Autohome Inc. (ATHM) Q3 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Autohome's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow management's prepared remarks. 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.

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, 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 all 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. Craig, please go ahead.

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

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In the third quarter, we made solid progress in upgrading toward 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 pure information matching towards trusted decision-making and reliable fulfillment. This also represents a key strategic innovation for Autohome in the AI plus automotive services sector.

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On content, we continue to advance our brand rejuvenation. In partnership with Mango Excellent Media, Autohome produced the variety entertainment gala August 18th Global Automobile Festival, which was broadcast across platforms. The gala featured celebrity and influencer challenge quizzes and other interactive formats, 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 extracting and integrating scattered vehicle information into a single image, covering eight major highlights and five 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. Its report also showed that Autohome ranked first by citation rate as an automotive information source across six major AI platforms for three 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.

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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 had 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. 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.

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On AI and large language models, we officially launched our AI-native application, Cheese Car Butler, on September 5th. The product is built on our proprietary Cangjie Automotive Large Model. It covers the entire user journey of browsing, selecting, buying, and using vehicles, linking 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, valuations, and price comparisons, on-site inspections, charging, and maintenance fulfillment to support users throughout the entire vehicle lifecycle. 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.

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In our used car business, we focused on the full-process car sales 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, preliminarily proving the feasibility of our business model. In the third quarter, we extended the pilot to six cities. Through refined operations tailored to regional markets, we continued to hone our standardized service system, laying a solid foundation for replicating the model nationwide. For our 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 continued 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.

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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 longstanding 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.

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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.

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

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With respect to cost of revenues in the third quarter was CNY 431 million compared with CNY 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.

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

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

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Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per share in the third quarter were CNY 0.61 and CNY 0.60 respectively, compared with CNY 0.87 and CNY 0.86 in the corresponding period of 2025. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS in the third quarter were CNY 2.43 and CNY 2.42 respectively, compared with CNY 3.47 and CNY 3.45 respectively in the corresponding period of 2025.

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

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On July 28th, 2026, our board of directors authorized a share repurchase program under which we may repurchase up to $400 million of Autohome's ADS over the next 12 months. As of October 30th, 2026, we had repurchased approximately 7.06 million ADS for a total cost of approximately $155 million.

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

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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. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question now, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. A moment for our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Brian Gong from Citi. Please go ahead, Brian, your line is open.

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

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Thank you for your question. First, we do expect the domestic auto market remain under pressure in the short term, 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.

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

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You know the China Passenger Car Association, which is CPCA, it forecasts that the domestic passenger vehicle retail sale will grow between 0%-5% next year. The middle point is approximately 2%. This is in line with our judgment, as we communicate with the market or investors in the past, our forecast is a low single digit increase for the China auto market. This is in line with our judgment and forecast. 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%. 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 market exit. On the cost side, there's a high international oil price, so it may also weigh on consumer demand for the traditional ICE cars.

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Profitability across the auto industry will still remain under considerable pressure. For the first nine months this year, the auto industry profit margins has been compressed to 3.3%. The strategy of simply relying on the price cut, price reductions to drive sales is becoming more and more difficult. 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. The channels are also shifting away from the selling cars, making money to relying on turnover and rebates for continuous operations. 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 conditions.

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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 markets, etc.

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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. The market share is expected to concentrate among those leading brands or leading companies with core technological capabilities or comprehensive ecosystem deployment and a strong brand equity.

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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, etc. Our goal is to provide users with more convenient and efficient services throughout the entire vehicle ownership lifecycle, covering the car browsing, selecting, buying, and using. We also help our business customers navigate changes in the industry by improving transaction conversion, driving the sales growth, and reducing their costs. This will be the core direction we will explore and develop in the future.

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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. 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.

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While the number of our stores is one important metric, 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 grow, and our offline distribution network becomes increasingly established, 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.

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Thank you. The next question, please.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jing Yuan from CICC. Please ask your question, Jing, your line is open.

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I have two 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 brands' performance? Thanks.

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Okay, thank you for your question. You know, Autohome has always placed great importance on the shareholder return and the market cap management for a long time. We have established a dual shareholder return framework, combining a regular dividend policy with share repurchase. On the shares repurchase or share buyback, at the end of July this year, we completed our $200 million share repurchase program, which was announced in early March, quite ahead of schedule. 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 $400 million. As of the end of October, last month, approximately $155 million or nearly 40% of the authorized amount has already been executed. Going forward, we will continue to actively execute the share buyback program in the open market in accordance with our established strategy.

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

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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 Agent. Going forward, we will continue to optimize our operating efficiency while maintaining a disciplined and prudent approach to our business investment.

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For the NEVs, in terms of sales volume and the penetration of NEV brands, in this September, the NEV penetration rate has already reached as high as 67%, which is two-thirds. In the first nine months of the year, although the NEV retail sales fell 13% year-over-year, it still outperformed the overall new vehicle market. It demonstrates a lot of resilience. During the first nine months of the year, the top 10 NEV brands accounted for 72% of total NEV retail sales volume. Half of that are from the traditional automakers.

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From an industry landscape perspective, the brand differentiation remains quite clear, very evident. Although the overall NEV sales declined, some brands still delivered a strong year-over-year growth in the first nine months. This is attributable to those brands' early product lineup, planning and their channel build-up. Okay, thank you. Next question please.

Thank you. We will now take our next question from Thomas Chong of Jefferies. Please ask your question, Thomas, your line is open.

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Thank you for taking my questions. Can management share an update on the progress of the company's used car business? Thanks.

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Okay, thank you for your question. For our used car business, it is currently making progress along the two 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. Finally, we provide other services for online agreement signing and ownership transfer, etc. In the third quarter, we piloted this standardized end-to-end vehicle selling service model in six cities across China. Initial results in terms of transaction conversion and user satisfaction has been quite encouraging. We will further refine this model and replicate nationwide in the future.

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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, 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. We are still working to optimize coordination between our online international platform and our offline fulfillment network. Hopefully, we can improve the operational efficiency in the future. For our existing information services, auction services, and data services, they are all established business lines and they still continue to develop. The overseas business represents additional growth opportunities for us.

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Okay, thank you. Next question, operator.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ritchie Sun from HSBC. Please go ahead, Ritchie, your line is open.

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Good evening, management. Thank you for taking my question. I would like to ask how does management assess the challenges and opportunities brought by AI agent to the traditional business? What are the actual impacts that have already been felt or realized in our revenue and costs? Thank you.

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

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For Autohome, we have made some achievement or progress in the AI. Here I can give you several examples. One example is the Cheese Car Butler, which was officially launched September 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.

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

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

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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.

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