Pony AI Inc.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Pony AI Inc.' 's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded, and a webcast replay will be available on the company's Investor Relations website at ir.pony.ai under the News and Events section. I will now turn the call over to your host, George Hsiao, Head of Capital Markets and Investor Relations at Pony AI. Please go ahead, George.

Thank you, Operator, and hello, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today for Pony AI's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. Earlier today, we issued a press release with our financial and operating results, which is available on our Investor Relations website. An earnings presentation, which we will refer to during the conference call, can also be accessed and downloaded on our IR website. Joining me today on the call are Dr. James Peng, Chairman of the Board and CEO, Dr. Tiancheng Luo, CTO, and Dr. Liu Wang, CFO of the company. They will provide a prepared remark followed by the QA session. Before we begin, please refer to the safe harbor statement in our earnings release, which applies to this call as we will be making forward-looking statements. Please also note that we will discuss non-GAAP measures today, which are more thoroughly explained and reconciled to the most comparable measures reported under the GAAP in our earnings release, available on our Investor Relations website and following with the SEC and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. I will now hand over to our Chairman and CEO, Dr. James Peng. Please go ahead.

Thank you, George. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call. 2025 is an amazing year for us. This was actually defined by multiple remarkable milestones. First, our top-line growth significantly accelerated. Looking at Q4 last year, our robo-taxi revenues surged by 160% year-over-year, and fare charging revenues skyrocketed by over 500%. Second, since our Gen 7 robo-taxis debut last April, we have moved straight into mass production and commercial deployment. our fleet has now surpassed 1400 units. Third, we are expanding our footprint, launching services in new cities in both China and globally. This has massively broadened our reach. In fact, we're now crossed the 1 million user mark in China alone. Fourth, we've proven our business model actually works. We achieved UE breakeven in both Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and we will replicate this success into more markets. Looking ahead at 2026, it will definitely be a year of hyper growth for Pony. We're riding a perfect wave of industry momentum built on five pillars, fully driverless technology, policy support, mass production, large-scale operation, and ecosystem maturity. Last year, we used China's Tier 1 cities as a strategic blueprint to deploy Gen 7 RoboTaxes. From official debil to mass production, regulatory validation, and rigorous testing, we achieved commercially fully driverless operations within just six months. Last quarter, we set our RoboTaxi fleet target to over 3,000 units for this year, boosted by the financial fire powder from our successful Hong Kong IPO and also with the Toyota BZ4X Gen 7 model already in SOP. We now have greater visibility and are confident in actually even exceeding this target. Our excellent virtual driver is the key to support this confidence. Proven mastery of highly complex urban scenarios and a superior safety record have earned deep trust from the policy makers and the partners, driving rapid user adoption. This directly translates into positive UE. Since we hit the UE breakeven in Shenzhen last month, Growth momentum continues with this March. We are seeing peak daily revenues of 394 RMB per vehicle and daily orders at 25 per vehicle. We will certainly replicate this success globally. By year end, we plan to deploy robo-taxis in over 20 global cities. As the go-to partner, we have forged strategic alliance with industry leaders like Tencent and Uber. Together, we will propel global expansion, powering accelerated top-line growth, and more than tripling our robo-taxi revenues for 2026. Let me elaborate how we will drive this hyper-growth. We are executing dual-engine strategies. That means we are all in on both China and the global markets. Our proven business model in China gives us a solid foundation to replicate the success internationally. And we are already seeing great results that provisions us for our next growth phase. In China, we have earned a clear leadership across tier one cities, skilling further and pushing deeper into busy downtown areas. Take Shenzhen, for example. Our robo-taxis satisfy surging demand in traffic hubs such as Nanshan and Bao'an during Chinese New Year. The paid orders in the first two months this year alone have already surpassed that of the whole year 2025 