WRD

HONG KONG, Aug. 31, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WeRide (Nasdaq: WRD, HKEX: 0800), a global leader in autonomous driving technology, today announced its inclusion as a constituent of the HKEX Tech 100 Index following the latest quarterly index review released by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX). The index changes will be implemented after market close on September 11 and take effect on September 14, 2026. HKEX Tech 100 Index Quarterly Review Announcement Launched in December 2025, the HKEX Tech 100 Index is the first Hong Kong equities index developed by HKEX and serves as a broad-based benchmark for Hong Kong's technology and innovation ecosystem. The index comprises 100 large- and mid-cap companies eligible for Southbound Stock Connect, spanning six major technology and innovation themes: artificial intelligence, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, electric vehicles and intelligent driving, information technology, internet services, and robotics. Constituents include leading technology companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, and Xiaomi. Following the latest rebalancing, WeRide will also become eligible for inclusion in the investment universe tracked by related index-linked products. The latest review marks the first constituent adjustment under the enhanced methodology announced by HKEX on August 18, which further refines the eligibility and constituent selection criteria for technology companies while expanding coverage of emerging technology trends, including opportunities across the artificial intelligence value chain. Companies must meet requirements related to technology-theme relevance, listing history, liquidity, as well as thresholds for R&D investment or revenue growth, with constituents selected based on their average daily market capitalization ranking over the preceding 12 months. Autonomous driving is the first Physical AI application to achieve large-scale commercialization, and is capable of generating large-scale real-world data feedback loops and sustainable paid operations. WeRide's inclusion in the first quarterly rebalancing following the methodology enhancement reflects the company's strengths in both technological innovation and commercialization, further highlighting its leading position in the Physical AI sector. Today, WeRide's autonomous driving business spans 13 countries and 60 cities worldwide, with an L4 fleet of approximately 3,400 vehicles, including more than 1,800 Robotaxis, making it one of the world's largest autonomous driving fleets. International expansion has become an important driver of WeRide's commercialization and growth. Leveraging an asset-light business model, WeRide works with global mobility platforms including Uber and Grab, as well as local operating partners, to scale its proven operational model across international markets. WeRide's Robotaxi services have achieved fully driverless commercial operations in four cities across two countries, including Guangzhou and Beijing in China, and Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. WeRide has also launched public operations in Singapore and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, while entering European markets including Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and Slovakia. The company's global commercialization network continues to expand across key international markets. In the L2++ segment, WeRide's proprietary one-stage end-to-end ADAS solution, WRD 3.0, has entered the mass-production phase. In the second quarter of 2026, approximately 30,000 units of WRD 3.0 were delivered, with the solution securing mass-production nominations for more than 30 vehicle models. WeRide has also begun road testing and localized adaptation and validation in markets including Germany, France and Japan. Large-scale commercial deployment is increasingly translating into strong financial growth. In the second quarter of 2026, WeRide's total revenue reached US$34.2 million, representing an 82% year-on-year (YoY) increase and a 103% quarter-on-quarter increase. Gross profit margin increased to 37.5%, up 9.4 percentage points from the second quarter of 2025, reflecting continued improvements in operating efficiency and business quality. WeRide has also achieved Dual Primary Listing on Nasdaq and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and was included in Stock Connect in June 2026. Its inclusion in the HKEX Tech 100 Index is expected to further enhance the company's visibility within Hong Kong's technology investment ecosystem. The simultaneous growth of Robotaxi operations, international expansion and ADAS mass-production deliveries provides clear and measurable fundamental support for WeRide's long-term competitiveness in Physical AI. Together, these businesses create multiple growth drivers and further strengthen the company's commercialization foundation. Looking ahead, WeRide will continue to expand the commercial applications of Physical AI in the real world, enhance operating efficiency and improve the quality of growth, delivering sustainable business results and creating long-term value for customers, partners and shareholders. About WeRideWeRide is a global leader and a first mover in the autonomous driving industry, as well as the first publicly traded Robotaxi company. Our autonomous vehicles have been deployed in over 60 cities across 13 countries. We are also the first and only technology company whose products have received autonomous driving permits in eight markets: China, the UAE, Singapore, France, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, and the US. Empowered by the smart, versatile, cost-effective, and highly adaptable WeRide One platform, WeRide provides autonomous driving products and services from L2 to L4, addressing transportation needs in the mobility, logistics, and sanitation industries. WeRide was named to Fortune's 2025 Change the World and 2025 Future 50 lists. Media [email protected] Safe Harbor StatementThis press release contains statements that may constitute “forward-looking” statements pursuant to the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “aims,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” “likely to,” and similar statements. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about WeRide’s beliefs, plans, and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in WeRide’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and announcements on the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release. WeRide does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/51d5c3ea-848d-4186-bef5-e70e3bf7258e

WeRide (NASDAQ:WRD) shares dropped 6.4% on Thursday after the autonomous driving company’s second-quarter results fell short of investor expectations, despite delivering substantial revenue growth. WeRide reported an 82% year-over-year increase in revenue, while sales more than doubled compared with the previous quarter. Growth was supported by the company’s international expansion, its asset-light robotaxi strategy and the beginning of mass production for its advanced driver-assistance systems. However, the strong top-line performance was not enough to offset concerns surrounding profitability. WeRide continued to report a loss per share, prompting a negative response from investors following the earnings release. The reaction suggests that markets are placing increasing emphasis on the company’s path towards sustainable profitability rather than revenue expansion alone. Pressure on WeRide shares was compounded by a reassessment of the stock’s near-term prospects following the quarterly update. Analysts lowered their consensus price target after the results, adding to concerns that expectations surrounding the autonomous driving company may previously have been too optimistic. The U.S.-listed ADR also experienced considerable volatility on earnings day. Shares initially jumped during pre-market trading before reversing direction and weakening steadily throughout the regular session, a trading pattern consistent with investors using the early strength to reduce positions. Broader concerns surrounding autonomous vehicle safety and increasing regulatory scrutiny have also affected investor sentiment towards companies operating in the sector. Questions over how regulators will oversee autonomous driving services as deployment expands have created additional uncertainty for companies such as WeRide. Against this backdrop, the company underperformed several other North Asian technology stocks during Thursday’s trading. Competitive pressures are also becoming an increasingly important consideration for investors evaluating autonomous driving companies. Reports that a Japanese autonomous driving startup is seeking a valuation of roughly $10 billion while planning an expansion into the United States have reinforced expectations of growing competition across the international robotaxi market. The prospect of additional well-funded competitors entering key markets could make investors more cautious about assigning premium valuations to autonomous driving companies that have yet to achieve profitability. Meanwhile, the Hang Seng Index provided little support to sentiment surrounding WeRide, recording only a modest gain on Thursday. With revenue expanding rapidly but losses continuing, investors are likely to remain focused on whether WeRide can convert its growing international presence and expanding autonomous driving operations into a clearer path towards profitability. WeRide stock price

