Autohome Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by for Autohome's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow management preparing months. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. A live and archived webcast of this earnings conference call will be available on Autohome's IR website. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Sterling Song, Autohome's IR Director. Mr. Song, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Autohome's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. Earlier today, Autohome distributed its earnings report, which can be found on the company's IR website at ir.autohome.com.cn. Joining me on today's call is our Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Quate Yanzong. Management will go through the prepared remarks first, which will be followed by a Q&A session, where they will be available to answer your questions. Before we continue, please know that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Education Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are such that they 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. Auto Home doesn't undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required and applicable laws. Please also note that Auto Home's earnings press release and this conference call include discussions of certain unordinated financial measures. But reconciliation gap measures to the most directly comparable gap measures can be found in our earnings release. I will now turn the call over to Auto Home's Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Craig Yanzong, for opening remarks. Craig, please go ahead. Thank you, Song Kai. Hello, everyone. My name is Zeng Yan. Thank you for attending our phone call today. Thank you, Sterling. Hello, everyone. This is Craig Sun. Thank you for joining our earnings conference call today. In 2025, we are the home of cars. From a car information platform to a one-stop car ecosystem service platform. In the face of profound changes in the automotive industry, we focus on two core goals. On the content level, we continue to strengthen the construction of high-quality content, 2025. was a pivotal year in our evolution, transforming from an automotive information platform into an automotive service ecosystem. Facing a dynamic industry landscape, our focus was on driving two core initiatives. On the content front, we continue to strengthen the development of high-quality content while enhancing our creator ecosystem and expanding new media distribution capabilities. On the service front, We accelerated the development of fully integrated online to offline services to create a more efficient and convenient end-to-end automotive service ecosystem for users and industry partners. Throughout this transformation, we have used AI as a core engine to drive product innovation and optimize operations and have already achieved substantial progress across multiple business areas. We effectively reduced the cost of user decision-making, and the overall user experience has been significantly improved. With the new energy car as an example, we continue to launch the selection configuration, comparison list, and other functions, and continuously enrich the co-ordination process under the car selection scene, helping users to make car decision faster. In addition, through the construction of traffic alliance and expansion service categories, the home-covered scenes are also more diverse, On the user side, by continuously optimizing and iterating our platform tools, we've effectively reduced decision-making costs and significantly enhanced the overall user experience. Taking new energy vehicles as an example, we've launched features such as optional configuration selections and vehicle comparison lists further enriching the car selection toolset to help users make faster purchasing decisions. Moreover, by building a traffic alliance and expanding service categories, Auto Homes now covers a broader range of user scenarios, enabling us to better meet diverse user needs. O2O's online and offline integration is an important step to rebuild the vehicle consumption scene. In the whole year of 2025, we have held more than 5,000 offline car shows and group shopping activities nationwide, and cross-border interoperability, e-sports, music festivals, and other young cultural IT, breaking the traditional car shopping boundary, and reaching a wider consumer community. We have achieved a deep fusion of viewing, selecting, buying, and immersive experiences. What is particularly worth mentioning is that in the Trade Ecology Service Department, in the second half of last year, we launched Car Shopping City, which aims to provide users with a more smooth digital car shopping experience. Our O2O integration initiatives are key to reshaping the automotive consumption process. Throughout 2025, we organized over 5,000 offline automotive exhibitions and group purchase events nationwide and collaborated across industries with user-oriented culture IPs. such as esports and music festivals. These efforts went beyond the traditional car purchasing model by reaching a broader consumer base and ultimately integrating car