in Shenzhen. We also entered University Town in Guangzhou, the busiest campus zone in southern China. This sets the stage for more launches in multiple cities across the greater Bay Area. In March, we also entered Hangzhou and Changsha, two driving top tier cities. This is just the start, and we will have more cities to follow soon. Now turn to overseas markets. Our presence in Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, and Southeast Asia now covers a population of 100 million. We're aiming for nearly half of our 20-city target to come from overseas by the end of this year. Recently, we teamed up with Uber and Vern, which is a RIMAC group company, to enter Croatia, working together to launch Europe's first commercial fare charging robo-taxi service. In the Middle East, we rolled out our first fare charging service with Mova Saleh Cover in Doha, and we are gearing up for fully driverless operations after the approval later this month in Dubai, UAE. In Singapore, we have launched public debut of autonomous driving services with ComfortDialGrow. We're confident overseas revenues will grow rapidly in 2026. Ecosystem maturity is a critical pillar in executing our dual-engine strategy. Our successful business model makes us a go-to partner partners are now actually lining up to join our joint deployment model. Essentially, it's a model that they will fund the vehicles and we can share success together. This will empower us to achieve fleet acceleration, reduce cost and capital efficiency. We have got a robust pipeline of new partners ready to jump on board. Toyota is the first to adopt our joint deployment model. Their BZ4X Gen 7 RoboTaxis will account for a significant portion of our 3,000 vehicle target in 2026. And we have already secured 1,000 units. As a longstanding strategic partner, our collaboration with Toyota extends far beyond just manufacturing. Together, we will commercially deploy RoboTaxi to drive market penetration. By leveraging our OEM partners' mature supply chain and extensive after-sales service networks, our enhanced partnership with both Beijing Auto and Guangzhou Auto further reduce our vehicle cost. In addition, We will jointly deploy RoboTaxi vehicles into more overseas markets. To reach a broader user base, we also partnered with Tencent by integrating with WeChat Mobility, unlocking access to hundreds of millions of users who call our RoboTaxi services. We are also deepening strategic partnerships with on-time mobility in Guangzhou and ATVB in Beijing to accelerate adoption of our joint deployment model. Overseas, our global partnership with Uber enables us to access users across multiple continents, starting from Europe. Our regional alliance strengthen our market penetration with partnerships established with ride-hailing platform Bolt and also auto manufacturers Stellantis. Now, let me turn to Robotruck. Over the past few years, we've made huge technological leaps by using our proven L4 tech stack. It has been translating into commercial breakthroughs. We are now covering major logistic routes connecting industrial hubs, ports, and consumption centers across China. To seize the opportunity, we introduced our Gen 4 robot truck in 2025, reducing the ADK bomb cost by 70%. We target mass production of Gen 4 robot trucks and deploy them this year. In 2025, we have deployed fully driverless robotrucks at Jiangmen port in Guangdong province and tested the one plus N driverless platoning in extreme weather conditions in Northwest China. With this proven tech, we will deploy robotrucks in more ports and mine haulage scenarios. Lastly, our licensing and applications business delivered a robust growth. Last year, autonomous domain controllers, the ADC, sales actually reached six-fold to the level of 2024. We have also expanded our application scenarios to low-speed deliveries, robot sweepers, logistics, and the humanoid robotics Strong customer demand and growing market recognition of our technology will continue to drive growth. In summary, we have hit a major inflection point as we validated business models through 2025 achievements, such as fleet expansion, new city launches, and UE break-even. 2026 is posed as a year of hyper growth. We are super confident to triple our robo taxi revenues, grow fleet to over 3,000 vehicles and deploy robo taxis in more than 20 global cities. Powered by our dual engine strategy, we're speeding towards autonomous mobility everywhere. I firmly believe every effort we make today will not only reshape the future of human mobility, but also drive a revolution in transportation. This will be a revolution where safety, efficiency, and accessibility redefine how the world connects, commutes, and thrives. With that, I'll hand it over to our CTO, Dr. Tiancheng Luo. who will go over our technology strategies. Tiancheng, please go ahead. Thank you, James.