Interested in WeRide Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. WeRide’s Q2 revenue rose sharply, increasing 82% year over year and 103% sequentially to RMB232 million. Gross margin improved to 37.5%, while net and EBITDA losses narrowed as expenses grew more slowly than revenue. International Robotaxi expansion accelerated: overseas markets contributed nearly 40% of revenue, and the overseas fleet roughly doubled to about 400 vehicles. WeRide now operates L4 services in 12 countries and is using an asset-light partner model. ADAS scaling gained momentum, with about 30,000 L2+/L3 units delivered during the quarter and more than 30,000 cumulative deliveries by June 30. Management expects installed vehicles to exceed 100,000 by year-end and is targeting quarterly positive cash flow by 2028 and full-year break-even in 2029. From Science Project to Solvent: WeRide’s 761% Revenue Surge WeRide (NASDAQ:WRD) reported second-quarter 2026 revenue growth of 82% from a year earlier and 103% sequentially, as the autonomous-driving company cited overseas expansion, an asset-light Robotaxi model and the initial mass production of its L2+/L3 advanced driver-assistance systems. Revenue totaled RMB232 million for the quarter. CFO and Head of International Jennifer Li said overseas markets accounted for nearly 40% of group revenue, with overseas revenue up 164% year over year and about 170% from the prior quarter. → SoundHound AI Sends a Loud Signal After Its Q2 Earnings Beat Top 5 AI & Autonomy Stocks Trading Under $15 With Big Potential Gross profit increased 143% year over year to RMB87 million, while gross margin rose to 37.5% from 28.1% in the prior-year period. Li attributed the margin improvement to scaling in the company’s asset-light overseas autonomous-driving operations, rapid growth in its L2+/L3 business and a shift toward higher-value AI service-oriented revenue. WeRide’s net loss narrowed 1% year over year to RMB401 million in the second quarter. EBITDA loss narrowed 8.1% to RMB335 million. Total operating expenses rose 9.2% to RMB533 million, a slower pace than revenue growth. → AST SpaceMobile Earnings Just Reminded Investors How Risky Space Can Be These Are the Only 6 Stock Stocks in NVIDIA's 13F Portfolio Research and development expense rose 36% to RMB434 million, reflecting investments in AI infrastructure and foundation models. General and administrative expense declined to RMB69 million, which Li said was mainly due to lower share-based compensation and professional fees. Selling expense increased to RMB29 million as the company expanded commercial activities. As of June 30, WeRide had approximately RMB5.4 billion in cash and other liquid financial resources. Li said the company expects its shared technology platform to support L4, L2+/L3 and other product categories without costs scaling linearly with vehicle deployments. Management said it remains on track to target positive cash flow in a single quarter by 2028 and full-year break-even in 2029. → First Solar’s Profit Engine Faces a New Policy Test in Washington Founder, Chairman and CEO Tony Han said WeRide’s L4 fleet reached about 3,400 units, up 22% from the company’s April earnings release. The Robotaxi fleet increased by 500 vehicles to more than 1,800 units. The company is pursuing an asset-light international approach in which it does not own operating vehicles. Instead, it works with local partners that deploy and operate fleets while WeRide provides localized autonomous-driving technology and receives recurring technology-service and mileage-based fees. Han said the company estimates that annualized technology-service revenue per Robotaxi could exceed $50,000 under normalized driverless operations. Li, in response to an analyst question, described annualized recurring revenue per vehicle as exceeding $40,000 to $50,000, with potential upside as fleet density grows. During the quarter, WeRide announced Robotaxi commercial partnerships in Madrid, Zurich and Copenhagen. In the Middle East, the company expanded driverless Robotaxi coverage in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to more than 70% of core urban areas, according to Han. Its Riyadh operating zone was extended to airport terminals and surrounding central business districts. Li said WeRide’s overseas Robotaxi fleet roughly doubled from about 200 vehicles in the first quarter to around 400 vehicles in the second quarter. The company said it has active L4 operations in 12 countries and official autonomous-driving licenses in eight countries. Management identified regulatory approvals, localized technology adaptation, local ecosystem integration and safety validation as central elements of its competitive position. Li said the company believes regulatory permits are a key factor in sustaining its role with fleet operators and ride-hailing platforms. In China, WeRide expanded driverless operating zones in Guangzhou into areas of Tianhe District, including Pearl River New Town, and Haizhu District, including the Canton Fair Complex. Han said the expansion represented a nearly threefold increase in the company’s operating design domain compared with the end of 2026, though the timing reference was not further clarified on the call. Average daily rides per vehicle in Guangzhou reached 21, up 24% sequentially, while peak daily rides per vehicle reached 28. Registered users of the company’s self-operated Robotaxi ride-hailing service in China grew nearly 35% from the prior quarter, and ride-hailing revenue rose 140% sequentially, Han said. WeRide’s L4 revenue was RMB125 million, up 47% year over year, primarily driven by Robotaxi operations. Li said some other L4 businesses have seasonal revenue patterns, with negotiations generally completed in the first half and revenue recognized as deployment occurs during the second half. The company’s L2+/L3 business generated revenue growth of approximately 26 times from a year earlier and 219% from the prior quarter. Han said WeRide delivered about 30,000 units of its one-stage end-to-end L2+/L3 solution during the quarter, while cumulative deliveries of vehicles equipped with the system exceeded 30,000 as of June 30. Management expects vehicles powered by its solution to exceed 100,000 by year-end and cumulative deliveries to surpass 500,000 next year. WeRide also said it launched an L3 autonomous-driving proof-of-concept program with Mercedes-Benz. Han said WeRide formally launched its WITT physical-fact foundation model during the quarter. The model is designed to extract and verify physical facts from road-test data, while the company’s GENESIS world model uses validated information to reconstruct extreme conditions and long-tail scenarios through simulation. According to Han, the models are intended to create a data, simulation and algorithm-iteration loop supporting both L4 autonomous driving and mass-produced L2+/L3 systems. He said the company’s objective is to use data from both businesses to improve its underlying models and reduce development resources required across product lines. Looking ahead, management said its priorities include expanding Robotaxi fleets in existing overseas markets, pursuing additional OEM partnerships for its L2+/L3 systems, increasing installed vehicles and seeking adoption of its AI infrastructure among robotics and humanoid-robotics companies. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ: WRD) is a developer of autonomous driving technology focused on providing Level 4 (L4) self-driving solutions for passenger mobility and logistics. The company's full-stack platform integrates sensors, computing hardware, software algorithms and vehicle controls to enable driverless taxis, shuttles and goods delivery vehicles. By combining perception, planning and controls in a turnkey system, WeRide aims to accelerate the commercialization of robotaxi services and autonomous fleet operations. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Guangzhou, China, WeRide maintains research and development centers in Silicon Valley and China. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "WeRide Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for August 2026.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: August 12, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD) reported robust financial performance in Q2 2026, with total revenue growing 82% year-over-year and 103% quarter-over-quarter, while gross margin reached a record high of 37.5%. The company's overseas expansion is accelerating, with overseas revenue up 164% year-over-year and now accounting for nearly 40% of group revenue, driven by an asset-light model that requires lower capital investment. