率提升，利润下滑

核心要点

• 汽车之家公布2026年第三季度净营收为13.1亿元人民币，其中包括在线市场及其他业务营收5.47亿元人民币、线索服务营收5.26亿元人民币，以及媒体服务营收2.41亿元人民币。
• 毛利率从上年同期的63.7%提升至67.2%，而营业利润则从1.47亿元人民币降至9600万元人民币。
• 归属于汽车之家的调整后净利润从2025年第三季度的4.07亿元人民币降至2.53亿元人民币。经营活动现金流为3.60亿元人民币。
• 据QuestMobile数据显示，9月份移动端日均活跃用户数同比增长3.4%至7914万。
• 汽车之家空间站覆盖38个城市，合作加盟经销商超1,700家，覆盖车系超600个。汽车之家二手车加盟店运营超170家，累计成交车辆超700台。
• 截至10月30日，公司在其4亿美元的回购授权下已回购约706万股ADS，耗资1.55亿美元。董事会还批准了每股ADS 1.58美元的股息，派发总额约为10亿元人民币。

核心财务数据

现金及投资包括现金及现金等价物、短期投资和其他长期投资。

业务与运营表现

汽车之家持续从汽车资讯服务向交易及线下履约领域拓展。截至本季度末，其线上购车平台“汽车之家空间站”已覆盖38个城市。管理层表示，授权经销商、汽车之家二手车加盟店与线上流量的结合，开始在其线上线下生态圈中产生网络效应。

公司于9月5日推出了“芝士车管家”。该AI智能体基于自研的仓颉汽车大模型打造，涵盖看车、选车、买车和用车服务。它将线上咨询与预约试驾、一口价交易、评估、检测、充电及维保等服务相连接。

管理层表示，AI投资已体现在成本和产品研发中，但AI尚未开始规模化贡献营收。目前，该技术正用于改进产品、提升运营效率及赋能现有创收业务。

国内二手车平台将其标准化端到端销售服务试点推广至6个城市。服务内容包括获客、预约、265项专业检测、买卖双方匹配、竞拍、签署协议及过户。

二手车出海业务方面，本季度该平台线上日均车源挂牌量超过3,000辆。自7月份完成首单出口订单后，月度交易量实现增长，但管理层指出整体规模仍相对较小。

管理层展望

管理层预计中国国内汽车市场短期内仍将承压，但认为已接近底部。公司预计2027年市场将趋于稳定并实现低单位数增长，这与乘联会关于乘用车零售同比增幅为0%至5%（中枢约2%）的预测一致。

针对2026年全年，管理层预计乘用车零售销量为1,850万辆，同比下降22%。同时预计第四季度零售销量将同比下降20%至25%。

管理层预计新能源汽车将继续作为行业的核心增长驱动力。9月份新能源汽车渗透率达到67%，而2026年前九个月前十大新能源汽车品牌的零售销量占比达到了72%。

风险与关注事项

• 在前一年补贴政策导致的高基数及需求提前释放后，国内汽车需求依然疲软。
• 汽车行业盈利能力持续承压。管理层提及2026年前九个月行业利润率仅为3.3%。
• 管理层预计弱势车企及经销商将加速整合，特别是合资品牌、燃油车业务以及财务状况脆弱的经销商。
• 国际高油价可能会拖累传统燃油车的需求。
• AI产品尚未实现规模化创收，而二手车出海交易量整体规模仍相对较小。

分析师问答要点

线下零售网络：管理层强调渠道质量与业务协同效应，而非单纯追求门店数量。目标是建立一个整合汽车之家空间站、授权经销商、汽车之家二手车加盟店及CARtech相关能力的综合履约网络。

股东回报：汽车之家提前完成了此前2亿美元的回购计划。在新的4亿美元授权下，截至10月底已执行了近40%。公司计划按既定策略继续实施股票回购。

已批准的现金股息为每股ADS 1.58美元或普通股每股0.395美元。预计截至2027年1月5日登记在册的股东将在2027年3月15日左右收到普通股派息，在2027年3月22日左右收到ADS派息。

二手车业务拓展：管理层表示，国内六个城市的初步试点在交易转化和用户满意度方面取得了令人鼓舞的成效。公司计划在开展更大规模复制推广前进一步完善该模式。

AI带来的影响：管理层将AI智能体视为连接用户与汽车服务的新枢纽，能够实现更精准的服务分发。预计短期内的财务效益将通过产品优化和运营效率提升体现，而非直接产生AI收入。

业绩电话会完整文字实录

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 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.

分析师问答

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.]