Hello, everyone. This is Tiancheng. Looking back at our journey in 2025, it was a landmark year. We proved the commercial viability of autonomous mobility, achieving positive unique economics in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Today, our fleet size has surpassed 1,400 a large growth throughout the year. Robotexy is the first commercial application of physical AI, validated by real-world operations and user adoption. Over 80 tech architectures built on years of R&D had earned the trust of policy makers and established first mover advantage to capture multi-year growth. As I highlighted in the previous quarter, World models are now the widely recognized tech paths, a domain where we hold a firm leading position with Pony World model. But technology is only the foundation. The key to success is who can deliver reliable, driverless Robotech service at scale. I will work you through how our technology drove commercial results in 2025 across three dimensions, scale, efficiency, and user experience. First, scale. Through strong execution on mass production, we surpassed over 2075 fleet target, and this momentum produced us to reach over 3,000 units by the end of 2026. Since middle 2025, we begin mass production of two Gen 7 models with Guangzhou Auto and Beijing Auto. Both now ramping up to full capacity. In February this year, The BZ4X Gen7 Robotaxi, co-developer with Toyota, rolled off the production line. The strong generalization of over-autonomous driving stack enables us to efficiently adapt across different vehicle platforms. This multi-OEM network enables rapid scaling while strengthening local partnership and broadening over Robotaxi vehicle offerings. This scale is backed by a comprehensive ODD, that validates our technology's ability to generalize across diverse urban environments. Today, our fully driverless fleet operates 24-7 in many cities across the globe, serving the public during peak rush hours and severe weather conditions. Achieving this requires rigorous engineering validation and breadth of our fleet deployment, and ODD reflects the maturity and the robustness of our autonomous driving stack. Oversea extension further validates its generalization capability. In Croatia, we are operating across a large area in the center of Zagreb, the capital's urban core, handling complex urban traffic rather than limited low-complexity roads. Such ability to deploy in demanding environments from day one demonstrates both the robustness of our technology and the commercial potential of our global extension. strong confidence in reaching out to the target of more than 20 cities worldwide. Second, efficiency. We will establish a clear cost advantage, driving a two-fold improvement. On hardware, we will optimize the design in Gen7 robotaxis, effectively lower bump costs through adopting more cost-effective components. On operation, our safety record creates significant leverage dramatically reduce the insurance fees and the improving remote efficiency. All of this enable us to scale with positive unit economics. Beyond that, our tech is building a powerful operation mode. We have developed a highly generalized AI driving capability to build a comprehensive and scalable operational workflows. This deep know-how makes us the go-to partners across the mobility ecosystem. It perfectly positions us to execute our joint development model, allowing us to scale fleet much faster with better capital efficiency.

The third, user experience. Technology enables Robotaxi to serve consistently in high-value, high-difficulty scenarios.

Pardon me.

It seems like we've lost connection with our speakers. One moment while we reconnect.

🎵 🎵 Thank you. Thank you. ¶. Thank you for watching.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. We've reconnected with our speakers. Please go ahead.

Yeah, I will continue with the third factor, user experience. So our technology enables Robotech to serve consistently in high-value, high-difficult scenarios, exactly in high-frequency ride-sharing hotspots where demand peaks and users are willing to pay a premium. This differentiates our service. support overpriced strategy, and directly drive UAE improvement. For example, in Shenzhen, over 24-7 drive-thru taxi covers high-traffic urban zones such as Nanshan high-tech area to fulfill daily commuting needs. During rush hours, our AI virtual driver navigates not only major main road but also narrow street where commuters actually need to pick up and drop off. providing convenient portal coverage that truly address real-world community needs. In Beijing, during a heavy snowstorm in early March, getting a ride became a major pain point for users, such as long waiting time and limited availability. Despite the extreme conditions, snow-covered sensors reduced visibility and unpredictable road conditions, all demanding significantly high driving capabilities. Our Robotaxi fleet continued operations throughout the snowstorm, capturing substantial outer volume growth during that period. Beyond handling extreme conditions, we have significantly improved ride comfort. Our GSM Robotaxi delivers smoother acceleration, braking, and cornering, significantly reducing motion sickness, a pinpoint that users care about most. This underscores a fundamental point Technology leadership is not just an engineering milestone. It is the core engine of our commercial success. Outstanding user experience earns user preference and repeats usage organically without relying on discounts. Beyond our robot tech business, our proven L4 technology enables us to capture commercial opportunities across the broader autonomous driving industry. Our platform's generalization enables 80% of the tech stack share between robot truck and robot taxi. We have achieved two full scenario all-weather 24-7 operational capability. Our operations now span from complex highway segments to unique scenarios like port logistics, with accumulated mileage exceeding 60 million kilometers. We also unlock synergy for the license application segment. Through leveraging our advanced autonomous driving domain controller design, capitalizing on the rapid growth trend in low-speed delivery, robot sleepers, logistics, and robotics, we effectively fulfill our customers' demand on Robonis. Looking ahead to 2026, we will increase our investment in R&D and AI talent to establish our competitive position. Specifically, we are focused on advancing our Pony World model to further strengthen our autonomous driving capabilities, reducing bump costs through continued hardware software optimization and improving operational efficiency to lower per vehicle operating costs. These improvements are designed to fuel faster commercialization, expanding over Robotech's operation to more than 20 cities globally by year-end, and delivering faster revenue growth. We will over-triple Robotech's revenue than 2025. As we demonstrated already, technology leadership directly drives commercial performance, and this investment will further widen our advantage. This concludes my prepared remarks. I will now pass the call to our CFO, Dr. Leo Wang, for a closer look at our financial results. Leo, please go ahead.