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD)'s L2++/L3 ADAS business is scaling rapidly, with revenue surging approximately 2,600% year-over-year and cumulative deliveries exceeding 30,000 units, targeting 100,000 by year-end and 500,000 next year. The company has secured a significant competitive moat through regulatory approvals and operational licenses in multiple countries, positioning it 2-3 years ahead of competitors in key markets like the Middle East and Europe. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD) is demonstrating improving operating leverage, with total operating expenses growing only 9.2% year-over-year compared to 82% revenue growth, and the company remains on track to achieve positive cash flow in a single quarter by 2028. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD) continues to report significant net losses, with a net loss of RMB401 million in Q2 2026, although this narrowed by 1% year-over-year. The company's reliance on an asset-light model with platform partners like Uber and Grab raises concerns about the durability of these relationships and potential loss of leverage if partners decide to route demand to competitors. R&D expenses increased 36% year-over-year to RMB434 million, reflecting continued heavy investment in AI infrastructure and foundation models, which may pressure near-term profitability. The competitive landscape is intensifying, with OEMs and other ADAS companies claiming they can enter the robotaxi market using data accumulated from ADAS systems, potentially threatening WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD)'s market position. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD) faces geopolitical risks in the Middle East, although it managed to double its fleet in the region despite recent tensions, and the company's expansion into new markets carries execution and regulatory risks. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 2 Warning Signs with WRD. Is WRD fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: How does management prioritize resource allocation across its diversified business portfolio (L4, L2++/L3, AI infrastructure), and what are the goals for the second half of 2026? A: CEO Dr. Tony Han explained that the company's AI infrastructure, specifically the WIT and Genesis foundation models, creates significant data and technology synergies, allowing them to invest in one platform that serves all three business lines. This "double data flywheel" is a key competitive advantage. For the second half, the goals are to reach 100,000 cumulative L2++/L3 vehicle installations, push for more OEM adoption (potentially competing head-to-head with Tesla FSD in China), continue expanding the robotaxi fleet, and get more robotics companies to adopt their AI infrastructure. Q: Can you share more detail on the overseas strategy and how it can be replicated across different regions? A: CFO Jennifer Lee stated that overseas markets are a key growth engine, contributing nearly 40% of group revenue. The strategy is asset-light: WeRide does not own vehicles but licenses its "virtual driver" technology to local partners, capturing recurring technology service revenue. The annualized revenue per robotaxi can exceed $40,000-$50,000. The playbook is to secure permits, adapt technology locally, establish a benchmark project, and then replicate at a lower marginal cost. The company has active L4 operations in 12 countries and is confident in the repeatability of this model. Q: What is the latest progress and competitive advantage for the L2/L3 ADAS business, and how do you view the threat from OEMs or ADAS companies claiming they can build robotaxis from ADAS data? A: CEO Dr. Tony Han highlighted that their ADAS system is on par with Tesla FSD in urban Chinese scenarios, demonstrated by a two-hour live-streamed drive in Guangzhou rush hour without intervention. The business is scaling rapidly, with 30,000 units delivered in Q2 and a goal of 100,000 by year-end. The competitive edge comes from their AI foundation models, which allow a relatively small team to build a top-tier solution. Regarding the robotaxi threat, Han emphasized a "1,000 times difference" in requirements for redundancy and reliability. He proposed a qualification threshold: a company must operate 100 driverless robotaxis for six months without severe accidents to be considered a true robotaxi company, arguing that "hallucination is fatal in physical AI." Q: What is the overall trajectory for future operating expenses, and how will the company manage spending as it expands? A: CFO Jennifer Lee stated that operating leverage is already emerging, with revenue growing 87% year-over-year while R&D expenses only increased 36%. R&D is largely shared across the technology platform and does not scale linearly with revenue. The company has moved past the peak investment phase for AI infrastructure. They remain disciplined in spending and are on track to achieve positive cash flow in a single quarter by 2028 and break even for the full year 2029. Q: Can you share more details about the newly launched WIT model? A: CEO Dr. Tony Han described the WIT (World Intelligence Toward Truth) model as a unique analysis tool that deconstructs video data into "minimum physical fact units." Combined with the Genesis world model, which can generate new data, this tandem allows WeRide to analyze billions of videos, find causal relationships, and generate long-tail data for training. This capability boosts training efficiency and lowers costs, enabling them to distill powerful models onto lower-cost, lower-power domain controllers (e.g., 200 TOPS vs. competitors' 2000 TOPS) while still winning competitions. Q: Given the intensified competition, can management articulate WeRide's competitive moat? A: CEO Dr. Tony Han reiterated that their moat is built on the "dual flywheel" mechanism, where data from L4 operations improves the L2/L3 ADAS system and vice versa, as both are built on the same foundation model and similar sensor configurations. This is a unique position globally. He pointed to their six consecutive wins in China's intelligent driving competition and the successful live-streamed ADAS demonstration as proof of their leading technology and execution. Q: In the asset-light model, what exclusivity or minimum volume commitments do you have with platform partners like Uber, and what is your leverage if they route demand to other partners? A: CFO Jennifer Lee explained that WeRide builds a healthy ecosystem with multiple local and platform partners. Their key leverage is their regulatory moat: they hold official autonomous driving licenses in eight countries and operate in 12, a scale no competitor matches. The responsibility of securing regulatory permits rests with WeRide, and regulators grant permits on a merit basis, favoring companies with strong safety records. This makes WeRide an indispensable partner, as not everyone can secure the necessary permits. Q: How is an OEM like Mercedes-Benz evaluating WeRide, and what advantage does your software have over a full Nvidia stack? A: CEO Dr. Tony Han, while unable to reveal contract details, framed the question around the power of creativity and engineering talent. He drew a parallel to DeepSeek, which achieved remarkable results with limited resources against well-funded competitors. He expressed confidence that WeRide's "great creativity" and "genius" engineers will build the best ADAS and robotaxi systems, as already proven by their market results and competitive wins. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

NEW YORK, July 22, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WeRide Inc. (“WeRide” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: WRD; HKEX: 0800), a global leader in autonomous driving technology, today announced that it will release its unaudited financial results for the second quarter 2026 and unaudited interim results for the first half of 2026 on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, before the open of the U.S. markets. The Company’s management will host an earnings conference call at 8:00 A.M. U.S. Eastern Time on August 12, 2026 or 8:00 P.M. Hong Kong Time on the same day to discuss the results. Details for the conference call are as follows: Event Title: WeRide Inc. Second Quarter and First Half 2026 Earnings Call English Registration Link: https://register-conf.media-server.com/register/BIae5622619adf4da3b99161c402e831e8 Chinese Simultaneous Interpretation Registration Link (listen-only mode): https://register-conf.media-server.com/register/BI0c260dd324304548982b2c9490587a36 All participants are required to complete the online registration in advance using the links provided above. During the registration, participants may select either the English or Chinese simultaneous interpretation options. Please note that the Chinese simultaneous interpretation line will be available in listen-only mode. Upon successful registration, each participant will receive a confirmation email containing the relevant dial-in details and a unique access PIN, which can be used to join the conference call. Additionally, a live and archived webcast of the conference call will be available on the Company’s investor relations website at https://ir.weride.ai. About WeRide WeRide is a global leader and a first mover in the autonomous driving industry, as well as the first publicly traded Robotaxi company. Our autonomous vehicles have been tested or operated in over 40 cities across 12 countries. We are also the first and only technology company whose products have received autonomous driving permits in eight markets: China, the UAE, Singapore, France, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, and the US. Empowered by the smart, versatile, cost-effective, and highly adaptable WeRide One platform, WeRide provides autonomous driving products and services from L2 to L4, addressing transportation needs in the mobility, logistics, and sanitation industries. WeRide was named to Fortune’s 2025 Change the World and 2025 Future 50 lists. Contacts Investor inquiries: [email protected] inquiries: [email protected] Piacente Financial CommunicationsE-mail: [email protected]