wheeling, selection, test driving, and repurchasing, and purchasing into an immersive experience. Within the development of our transaction service ecosystem, we launched the Auto Home Mall in the second half of last year, providing users with a smoother digital car purchasing experience. Currently, this business, though still in its initial phase, has achieved stable operations and is demonstrating positive momentum, which makes us even more confident in the growth prospects of our transaction segment in the coming year. Behind all product service upgrades and landing times is a solid base for data and AI technology construction. In 2025, we launched the self-proclaimed Cangjie Big Model and Tianshu Smart Service Platform, which combines the rich data and industry service experience accumulated over the past 20 years with the pre-existing algorithm to accelerate the transformation towards intelligentization At the same time, Zhijia's products have also been fully AI upgraded, from the AI intelligent assistant to the marketing content based on AIGC technology to the rapid generation and cross-platform distribution, and to the AI intelligent investment that covers the entire chain of advertising, etc. We are promoting Zhijia to evolve from an online traffic entrance to a smart engine that drives the whole area to improve efficiency. Behind every product and service upgrade integration and real-world deployment is a strong foundation powered by data and AI technology. In 2025, we introduced our proprietary Changji large language model and Tianshu Intelligent Service Platform, integrating AutoHome's two decades of industry data and service experience with cutting-edge algorithms. This integration helps our ecosystem partners accelerate their smart transformation. Meanwhile, Autohome's full product portfolio has been comprehensively upgraded with AI-powered capabilities from AI smart assistants that support users throughout the entire car selection and the purchase process to AIGC technology that generates rates and distributes marketing content across platforms and further to AI-driven intelligent advertising placements covering the entire advertising chain and more. So we are advancing Autohome's shift from a traffic gateway into an intelligent engine that improves efficiency across the entire ecosystem. In the past year, we have continued to make progress in the field of content ecology, constantly consolidating professional influence and broadening the scope of new media. For example, at the Guangzhou Motor Show in November last year, Specifically, Over the past year, we continue to make progress in our content ecosystem, strengthening our professional influence and expanding our reach across new media channels. For instance, during the Guangzhou Auto Show last November, we integrated our event coverage with the Creator Conference. Centered on the theme of utility-driven coverage, we produced a marathon livestream spanning two days and 23 hours. Content was closely to write real-world user scenarios. The results were distributed simultaneously across six major new media platforms, achieving a multidimensional scenario-based content broadcast. In addition, in the fourth quarter, we launched a one-stop content marketing platform for the automotive industry, which is all over the place, involving industry experts, technology, racing, outdoor and overseas five major fields, to build creative evidence, to provide multi-format car content services that cover pictures, videos, and live broadcasts for the main factory, and to fully match the diversified scene and marketing needs of the main factory. By the end of 2025, the platform has attracted more than 2,500 car manufacturers and new media experts. In addition, in the fourth quarter, we launched Autohome Wanxiang, a comprehensive one-stop content marketing platform for the automotive industry. By building a creator matrix centered on five key pillars, industry experts, technology, racing, outdoor lifestyle, and global markets, we provide automakers with a one-stop automotive content service covering articles, videos, live streams, and more. This allows us to meet the diverse and scenario marketing needs of automakers. As of the end of 2025, the platform has attracted over 2,500 premier creators from auto-home and various new media channels. In terms of the MCN system construction, the results are also significant. In addition, our company MCN gathers more than 500 high-quality creators across the field. The new media has accumulated over 100 million users. According to Quest Mobile's data, At the same time, we achieved significant results in building our MCN system. AutoHome Media MCN now covers over 500 high-quality KOLs and KOCs across diverse fields. and our new media platforms have cumulatively reached over 100 million users. According to Quest Mobile, Autohome's average mobile DAUs in December 2025 were 77.51 million, remaining stable year-over-year. In the energy sector, after the successful test operation in September of 2025, the business of car manufacturers has officially landed in the fourth level and continues to promote the upgrade of trading services. On the line, we open industrial chain