Thank you, Tianchen. And hello, everyone. This is Leo. I will focus on year-over-year comparison for the fourth quarter unless otherwise noted. For full year 2025 and the fourth quarter detailed financials, please refer to our earnings release. 2025 marked a inaugural year of large-scale commercialization for our robo-taxi operations. Robo-taxi segment continues to act as core growth engine for the group, delivering exceptional top-line growth. In the fourth quarter, robo-taxi revenues surged 160% to $6.7 million. For full year 2025, robo taxi revenues reached $16.6 million, growing more than doubled at 129%. This remarkable acceleration was primarily driven by our fare charging service, which we saw Q4 fare charging revenues skyrocketed by 501%, with a full year growth rate of nearly 400%. More importantly, Within just four months of Gen 7 robot taxi launch, we are thrilled to see consecutive UE turned positive in both Guangzhou and Shenzhen, two of the most valuable cities in China. This milestone was built on two unique pillars that are exceptionally difficult to replicate from others. First, our clear cost advantages in both vehicle and robot taxi operations. Second, our exceptional AI driving capabilities. Being capable of navigating highly complex urban environments 24-7, we deliver a consistent, reliable, and high-quality service, which helped us to capture the robust user demands. With the foundation of positive UE and as vehicle density improves, we are seeing a clear network effect. Improving fleet density shortens wait time, boosts utilization rates, and drives the number of orders per vehicle. This in turn enhances overall passenger experience and further stimulates ride-hailing demands. Specifically, year-to-date of 2026, our users have nearly tripled year-over-year and reached one million. In February, we successfully delivered unique economic positive in Shenzhen with an impressive average daily orders of 23 and 338 RMB average daily net revenue on a per vehicle basis. As a matter of fact, this strong upward trend is continuing right now. In March, we hit a new daily peak of 394 RMB net revenue and 25 orders per vehicle. More excitingly, our paid orders in the first two months of 2026 in Shenzhen have already surpassed the entire order volume for the full year of 2025. Looking ahead, we remain highly confident in the growth trajectory of our robot taxi business. As James mentioned, our dual-engine strategy will drive rapid expansion into more than 20 cities in China and overseas. We are confident that our Robotaxi revenues will at least triple this year. Simultaneously, we are enhancing our revenue quality by adding high-margin recurring revenue streams through Robotaxi joint deployment with our partners, such as on-time mobility. This model will lower the CapEx requirement on initial fleet deployment from our end, and it can also give us leverage to expand faster and more efficiently into new regions. From a technology perspective, as Tiancheng mentioned, our advanced AI driver capability directly empowers a premium user experience, providing safe, reliable, smooth, and efficient rides for passengers. This superior experience strengthens our pricing power and deepens user mindshare, which can further boost top-line growth. On the cost side, we have proactively secured procurements for critical vehicle components and hardware, including high-demand memory modules. Therefore, we expect the minimal impact from supply chain pricing fluctuation. Meanwhile, with greater fleet scale, continuous tech reiteration, and the deepening OEMs collaboration, we have high confidence in continuously reducing our vehicle bomb cost and further improving operation efficiency. Together, the high gross margin profile of the Robotaxi segment is fundamentally elevating our revenue quality and actively contributing to the group's future profitability. Now let's move on to Robotruck. By leveraging our proven Robotaxi stack, our next-gen Robotruck achieves a 70% cost reduction. Furthermore, our transition to EV trucks also will continue to drive down per kilometer operating costs. Looking ahead to 2026, our shared expertise in Robotaxi will accelerate our robot truck mass production, enabling us to begin deployment within 2026. As we aggressively deepen our route coverage across major logistic corridors, and expanding into more scenarios such as dedicated lines and port operations. We expect to see accelerated growth in revenues beginning in the second half of this year. With lower structural costs, continuous tech breakthroughs towards driverless operations, we are perfectly positioned to capture the freight market's immersed values. Thirdly, our licensing and application also delivered impressive growth in 2025. We are seeing strong client demands from our Atoms Domain Controller ADC product, with the ADC volume grew to six times the level of 2024. Looking ahead, we are seeing a solid order pipeline from existing customers and are actively expanding into new use cases. On the overall profitability front, we achieved a historical financial milestone in the fourth quarter by achieving a first-ever quarterly gap-level net profit. This historical pivot to profitability was primarily driven by the gains from our strategic equity investments, which strengthen our broader ecosystem positioning and unlock business synergies. In 2025, our expenses were slightly widened. This was a deliberate front-loaded investment to accelerate gen 7 mass production expanding into new cities and strengthening our tech stack. Such investments are already starting to drive strong top-line growth. In the era of AI, we anticipate continuous investments into AI technology and the talents to help us secure a long-term Competitive edge. Beyond the technology benefits, our joint deployment model will also be a powerful lever for CapEx efficiency. By collaborating with partners to share the initial investment, we are able to scale our fleet rapidly while maintaining a lean balance sheet. Looking ahead, we expect the revenue growth to outpace the growth of operating expenses. as we capitalize our fleet scale and capture the virtual cycle of positive UE. Finally, we close the year with a highly robust balance sheet with substantial cash reserve of over 1.5 billion US dollars following our successful Hong Kong IPO. This solid capital position gives us the firepower to invest decisively into R&D, SG&A, and go-to-market capabilities. We are confident that these stepped-up investments will accelerate our pace on large-scale commercialization and deliver faster revenue growth in 2026. Looking ahead, we are crystal clear on our strategic priorities, tripling our robo-taxi revenue, expanding our fleet target to over 3,000 vehicles and deploying robo-taxis to more than 20 cities globally by 2026. We have ample dry powder to support these initiatives, and we will drive progress through our dual engine growth strategy, combined with our joint fleet deployment model that optimizes capital efficiency. We are well positioned to accelerate these targets and turn our operational momentum into sustained profitable and long-term growth for our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to the operator to begin our Q&A session. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, please limit yourself to one question. If you have more questions, please re-enter the question queue. If you ask questions in Chinese, please repeat them in English. The first question today comes from Ming Sun Lee with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Ming from Bank of America and thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask a question. So my only question is that since you already have a target over 3,000 robot taxi fleet by the end of 2026, can you share your production ramp up and the deployment plan Now that you have achieved the UE break-even in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, what do you think about the future UE trajectory? Thank you.