UBER trades 30% below its all-time high despite WeRide and Wayve robotaxi deals and 44% non-GAAP EPS growth last quarter. A $1.5 billion equity revaluation headwind crushed GAAP net income 85%, as Kevin Warsh's hawkish Fed broadly reprices long-duration tech multiples. Wall Street's $104 consensus target implies 47% upside, but analysts advise waiting for price stabilization near $58 before committing fresh capital. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Uber didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) at $70.91 sits in a holding pattern. The stock absorbed a sharp leg lower on the same day it unveiled a Zurich robotaxi launch with WeRide and a global Level 4 partnership with Stellantis and Wayve, capturing why this name is interesting and uninvestable simultaneously. Uber runs the world's largest ride-hailing and food delivery network, with 199 million monthly active platform consumers and 3.6 billion trips last quarter. The platform shifted from cash-burning growth to a free-cash-flow machine, with management leaning into autonomy as the next decade's flywheel. Shares are down from $92.65 at the Q3 2025 earnings report to current levels, with the 52-week high of $101.99 now distant. Q1 2026 delivered Gross Bookings of $53.72 billion, up 25% year over year, operating income of $1.923 billion, up 56.6%, and free cash flow of $2.286 billion. Non-GAAP EPS grew 44% year over year, and Uber returned $3.011 billion through buybacks in a single quarter. Valuation sits at trailing PE of 18 and free cash flow yield of 6.76%. Bulls argue the WeRide, Wayve, Lucid, and Nuro partnerships position Uber as the asset-light demand aggregator of autonomy. Jim Cramer recently flagged the name as "down 29% from its all time high" while earnings compound near 40%. Kevin Warsh's debut Fed meeting frames a hawkish regime punishing long-duration tech multiples. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Uber didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Uber's 200-day moving average sits at $82.41, well above current levels. Margin pressure from foreign equity revaluations has been relentless: a $1.50 billion pre-tax headwind in Q1 after a $1.6 billion hit in Q4, dragging GAAP net income down 85.19%. A Consumer Reports investigation alleging AI-driven price discrimination, intensifying Waymo and Tesla competition, and an unprofitable Freight segment add pressure to the de-rating story. Operating momentum is real, but the chart is broken and macro is hostile. The signal to watch is whether Q2 lands inside management's $0.78 to $0.82 EPS guide without another nine-figure equity revaluation shock. Stabilization near $58.00 would imply a forward multiple consistent with the current rate regime. Uber trades at $70.91 against a Wall Street average target of $104.43, implying roughly 47% upside if consensus is right. Of 51 covering analysts, 9 rate it Strong Buy, 36 Buy, 5 Hold, and 1 Sell. Uber is down 13.22% year to date and 16.34% over the past year, while the S&P 500 is up 8.66% year to date and 24% over twelve months. That is roughly 22 points of YTD underperformance. At $70.91, Uber's risk/reward looks balanced. The fundamental story is intact. Gross Bookings compound in the mid-20s, Uber One has reached 50 million members driving half of bookings, and the autonomy stack deepened with WeRide, Stellantis, Wayve, Lucid, and Nuro. But price action signals the market is repricing duration broadly rather than Uber-specific cash flows, and fighting that with fresh capital is a losing trade in a hawkish Warsh regime. The bull case strengthens if the stock stabilizes in the $58 zone alongside a Q2 earnings report holding the EPS guide with normalizing equity revaluation drag. The bear case strengthens on a guide cut, regulatory escalation from the pricing investigation, or evidence that Waymo is taking incremental share in tier-one US cities. For long-term holders, the buyback continues to compound per-share value. For prospective buyers, a confirmed price floor would offer a cleaner entry, because a great business at the wrong price still struggles in this macro. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Uber didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Image source: The Motley Fool. Monday, March 23, 2026 at 8 a.m. ET Founder, Chairman, and CEO — Xu Han CFO and Head of International — Xuan Li Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email [email protected] Dr. Tony Han; and CFO and Head of International, Ms. Jennifer Li. Before we continue, I'd like to refer you to the safe harbor statement in the company's earnings press release, which also applies to this call as today's call will include forward-looking statements, including WeRide's strategies and future plans. These forward-looking statements are made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, and please refer to the Risk Factors section of the company's Form 20-F filed with the SEC and announcements on the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for a full disclosure of these risk factors. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. Please note that all numbers stated in management's prepared remarks are in RMB terms, and we will discuss non-IFRS measures today, which are more thoroughly explained and reconciled to the most comparable measures reported in the company's earnings release and filings with the SEC and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company's unaudited financial and operating results were released earlier today via Newswire and can be found on the company's IR website. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to the company's Founder, Chairman and CEO, Dr. Tony Han. Please go ahead, sir. Xu Han: Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. As a global leader in autonomous driving, we delivered strong results over the past year with a record high revenue of RMB 685 million, growing 90% year-over-year, driven by expanding robotaxi deployments as well as robust demand for robobus and other autonomous driving products. Robotaxi revenue has increased 210% year-over-year, reflecting the continued commercialization of our technology. By today, our global robotaxi fleet size has reached a new height of 1,125 vehicles. We are seeing encouraging momentum across both our domestic operations in China and our international markets. As we continue to scale, I'll walk you through the key developments driving our growth. Let's first turn to China, which continues to be one of our most important operating markets. During the period, we have advanced toward a more data-driven autonomy stack by incorporating end-to-end learning, leveraging large-scale data training and world model simulation as well as improving algorithm generalization. We also made solid progress in operating efficiency, fleet expansion, service coverage and user adoption. On the operation front, total cost of ownership decreased by approximately 38%, driven by reduction of vehicle BOM costs and improvement of operating efficiency. The BOM cost of our latest robotaxi GXR is cut by 15% enabled by the adoption of our cost-effective computing platform, HPC 3.0. At the same time, our remote assistance human-to-vehicle ratio improved from 1:10 in 2024 to 1:40, currently making labor cost marginal and further strengthening unit economics. Fleet size and service coverage also continued to improve. Our commercial and testing fleet in China has grown to more than 800 robotaxis, covering over 1,000 square kilometers across key urban areas. As fleet density increased, we also saw meaningful improvement in service performance. Average daily orders per vehicle reached 15 trips over the past 6 months, rising to 26 during peak periods. Average passenger waiting time declined to under 10 minutes, reflecting stronger demand and improved vehicle utilization. We continued expanding our presence in Beijing