resources, enrich the supply of drivers, and optimize user shopping experience. We also focus on low-end cities, and set up a joint network, and fill the channels of the main airport with coverage. At present, the commercial city station service operating system is still in the stage of exploration and improvement, and has attracted 23 major car companies to join. In the future, we will continue to improve the car transaction ecosystem, In the new energy vehicle sector, following a successful pilot in late September 2025, Autohome More was officially launched in the fourth quarter, Continuously advancing our transaction service upgrades. Resources across the industry chain to expand vehicle offerings and optimize the car purchasing experience for users. Offline, we are focused on low tier cities by establishing a franchise network. Fitting gaps in OEM channel coverage. stop trading and the service ecosystem is still in the exploratory and refinement phase and has already secured partners with 23 mainstream automotive brands. Looking ahead, we'll continue to refine the automotive transaction ecosystem and work with partners across the entire industry value chain to advance the automotive industry's digital and online transformation. For the full year 2025, Autohome's NEV-related revenues, including the new retail business, maintained steady growth, increasing by 30.2% year-over-year. In terms of digitalization, we completed a series of product AI upgrades in 2025. In the beginning of the year, Zhijia APP first introduced DeepSync, which is an AI intelligent assistant. It greatly improved the Wenda experience in the field of car verticals. We will further launch the second-hand car intelligent purchase, effectively solved the pain points of non-standard second-hand cars in transaction matching and car selection roles. To this end, we have achieved the full coverage of the AI assistant of the new car, second-hand car, and dual scene. Users are able to meet the quality standards and maintain industry lead. In the face of cooperation partners, we use unique data resources and industry analysis models to fully upgrade digitized product lines. Re-buy, from marketing to sales acquisition, sales transformation, We completed a series of AI-driven upgrades to our products. Early in the year, we launched an AI-powered intelligence system built on DeepSeq and Autohome's proprietary data significantly enhancing the Q&A experience in the automotive vertical. In April, we introduced an intelligent used car purchasing assistant that addresses pain points in transaction matching and purchase decision-making for non-standard used cars. As a result, we now have achieved full AI-assisted coverage across both new cars and used cars. user scenarios, maintaining industry-leading quality response rates for user Q&A. For partners, we used our unique data resources and industry analytics models to upgrade our digital product line across the entire value chain. from marketing outreach, to potential customer acquisition, to sales conversion, and to after-sales services. This has enabled end-to-end efficiency improvement across the process for our clients. To date, we have served over 50 automotive brands. We continue to deepen the standardization of service system construction. In terms of vehicle evaluation, AI inspection experts have successfully applied on multiple third-party platforms. to provide users with a variety of vehicle pricing services that cover car license, driving license, and so on. We also support detailed analysis of the vehicle price in the local market to find out the accuracy and user usage rate, which are the front lines of the industry. In terms of the number of drivers, we have joined the nine full-scale testing institutions to establish the Driver Certification Alliance, which has completed more than 500,000 standardized tests in total over the year. to provide professional and reliable capital for platform transactions effectively reducing the cost of trust in the transaction process. In our used car business, we continue to advance the development of a standardized service system. For vehicle pricing, our AI vehicle inspector has been successfully deployed across multiple third-party platforms. It allows users to obtain radiation services through various inputs, including license plate images and vehicle registrations. while also providing in-depth analysis of marketing pricing trends. Its pricing accuracy and user adoption rates both rank among the highest in the industry. On the vehicle supply side, we partnered with nine authoritative inspection agencies to establish the Vehicle Certification Alliance. Over the year, we completed standardized inspections for more than 500,000 vehicles offering professional and reliable quality assurance for transactions on our platform, and effectively reducing trust-related costs during the transaction process. To sum up, in 2025, we insist on using users as the core, continuing to improve user experience through user-oriented content and smart tools, and achieving key breakthroughs in the construction of AI application landing and online and offline integrated transactions. In the future, we will continue to deepen