This is James. I'll take this one. So in my opinion, I think hitting the UE break-even is a huge win for the whole industry, not just for us. It proves that our technology actually works in the real world. It also shows that RoboTaxi is not just feasible, but profitable at scale. Right after the UE breakeven in Guangzhou, we did it again in Shenzhen. This shows that our model is actually replicable, and we achieved this breakeven by focusing on service value, not the discounting. What we have seen is that in the regular front, regulatory front, currently we do see there's a policy tailwind to support the whole industry. In China, there's coordinated efforts between the central and local governments to bring robo-taxi services to many cities. And in our existing markets of the tier one cities, I also have seen there's more licenses were issued to facilitate a larger fleet. Globally, many countries learned from the progress in China and the US to clear the policy hurdles and come up with regulations to support accelerated deployment. So the regulatory momentum gave us confidence to actually replicate our current success in many more markets, both globally and in China. Therefore, to capture the market, two things we are focusing this year. One is ramping up production, and the other is launching Robotaxis in many more markets. On the fleet ramp-up, over the last two months, we've been focusing on producing the Toyota BZ4X, and then we're also continuously producing more vehicles with Beijing Auto and Guangzhou Auto. With all three vehicles, we're confident we'll hit over 3,000 units by the end, the year end. Then on the fleet expansion, we're pushing deeper into the downtown hubs. And secondly, we are also expanding into new cities such as Hangzhou, Changsha, and many cities across the greater Bay Area. Thirdly, In terms of UE, since the fares in China is relatively low compared with many of the global markets, and in China, we already deliver positive UE, and we're continuing improving the UE, we expect better earnings in our existing markets and definitely a lot better margins overseas. We plan to expand this year into 2030s, which can give us a very strong first mover advantage. Our joint deployment model will also lower our CapEx expenditures, which can help us to accelerate the fleet growth and at least triple our robo taxi revenues this year. With this, get back to the operator.

The next question comes from Tim Sao with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Tim from . Thanks for taking my questions. I just have a follow-up question about Pony's latest operation of , based on the due engine strategy management just mentioned. So regarding Pony's expansion strategy to enter over 20 cities this year, could you share details about which cities you plan to enter, and what's the split between China and the overseas market, and separately with geopolitical tensions escalating in Middle East, are you seeing any challenges or headwinds to your operation? That's my question, thank you.