and Guangzhou, focusing on populated area, connecting key transportation hubs such as major airports and railway stations, along with further penetration into downtown area. In Guangzhou, for example, our robotaxi service is now available in Tianhe District, one of the city's most active commercial hubs. On the product side, we launched a flexible free PUDO feature, allowing riders to select any pickup or drop-off location within the service area. At the same time, we broadened access through major mobility platforms, including Amap, WeChat and Tencent Mobility. Encouragingly, we are seeing substantial increase of registered users of WeRide robotaxi service. Take the fourth quarter as an example, the year-over-year growth of registered users exceeds 900%, reflecting stronger user acceptance and engagement. Overall, we believe WeRide's long-standing leadership in robotaxi technology, combined with extensive real-world operational experience forms a durable and hard-to-replicate competitive moat, continues to resonate with users. As our operations scale, we expect further growth in vehicle utilization and user adoption going forward. Let's now turn to our international operations, where we continue to build on our progress expanding our global footprint. Today, we have deployed autonomous vehicles in 12 countries with official permits already granted in 8 of those markets. This progress demonstrates our ability to navigate complex regulatory environment while meeting local requirements. Taken together, these milestones position us as the most globally deployed autonomous driving company today. Europe is shaping up to be another major growth area for us. Back in November 2025, we achieved a historic milestone, receiving Europe's first-ever driverless robotaxi permit for passenger service from Switzerland's Federal Roads Office. That head start gives us a real advantage as we look to expand further across Europe in the coming years. Apart from this, just this month, we added another country to our global map as we announced our entry into Slovakia. We are deploying our full product lineup there, launching the country's first-ever AV program. Slovakia is also the fourth country for our European footprint. The Middle East remains one of the most promising regions. In Abu Dhabi, we secured the world's first city level fully driverless robotaxi commercial permit outside the U.S. in October 2025. Today, our service covers about 70% of the city's core area and passengers can book through various categories on Uber app, including Uber Comfort, Uber X, all the new autonomous category, Uber's first dedicated autonomous ride option globally. In that quarter, we also launched commercial robotaxi rides in both Dubai and Riyadh. We've also started pilot operations in Ras Al Khaimah, giving us a presence in a third UAE Emirate. In Asia Pacific, we are building early momentum with strong local presence. In Singapore, WeRide and Grab began autonomous vehicle testing in the Punggol district back in November 2025. Our robotaxi GXR and robobus are expected to open to the public by April 2026, making Punggol Singapore's first residential neighborhood with an autonomous shuttle service. A big part of what makes all this possible is our disciplined approach to international expansion. Our strategy focuses on markets with supportive regulatory environment and favorable economic conditions that are conducive to sustainable operations. Today, our international robotaxi fleet has surpassed 250 vehicles, and we continue to scale deployments across key international markets, including Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Riyadh, Switzerland, Slovakia and Singapore. Each new market we enter becomes a regional blueprint for expansion into adjacent markets. Looking ahead, we expect our global robotaxi fleet to reach 2,600 by the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and market conditions. These milestones represent the early stage of our long-term vision to deploy tens of thousands of robotaxis worldwide by 2030. While robotaxi services at the core of our business, we are actively diversifying into other areas of autonomous mobility to build a broader portfolio and generate additional revenue streams. Across our diversified applications, WeRide's global AV fleet spanning robotaxis, robobuses, robovans and robosweepers grew rapidly from 1,089 vehicles at the end of 2024 to 2,113 as of today, strengthening our global presence across 12 countries. Take our robobus business as an example, it has seen impressive growth in 2025, increasing by 190% year-over-year. We've entered multiple European markets, including Switzerland, France, Belgium, Spain and Slovakia, where labor shortages in public transit systems are creating real opportunities for autonomous shuttles. By leveraging our technology to meet this demand, we're able to address a pressing need while also expanding our market presence. Additionally, our L2+ advanced driver assistance system, WePilot 3.0. WePilot 3.0 is being adopted by leading OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers, including Chery, GAC and Bosch. This system uses a one-stage end-to-end architecture with vision-based perception, enables vehicles to operate safely and efficiently across diverse driving conditions. In the second China Urban Intelligent Driving competition, hosted by D1EV.COM, Chery Exeed, a mass market passenger car model powered by WePilot 3.0 made history by winning first place in 3 cities competition stops. This business expansion helps us capitalize on the growing demand for L2+ ADAS technologies even outside of our L4 fleet. Innovation remains at the heart of our strategy. Building on our strength in L2+ end-to-end systems, WeRide is converging its technology stack toward L4 by integrating end-to-end learning with large-scale simulation and real-world data loops to enhance generalization and edge case handling. Our latest development, WeRide Genesis is a general purpose simulation platform that integrates physical AI and generative AI. WeRide GENESIS generates high fidelity driving scenarios much more efficiently, reducing simulation time for complex edge cases from days to minutes. This boosts our development efficiency and enables us to quickly test and deploy improvements to our systems while significantly reducing on-road testing costs reinforcing the technological moat underpinning our L2 to L4 product portfolio. On the hardware side, we've taken our partnership with Geely Farizon to the next level. The latest GXR as a purpose-built factory pre-installed autonomous vehicle is delivering higher safety consistency and lower unit cost. The upgraded model incorporates our proprietary HPC 3.0, a high-performance computing platform, which is a more compute-efficient architecture. And here's the number that really shows the efficiency gain. Per vehicle production time is now under 10 minutes. These advancements will give us a significant edge in terms of both vehicle performance and scalability of our global robotaxi fleet. With that overview, I'll now turn the call over to our CFO, who will walk you through our financial performance and outlook in more detail. Xuan Li: Thank you, Tony. Hello, everyone. Before we dive into the financials, I want to highlight that all figures are in RMB and comparisons are year-over-year unless stated otherwise. Now let's discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial performance. Looking back, Q4 2025 will be remembered as a defining chapter in WeRide's journey as we continue to make steady progress in scaling operations, improving unit economics and advancing our technological leadership. Our fleet and geographic coverage grew significantly, showing strong momentum as a global leader in autonomous driving. Now let me walk you through the financial performance that reflects these developments. In Q4 2025, total revenue was CNY 314 million, representing an increase of 123%. Product revenue increased 309% to CNY 211 million, mainly driven by increased sales of robotaxis and robobuses. Service revenue increased 15% to CNY 103 million. For the full year 2025, total revenue increased 90% to record high CNY 685 million. Product revenue and service revenue were CNY 360 million and CNY 325 million, respectively, representing an increase of 310% and 19%, respectively. Robotaxi continues to be one of the most crucial drivers among the business lines. In Q4 2025, WeRide has reached another record high quarterly robotaxi revenue since its foundation as its robotaxi revenue has increased 66% to CNY 51 million. For the full year 2025, robotaxi revenue also achieved an annual record high of CNY 148 million with a 210% growth year-over-year. This growth is powered by our asset-light model. We provide the autonomous driving brain while mobility and fleet partners handle operations and vehicle ownership. This keeps vehicles off our balance sheet, enables efficient scaling and aligns incentives to deliver a consistent user experience. Our robotaxi revenue is also supported by a combination of ongoing service fee and