user experience, continuously deepen service and transaction ecosystem, and continue to develop the high-quality of the automotive industry into a strong dynamic. Overall, in 2025, we remain committed to a user-centric approach, continuously improving the user experience through rich, diverse, and high-quality content as well as intelligent tools. We also achieved key breakthroughs in the practical application of AI and in building an integrated online-to-offline transaction ecosystem. Moving forward, we remain committed to improving the user experience, continuously enhancing our service and transaction ecosystem, and driving the high-quality and sustainable development of auto home. Next, I would like to explain to you the benefits With that, let me briefly walk you through the key financials for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2025. Please note that I will reference RMB only in my discussion today, unless otherwise stated. To be more specific, the media service income is 3.34 billion yuan, the clue service income is 6.68 billion yuan, and the online marketing and other income is 4.6 billion yuan. Net revenues for the fourth quarter were 1.46 billion. To break it down further, media services revenues were 334 million, least generation services revenues were 68 million, and the online marketplace and others revenues contributed 400 million. The cost of revenues in the first quarter was 19 million compared to 405 in the first quarter of 2024. Gross margin in the first quarter was 78.2%. compared to 76% in the same period of 2024. Turning to operating expenses, sales and marketing expenses in the fourth quarter were $739 million, compared to $780 million in the first quarter of 2004. Product and development expenses were $258 million compared to $328 million in the same period of 2024. General and administrative expenses were $115 million compared to $131 million during the same period of 2024. In summary, the 4-季度营业利润为0.92亿元, 24年同期为2.32亿元,归属于汽车之家的经调整利润为3.04亿元,24年同期为4.87亿元. Overall, we delivered an operating profit of 92 million in the first quarter compared to 232 million for the same period of 2024. Adjusted net income attributable to auto home was 304 million in the first quarter compared to 488 7 million in the corresponding period of 2024. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per share in the fourth quarter were both 0.65 compared to 1 for both in the corresponding period of 2024. Non-GAAP basic and diluted earnings per ADS in the first quarter were 2.60 and 2.59 respectively compared to the 4.02 and the 3.99 respectively in the corresponding period of 1994. Next, I would like to briefly summarize the performance of our 25 years. Next, I'll briefly summarize our full year 2025 results. Total revenues were 6.45 billion, of which media services revenues were 1.15 billion, leads generation services revenues were 2.71 billion, and online marketplace and others revenues were 2.59 billion, representing an increase of 8.8% year over year. In addition, we delivered an adjusted net income attributable to auto home of 1.61 billion, with an adjusted net margin of 24.9%. On December 31, 2025, our asset balance sheet continued to show strong performance. Cash, cash and other household items, short-term investment and long-term financial products, totaled 213.6 billion yuan. The cash flow from business activities in 2025 amounted to 8.9 billion yuan. As of December 31, 2025, our balance sheet remained robust. Cash, cash equivalent, short-term investments, and long-term financial products totaled $21.36 billion. We generated net operating cash flow of $0.89 billion in 2025. On September 4, 2024, the board of directors approved a total of less than $200 million in stock repurchase in 12 months. On September 4, 2024, our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program under which we are permitted to repurchase up to US$200 million of Autohomes ADS. for a period not exceed 12 months thereafter. On August 14th, 2025, the board approved an extension of the program through December 31st, 2025. Under this program, we have repurchased approximately 7.12 million ADS for a total cost of approximately US dollar 185 million. I am very happy to announce that on March 5th, 2026, I'm also pleased to announce that on March 5, 2026, Our board of directors authorized a new share repurchase program under which we may repurchase up to US dollar 200 million of Autohomes ADS over the next 18 months. This reflects our strong confidence in our business prospects and a long-term development as well as our consistent commitment to continuously creating and delivering value to our shareholders. This is the financial data meeting of the company. Next, we will start the Q&A session. So that concludes our financial summary. We are now ready to open up the Q&A session. Operator, please open the line for the Q&A.

Thank you, management. At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, please dial star 1 and 1 and wait for a name to be announced. If you'd like to cancel your request, you can press star 1 and 1 again. One moment for the first question. Our first question comes from the line of Thomas Chong of Jefferies. Please go ahead.