This is James again, I'll take this one. Strategically, we're definitely using our success in China as a blueprint for our global expansion. Because our technology and the business model are proven, we can replicate quickly, broadly in the global markets. In fact, we expect nearly half of the 20 cities we're targeting in this year to be overseas, spending in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. In terms of go-to-market strategy, we're teaming up with industry leaders to improve our joint deployment model, which can greatly reduce our CapEx expenditure. This helps us scale efficiently while at the same time building strong local networks. We are already launched in Zagreb, Doha, Dubai, and Singapore, partnering with global giants like Uber, Bolt, and Stellantis. One example is together with the Uber and the Vern, we actually have launched the first commercial robo taxi services in Europe. Looking ahead, we're certainly exploring more European cities and also doubling down in Asia, such as South Korea and Singapore. Regarding the last point of your question on our efforts in the Middle East, First and foremost, the risk region remains to be our high priority. So far, we haven't seen any material impact to our business from the current geopolitical tensions. We're still charging along with our efforts in the GCC region. We expect to roll out fair charging services with Mova Saleh in Doha, Qatar, and we are getting ready for fully driverless operations in Dubai. after approval later this month. Get back to the operator.

The next question comes from Leo Yu with CLSA. Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening, management. Thanks for taking my question. My question is on technology. So the road model and the autonomous driving stack are now operating in multiple cities across different countries. Could you please tell us more how does the technology generalize to new environments where the conditions could be very different from China, and what role does the world model play in accelerating our expansion plan? Thank you.

This is Tiancheng. I will take this one.

First and foremost, the key insight is that Driving is about interaction and negotiation with the agent around you. There's no difference whether you're in Guangzhou, in Shenzhen, or in Zagreb. Different cities and countries, essentially different combination of similar scenarios. What varies is the probability distribution, not the fundamental nature of the challenges. Some example corner cases are reckless lane change without checked mirrors, a fallen bicycle in the road, These corner cases occur everywhere. Our technology has already been validated in the most demanding conditions, operating at scale across all peak hours, all weather, in dense urban cores in China's major cities. This means that when we enter a city like Zagreb, we are not starting from scratch. We are now deploying a system that has already mastered a superset of the scenario city we encountered. This is why we can operate directly in Zagreb's urban core, which carries significant commercial value. Regarding the second part of your question, our overall model plays an important role in accelerating this process. It enables us to model the interaction and the negotiation dynamics between our vehicle and the surrounding agents, and to generate large-scale simulated scenarios that reflect the specific traffic patterns of a new market. By reinforcement learning within this stimulating environment, our system continuously improves its driving policy, allowing us to validate and fine-tune efficiently without needing to collect massive amounts of data in a new city. The enablers for reaching 20 cities are clear. Our multi-OEM network provides locally suitable vehicle platforms. Our operational playbook from remote assistance to fleet management is highly standardized and replicable. Our technology's broad ODD coverage means we can operate in complex urban environments, not just limited low-difficulty routes. Together, this gives us strong confidence in achieving our target of deploying Robotech services in more than 20 cities worldwide by the end of 2026. With that, back to operators.

The next question comes from Xin Yu Feng with UBS. Please go ahead. Xin Yu, your line is open. You may now ask your question.

Hi. Can you hear me? Hi. Yes. Hi.

Thank you for taking my question, and congrats to the solid results. My question is about the joint deployment model. For vehicles, how do you plan to add this year? Can you elaborate a bit more on how you will apply the joint deployment model? And how should we think about the benefit of this model for the company and our value chain partners? Thank you.

This is Liu. I'll take this question. So as you can see that we have hit a critical milestone of UE breakeven in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. After that, we've been seeing a lineup of partners in the whole ecosystem that wants to join the robot taxi market. And we are their go-to choice. So in this joint deployment model, our partner funds the vehicle CapEx and starts to tap into the whole robot taxi value chain. For example, ground operation, vehicle maintenance, and charging. We consider this as a win-win situation for both of us. Our partner gets growing revenue from deployed vehicle, and we essentially are in the R-Satellites model to expand our fleet rapidly. In this year, we expect nearly half of our new vehicles are coming through this model, which is led by Toyota. Not only we improve our capital efficiency in our expansion through this model, but also it will create an additional revenue stream through recurring income from the form of revenue sharing or AI driver license fee. So this revenue stream combined with our self-owned fleet fair charging revenues will help us to achieve more than triple revenue, robo-taxi revenue in 2026. And beyond the current lineup of our partners, such as Toyota, OnTime, Mobility, and ATBB, we actually expect even more partners will jump on board this year. And I will get back to the operator.