recurring ride-hailing revenue share from platform partners. Our global expansion in robotaxi operations has firmly established us as a leader in the rapidly evolving autonomous mobility landscape. In particular, our international business is becoming an increasingly important driver of group revenue. For full year 2025, overseas markets contributed approximately 29% of total revenue, spanning a diverse set of geographies, including the Middle East, Europe and Asia Pacific. At the same time, our focus on operating efficiency has allowed us to sustain healthy margins even as we scale. In Q4 2025, group level gross profit increased 74% to CNY 89 million with a group level gross margin of 28%. For the full year 2025, group level gross profit was CNY 207 million, representing an increase of 87% with a group level gross margin of 30%. These results highlight the strength of our business model and reinforce our confidence in our global expansion strategy. In Q4 2025, operating expenses increased slightly by 2% year-over-year to CNY 655 million, with R&D representing 63% of the total. For full year 2025, operating expenses decreased by 11% to CNY 2.04 billion, with R&D representing 67% of the total. The decrease in operating expenses was primarily driven by lower administrative expenses, partially offset by increases in R&D and selling expenses. As our primary investment area, the rise in R&D spending reflects our focus on long-term technological leadership, while disciplined cost management kept overall operating expenses under control. To break down further, R&D expenses increased by 29% to CNY 411 million in Q4 2025 and increased by 26% to CNY 1.37 billion for the full year 2025, primarily driven by our continued investments in top-tier talent and the expansion of our next-generation data center infrastructure, building a high-performance backbone to support our L2+ to L4 autonomous driving capabilities. This continuous R&D commitment is essential to maintaining our competitive edge and driving future growth. Administrative expenses decreased by 29% to CNY 217 million in Q4 2025 and decreased by 48% to CNY 596 million for the full year 2025. The decrease was mainly driven by lower share-based compensation and partially offset by growing professional service fees, personnel costs and depreciation and amortization expenses. Selling expenses increased by 76% to CNY 27 million in Q4 2025 and increased by 37% to CNY 74 million for the full year 2025. These increases are in line with the growth of our business. Our net loss narrowed by 6% to CNY 5,565 million in Q4 2025 and narrowed by 34% to CNY 1.65 billion for the full year 2025. Building on our successful Hong Kong IPO in Q4 2025, we ended the year with a strong capital position. As of the 31st of December 2025, we had total capital reserves of CNY 7.13 billion, comprising CNY 6.97 billion in cash and cash equivalents and time deposits, CNY 144 million in investments in wealth management products and CNY 19 million in restricted cash. We maintained short-term bank loans of CNY 324 million to support daily operations. With disciplined cash deployment, this level of capital provides a solid operating buffer and underscores our financial strength to support continued growth. On the 23rd of March 2026, our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program under which we may repurchase up to USD 100 million of our Class A ordinary shares, including in the form of American depositary shares over the next 12 months. This authorization also reflects our commitment to shareholders and our confidence in the long-term value of WeRide. Looking ahead, we are moving forward with clarity and conviction. By end of 2026, we expect to have 2,600 robotaxis globally, marking the first phase of our path toward tens of thousands of robotaxis by 2030. As our fleet scales, we see a clear path to extending our proven deployment model to more cities worldwide, supported by a strong balance sheet, relentless focus on operating efficiency and deepening partnerships, we are well positioned to lead the next chapter for autonomous driving industry. With that, operator, we're now ready to take some questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will now take our first question from the line of Kai Xiao of CICC. Unknown Analyst: This is Ben from CICC. So I have 2 questions. First one is quite a few OEM and Tier 1 peers are also working on L4 robotaxi such as Horizon Robotics and Momenta. So what's your view on this matter? And the second one is on the L2+. So recently, vRS ADAS showed an industry-leading capability in a highly challenging real-world competition. So could you share the key differentiation between vRS ADAS capability versus the peers? Xu Han: Thank you very much, Kai, for these 2 important questions. And I truly appreciate you asked these 2 questions. So first of all, the first question is about like quite a few OEM and Tier 1s you just mentioned like a few names like Horizon and Momenta. They claim that was robotaxi and what's my view. So first of all, I think as a first mover and the industrial leader -- as the CEO of first mover and industrial leader of autonomous driving company like WeRide, I have to say we welcome other players to join this competition. And that means like the whole ecosystem and the whole industry is really attractive and there's a great market potential. So only in a very interesting and juicy and profitable market, you can see -- you can experience competition. Having that said, I just want to remind like some competitors or new players, the difference between ADAS system, which they are very familiar and the L4 driverless robotaxi system, which they are not familiar, okay? A lot of time, people have to do some contractual of extrapolation from what they have -- what they are familiar like L2++ system and then they want to think, okay, we just increase the reliability, increase a little bit speed of our system and we can achieve driverless operation. My answer to that kind of extrapolation or extrapolative thinking is like you don't -- you haven't seen the difficulty what you haven't seen. So the thing is like why am I in a position to say that? Because WeRide is the only company currently to my best knowledge in this world, good at ADAS system, at the same time, good at driverless operation or robotaxi. So for example, in China Urban Intelligent Driving competition just finished like last month, we -- actually, 2 days ago, we won the championship once again. So WeRide is the only company won this championship 3 times in a row, we made a history. So which means like in that competition, the companies you mentioned like Momenta and Horizon, they all enter the competition, but WeRide just won 3 times over them. So we know pretty much the ADAS, and we are very familiar in the ADAS area that they are familiar. On the other hand side, I would say, if you want to claim yourself to be an L4 level autonomous driving company or a robotaxi company, you have to have a substantial operation. What do I mean? You should have at least 50 driverless cars running in the city with a population of at least 1 million people, okay? If you just have 10 cars and with a safety driver behind steering wheel, you cannot claim yourself as a robotaxi company. Of course, a lot of people can claim like you are working on something, that's great. But to make sure you are real the player of the field, you have to demonstrate you have the real driverless operation. Therefore, I want to emphasize the technology barrier between L2++ and L4 is huge. And to really make yourself like a significant serious player in the robotaxi field, you really need to demonstrate your capability in driverless operation. Besides, there's other factors like hardware maturity, software integration, full redundancy architecture, regulatory approvals, operational stability, all of these factors traditional ADAS company haven't experienced. So my view is like WeRide and also with some other leading autonomous driving L4 level robotaxi company has really a strong advantage. So we welcome this kind of competition, but we are very confident with our current leading position, our current footprint in the international market. That is a huge gap. I don't foresee any newcomers can catch up soon. So this is my answer to the first question. Okay. The second question is about our recent extraordinary results in China Urban Intelligent Driving competition. And so what differentiates us between our peers? So I think the ranking and scores tells all, right? So this kind of autonomous -- this China Urban Intelligent Driving competition hold once every month or once every 2 months, depends on period, okay? And in the history, there's only one company won this kind of championship twice in a row. That was Huawei. At that time, they have a very big advantage. But there has never been a company that has won this kind of championship 3 times in a row. Since last year, November, and then December and this year, March, we won 3 times in a row. The competition has been entered by all the companies, famous autonomous driving company of cars in China, you can name it. XPeng, Li Auto, NIO, Xiaomi, Momenta, Horizon, Huawei, Zeekr, they all entered the competition. But we write won this kind of competition 3 times in a row. That demonstrates our capability. And what is the secret sauce behind it, we have several. First, one of our one-stage end-to-end system training based on both synthetic and real data from our L4-level autonomous driving robotaxi from our L2++ level data. And that helps a lot and our unique one-stage end-to-end architecture which is different from LLA -- from VLA, and that one gives us a big advantage. Thirdly, the data generated from our GENESIS model. And this GENESIS model is superior, and it can generate data according to our needs and also reduce our data collection cost by 75% with all this technology combined give us a kind of leading position in the ADAS field. That's all my answer to these 2 questions. Again, thanks for the question, Kai. Operator: We will now take our next question from the line of Ming-Hsun Lee of Bank of America. Ming-Hsun Lee: I also have 2 questions for you. So first, could you please elaborate the robotaxi expansion plan of both China and international markets? And what is the delivery schedule for the 2,000 vehicles signed with Geely Farizon? And second question, could you also share your forward-looking plan for the Middle East, given peers' market entry, geopolitical conflict and also the involvement of the partnership with Uber. Specifically, what is the time line of the deployment of 1,200 vehicle with Uber? Xuan Li: Okay. I'll take the first question. I guess you can take the second question. Thank you, Ming. Both China and international markets are core to WeRide's growth strategy. As we just mentioned, we recently signed still that it's actually an extended agreement with Geely Farizon for additional 2,000 upgraded robotaxi, we call GXR in 2026. So by end of last year, our fleet has surpassed over 1,000 robotaxis. Taking into consideration of the phased delivery of the newly like pre-installed GXR and then also the retirement of some of the older vehicles we have, we expect to reach around 2,600 robotaxi globally by end of this year. China definitely is going to be the -- it is a cornerstone of our business, where we focus on cities with very supportive policies for autonomous driving and high population densities, those Tier 1 cities in China, like, say, Guangzhou and Beijing, they both fit this profile very well. In Guangzhou, for example, we plan to gradually scale towards city level operation like what we already have in Abu Dhabi. We are also expanding into another major Tier 1 city in China, and we look forward to share more of that details soon with everyone. And on the international side, Middle East continued to be a very strong base for us. We run the largest robotaxi fleet at city level in Abu Dhabi, and we are the first who started robotaxi public operation in Dubai and in Riyadh as well. So we'll continue to -- our strong like momentum in the Middle East. Also, Europe is a key focus. Our robotaxi obtained the first and only driverless operation permit in Europe from like the Switzerland government last year. Building on this momentum, we are really looking to further expand it in market, like, say, Madrid and potentially one more core city in Europe this year. And of course, we'll continue to expand our robotaxi operation in Zurich as well. Tony, do you want to take the next question? Xu Han: Sure. So just kind of a general reminder to everybody like the second question is really about our future plan for the Middle East and what is the time line of deployment claimed 1,200 vehicles with Uber. Right now, we have around like 200 vehicles in Middle East. And together with Uber, we plan to add at least 1,000 more by 2027. And we expect to be the first to reach 1,000 vehicle scale in this region, okay? It's really not easy, and we have spent a ton of efforts and planned a lot and sometimes retrofit and redesign our vehicles and do lots of technology efforts to meet this number. Operationally, we are carrying out business as usual. I think you have know we are already running city level full driverless robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, and we aim to do the same in Dubai this year. We are currently the only company offering robotaxi service to the public in both cities, and that first-mover advantage is meaningful. Our scale regulatory progress, strong partnerships and safety record all support this position. On the geopolitical tensions you have -- we are currently experiencing, we are monitoring developments very closely with a continued focus on the safety of our local teams and maintaining a reliable operation. So far, we have not seen any material impact on our business. Our global footprint and diversified presence also give us confidence in navigating potential uncertainties. Regarding our partnership with Uber, our 5-year 15-city rollout plan remains on track, and we expect to announce new city launches in due course this year. Okay? That's the answer to this question. Any other questions? Operator: We will take our next question from Tim Hsiao of Morgan Stanley. Tim Hsiao: This is Tim from Morgan Stanley. I have 2 questions. I think the first one is basically, I want to follow up on the L4 competition because at NVIDIA GDC earlier this month, we noticed that WeRide again showcased the robotaxi GXR. I think the model is powered by NVIDIA Hyperion platform and the Thor SoC. Although we noticed the collaboration with NVIDIA has helped WeRide to effectively reduce the cost, accelerate global expansion. But these days, I think NVIDIA also supplies similar ready solution to many of WeRide's competitors and also automaker for the long-term L4 development. So my question is, how does WeRide address the challenge of robotaxi homogenization in the long term and can keep successfully differentiating? That's my first question. Xu Han: Thank you, Tim. This is a great question. So first of all, I think currently, like many players, they define their autonomous driving system based on NVIDIA's Thor AGX platform. But I want to emphasize, just to make announcements like we are going to adopt NVIDIA Thor AGX is easy. But to really make a reliable and workable autonomous driving system based on NVIDIA's Thor AGX is very challenging. WeRide team up with Lenovo and NVIDIA spent 2 years to design our HPC 3.0 auto grade. And we actually produced the first of its kind of computational -- autograde computational platform for robotaxi with a computational power of 2,000 TOPS. You can look around and see whether any other people have this kind of computational platform of 2,000 TOPS and with redundancy, not easy, okay? We have lots of buildup on top of this autograde computational platform. Besides, we build up our simulation, simulator and data collection integrated platform GENESIS. And this one can generate a lot of data and can be integrated into the training and then can be evaluated with HPC 3.0. So that one is actually a very, very advanced system. So in the long run, I don't think like just a general, very generic universal platform can help like experienced or not that strong technological player so that everybody can become a significant player in robotaxi, i.e., democratize the whole industry. No, it's not like that. People actually have tried that before. I just want people to remember like 4, 5 years ago, Baidu rolled out this Apollo platform. The goal is very close to what NVIDIA want to do is roll out open source some code and everybody can work on it. But today, to our best knowledge, no driverless robotaxi fleet are developed use Apollo. Even Baidu used his own closed source platform to work on it. So whether that open source can be used by some third party and then deploy reliable driverless operation is an unproved concept. And actually, I'm quite skeptical on that. So we are very confident for our competitive edge in the next 5 years and in the next 10 years, and we have a leading and -- leading position, I think, we have maybe larger and larger leading advance. So in that part, we are quite advanced. That's my answer to your question, Tim. Tim Hsiao: Thank you, Tony, for sharing all the details. My second question is also a quick follow-up regarding our global partnership with Uber because I think most of us noticed that WeRide has formed a close strategic tied up with Uber for a global expansion. Yet in the meantime, I think Uber has a ride-hailing platform, the company continues to onboard more robotaxi service provider like in the U.S., Rivian, Zoox, Motional and in the rest of the world, like Wayve, et cetera. So facing this kind of dynamic of both cooperation and competition, how does WeRide ensure its long-term share of ride-hailing orders in overseas market can keep growing and the stay as a major supplier to Uber? And lastly, how does WeRide plan to enhance its capability globally? That's my second question. Xuan Li: Tony, you want to take this? Xu Han: Jen, if you want, you can go ahead to