The next question comes from Purdy Ho with Hoi Thai Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my questions and congratulations on your help. Regarding the 1,000 local taxis already contracted with Toyota, how are you planning to deploy these vehicles? And do you expect any future scaling up or strategic initiatives with Toyota down the road?

This is James. I'll take this one. So in terms of Toyota, I consider it as not just a partner. They've actually been with us since 2019. as our largest strategic shareholder. The relationship between us goes way beyond just an auto supplier. It's actually a deep, strategic, long-term collaboration. In terms of the mass production of robo taxi vehicles, we have jointly launched several robo taxi models on the Toyota platforms since 2019. And in this year, 2026, we are adding 2,000-plus new vehicles, and nearly half will be the new Toyota BZ4X Gen 7 vehicles. This model is jointly developed with Toyota Motor Company and GAC Toyota. The mass production is already live on Toyota's assembly lines. There certainly is a great synergy between us Their manufacturing capability and top-line platforms blend perfectly with our L4 technology and operational know-how. So consider our collaboration. Besides the jointly developing vehicles, Toyota is also the first partner to adopt our joint deployment model, funding the fleet to help us scale capital efficiently. This shows their incredible confidence in Pony, and together we are rolling out commercially, starting from China's top-tier cities. With this, I'll get back to the operator.

The next question comes from Yuqian Ding with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you, team. This is Yuqian from HSBC. I've got two. The first question is about competition dynamics. How do you see the automakers getting into the robo-techie segment? And second question is about the competitive edges. So market narrative is shifting towards more into scaling. With more entrants getting in, what's Pony's most unique leading advantage? Thank you.

Sure. I'll take the first one, and I'll hand over to Tianqian for the second part. Certainly, we have seen that there, especially lately, there are many announcements about new players already entered or plan to enter the robo taxi business. Those new entrants, including automakers, ride-hailing companies, tech giants, or even startups. In general, I think this new entrance to the robo taxi space validates the long-term potential for our industry. And I certainly very much welcome the new players. Essentially, they can make the whole ecosystem to be even larger. But in reality, L4, especially RoboTaxi, is such a complex system that it requires integrated solution. As I mentioned in my prepared remark, there are five pillars for the RoboTaxi industry. namely technology, policy, mass production, operation, and partnerships. These five pillars are so intertwined that simply throwing resources at them will not accelerate the development process. So over the years, we actually have developed a unique advantage on all aspects of the robot taxi industry. So regarding some of our competitive mode, I'll head over to Tiancheng to elaborate.

Thank you. This is Tiancheng. Technically, I do not think automakers have an advantage in L4 robotics just because they are strong in manufacturing or in L2 systems. The key point is that L2 and L4 are fundamentally different. They are not just two points on the same path. In L2, as the miles per intervention increases, the actual rate can increase. Partial automation can create a false sense that the system is almost good enough until it fails in a situation where the human is no longer ready to take over. That is why the L2 path does not naturally lead to L4, especially when you're talking about a driverless fleet at scale. One unique advantage we have at Pony AI is over long-term investment in your world model and L4 native virtual driver training approach. The reason this matters is that L4 robotics need to be significantly safer than human drivers, and that cannot be achieved by simply imitating human driving behavior. To reach that level of safety, the system has to keep improving through large-scale trials and errors in a virtual environment, which is why our world model is essential. In other words, the key to train an L4 virtual driver is building a virtual environment with strong enough steam-to-wheel capability, especially when it comes to interaction between vehicles. That is also why the L4 approach requires many years of investment in AI, and it does not improve mainly by collecting more real-world data. The second unique advantage is that we have real robotics fleet in operation. And those fleet continuously help us see where the world model is still different from the real world. The hardest part of L4 is not the first 99%. It is the last 1%, the long tail of rare but safety critical corner cases. To handle those cases safely, it is not enough to look at one recorded trajectory. What really matters is understanding how the other vehicles and productions may behave across many different intentions with the AI driver. This is exactly why the world model is so important. Only a world model can give you enough coverage of the full combination space of different intentions in corner cases. And that kind of coverage is what L4 safety automation requires. At the same time, only fully driverless Robotaxi can keep narrowing the gap between the world model and the real world. Real world Robotaxi operations let us observe and understand the actual behavior pattern of vehicles and pedestrians in those scenarios where human driving data cannot observe interaction with Robotaxi. This is also aligned with the fact that new players typically can only start with a very small fleet. Regulators understand this logic as well, so they are naturally very cautious about granting permit at the early stage. So to summary, automated interior space confirms the size of the opportunity, but L4 Robotics is not something you get by extending L2. Only a unique advantage comes from two things, a world model built for L4 and a real Robotics fleet that continuously have to improve it. Together, they create a cross loop that keeps both the model and the product moving forward. So with this, back to operator.

The next question comes from Joel Ying with Nomura. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my question. This is Joe from Nomura. I would just like to understand how do management view the impact of NVIDIA launching their open source model for smart driving as a level 4 during this year, this year also GTC? Thank you.

This is Tiancheng again. For this question, I think the key is to distinguish between a model and a real product. An open source or smart driving model can be a good start point but not the end product. There is still a very big gap between a model and a robotics fleet that is commercially deployed, safety proven, government approved, and operated at scale. Closing that gap is exactly where our core advantage lies. So at Pony, our strengths come from years of full stack in-house development and real L4 deployment at scale. That includes not just the software or the model, but also the vehicle architecture, sensor, redundant design, domain controller, operating system validation, and the computerization capability need to run our actual global tech service. For example, sensor customization and redundant design, direct lab facility, manufacturability, and the BOM cost. Our OEM partners are also very different from a plug-and-play approach. That gives us better system integration, higher reliability, and lower overall system cost. So we view progress from NVIDIA help move the ecosystem forward. At the same time, we believe the real barrier to entry remains very high. And of course, NVIDIA is an important partner of ours on domain controller, and we maintain a strong collaborative relationship. So with this, back to the operator.

The next question comes from Tianyu Lu with CITIC Security. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Tianyu from CITIC Security. Thanks for taking the question and congratulations on rapid growth in RoboTagging service. I have one question. How do you plan to allocate your Hong Kong appeal proceeds? And given your accelerated development targets, Do you expect any upward regions to the 2026 cost and expenditures?

Yeah, this is Leo. I'll take this question. As I mentioned earlier, we have ample cash reserve, about $1.5 billion as of December 31st in 2025, which was driven by our Hong Kong IPO proceeds. which we gather proceeds of more than $800 million. So this definitely secures long-term capital to fuel multiple-year growth. And for us, the 2025 achievement in terms of Gen 7 production deployment and the UE breakeven made us a clear industry leader. So looking forward, we look for accelerated top-line growth to widen our leading positions. and also push the whole industry towards the next stage. Hence, we need to strategically increase our investments. We've significantly scaled up the number of robot taxis operating across China's tier one cities, especially in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. We also recently entered into new cities in China, such as Hangzhou, Changsha, and international in Croatia. and the plan to deploy in more than 20 cities by this year. So in order to support the multiple market expansion, we will invest in business development, operation, and marketing. And as we scale our robot taxi deployment, we are expanding our robot taxi fleet through joint deployment models, as well as investment in self-owned vehicles. And we would also recruit AI talents and invest in AI infrastructure to further improve our virtual driver capability. We think that this would allow us to consistently meet public high expectations for safety, reliability, and quality to offer a trusted robot taxi service. James already mentioned that this is a critical period to expand the market share, which We think it requires necessary investment to solidify our technological and operational modes. We believe the strategic increase in the investment is a value-driven trade-off to secure long-term market leadership. And we believe with disciplined capital allocation and also the benefits from joint deployment model, it will be paid off with much faster growth, city expansion, and the fleet size. And I also believe this will also lead the whole industry into a much advanced phase. Thank you. And I'll now get back to the operator.

The next question comes from Kai Xiao with CICC. Please go ahead.

Thank you. This is Kai from CICC. I have one question regarding the raw materials installation such as memories. So could you share with me how does the inflation impact your production plan and product items? Thank you.

Yeah, this is Leo. Again, I'll take this question. Thank you for asking this important question. As I mentioned in the earlier speech, the impact on both vehicle and ADK BOM cost is very limited. So we think this is This resilience is driven by our proactive supply chain strategy and the inventory signature with our ADC domain controller business. Through this approach, we actually have secured our memory supply even before the market went into price inflation and the shortages. So we are very confident that we can fully support this year's Robotaxi production target of over 3,000. And thanks to the supply chain measures and our continuous scaling, we remain on track to achieve a 20% reduction in ADK BOM costs for 2026 compared to 2025 levels. We will carry out an ongoing hardware-software optimization, and this will further reduce our overall BOM costs down the road. Thank you, and I'll get back to the operator.

There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to now turn the call back over to the company for closing remarks.

Thank you once again for joining the earnings call today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact our IR team. We look forward to speaking with you in the next quarter.

This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.