take. Yes, please go ahead. Xuan Li: Yes, I'll take this question. So Tim, first of all, Uber is an important shareholder and partner for WeRide. We believe their incentive is to maximize our WeRide's like robotaxi utilization. And as a matter of fact, with all the like partnership they have signed to today, you can only get robotaxi from Uber on the Uber platform from WeRide and from Waymo. That's it. And we do have a very concrete plan to scale together. In the key markets, like say, Middle East, we have the first and foremost operation right, and we're going to have launched 1,200 robotaxi, which will be fully delivered by 2027. This is going to be a very, very large and definitely the largest robotaxi fleet outside China and the U.S. And on top of that, we operate robotaxi, robobus, robovan and other products globally. We act like more like an infrastructure partner to -- directly to the local government. Like say, in the , we are bringing our robotaxi, robobus, robovan, robosweeper all together in one go. We are the infrastructure partner to those local governments. So we're not just like Uber supplier, and we own most of the autonomous driving license. The government directly issues license to us. So also in the presentation we just did in the video, you can see that our global taxi partners worldwide, including besides Uber, and we also have like Grab, ] TXCI and a number of local partners. We have different local partners in different local markets. So yes -- and just to emphasize on the licensing moat, we are the only one that holds autonomous driving permits in 8 countries. Based on our knowledge, this is definitely the broadest in our industry. This creates a very high barrier to entry. And also even on Uber and through like other product categories like whenever we have like the public service deployment, we are building the WeRide brand recognition directly with end consumers as well. So if you talk like, say, in Singapore, like in Abu Dhabi, in Middle East, in Dubai, in those cities, people know that the WeRide brand quite well, I would say. So the bottom line is like we are not just one of Uber's vendor where their equity-linked key operator and key robotaxi providers in key markets with a proven unit economic -- economy. And then we think our multi-scenario, multi-country footprint will make us a very essential part of the urban mobility infrastructure, not just a replaceable supplier anyone. That's my answer to your question. Operator: We will now take our next question from Jiajie Shen of JPMorgan. Jiajie Shen: Congratulations on the very strong results. My first question is regarding fleet utilization. How do you expect it to grow in China? And what are the implications to unit economics? And my second question is regarding overseas business. Your global business is showing great progress, and this is truly impressive. Could you please share more about key figures of the overseas business in 2025? And what are the 2026 guidance of key operational and financial metrics? Xu Han: Okay. I will take the first question. The first question is about the fleet utilization growth in China. And also, it's about like the implications to unit economics. So first of all, we are taking a number of steps to improve utilization, raising fleet density in existing service areas, rolling out free pickup, drop-off, i.e. PUDO, and extending operation hours. And we are seeing that translate into results. User adoption rate has been strong. Our robotaxi user cases in China grew over 900% year-over-year in Q4. This is an extraordinary number, and I don't expect we can keep this kind of number every year, but still it's kind of extraordinary number. And our vehicle utilization is also trending up. Today, each vehicle averages about 15 trips per day with peak days reaching around 26 trips, some peak day like festival or some very special Valentine's Day. The average trip distance is about 5 kilometers and pricing is roughly RMB 2 per kilometer, which represents 30% to 50% discount to traditional ride-hailing. This is a deliberate promotional strategy as we scale region by region and drive our user adoption. As we expand to citywide coverage like what we are working on to Guangzhou and the deepening integrations with platforms such as Amap from Alibaba, WeChat from Tencent and Tencent Mobility to match convenience of traditional ride-hailing. We expect pricing to move closer to the standard rate around RMB 3 per kilometer. At this point, we see a clear and achievable path to improve unit economy in China. Over years, as our fleet size and coverage expand, we are targeting 25 trips per vehicle per day because autonomous driving, the autonomous driving vehicles, robotaxi, they don't need a driver and then you don't want to -- you don't have an exhaustive driver. Therefore, we can keep on going as long as we can take orders. At steady state, we expect contribution margins in China to be over 40%, okay? That's my answer to your first question. I think Yes, that's my answer to your question, yes. Xuan Li: The second question is about the overseas business and some of the forecast, right? So yes, so our international business is growing at a really, really pleasant rate. And for the Q4 2025, the overseas revenue was up 140% year-over-year, and it's contributing 31% of the total revenue and with the gross margin at like 40-ish, almost 50%. And for the full year 2025 and our overseas revenue grew about 305% year-over-year and accounting for roughly 29% of the total revenue. So the gross margin was around almost 50% as well. So overseas market offers a significantly stronger like growth and profitability potential. For example, our Middle East subsidiary is already profitable on a stand-alone basis. So looking ahead to 2026, we expect the revenue to continue to grow at a healthy pace. We are also on track to reach our goal for the global robotaxi fleet as well as for different regions. We believe we can still reach the goal by end of the year. And on the gross margin side, we expect the gross margin to remain relatively stable for the international business. And yes, on the cash side, the operating cash flow may increase modestly on the group level since we are continuing to invest for talent and our R&D to support the long-term like core growth of the company. We'll provide more detailed guidance in the upcoming earnings release. But directionally, this reflects how we are thinking about how we build up the business and the financial forecast. Operator: We will now take our next question from Leo You of CLSA. Yang You: It's Leo from CLSA. Also 2 questions from me. And first is, could you please walk us through the key cost reductions and technology innovations behind the upgraded GXR? And how would that drive further unit economics improvement going forward? And secondly, we are also very glad to see that you announced the share buyback plan. And could you please elaborate more on the thought process and how you're going to execute the share buyback plan going forward? Xuan Li: Okay. I'll take both questions -- I'll answer both questions. Thank you, Leo. The first one is on the cost reduction on GXR. And maybe I try to answer the question in a different way from the total cost of ownership perspective. As we mentioned earlier, the TCO for the China fleet has declined by as much as 38% in 2025. And the 2 main factors -- the 2 main drivers are below. First of all, we have -- which is now Tony has already shared, there's a significant improvement in the remote assistance ratio from 1:10 in 2024 to 1:40 by end of 2025. So we also have a similar efficiency gains for the grid operator. So on both ends, we -- there's efficiency improvement on the operation level. And second, we have seen overall a 30% reduction in the BOM cost, that including the upgraded the HPC as well as for the pre-installed new GXR robotaxi. Meanwhile, now we are starting to have like a larger volume. So scale is starting to deliver the real benefit. As our fleet expands, we see a meaningful cost reduction through the volume procurement. Also on the software side, I still want to remind everyone, so the game changer here is really our WeRide GENESIS. This GENESIS -- the GENESIS allows us to handle the edge case much more efficiently and accelerate the iteration cycles. So it's easier for us to deploy in a much larger ODD and with less remote assistance needed. So together, this will deliver a very meaningful improvement in our cost structure. Yes. And the other one is regarding the share buyback. So today, our Board of Directors authorized a share repurchase program effectively as of March 23, 2026, which is today as well. We may repurchase up to USD 100 million worth of our Class A ordinary share from both Hong Kong Stock Exchange and NASDAQ over the next 12 months. It is actually subject to the scope and limit of the repurchase mandate granted by the shareholder of the company on March 13, 2026, and approval of a similar repurchase mandate to be put forward to shareholders at the upcoming 2026 Annual General Meeting for the company. So our proposed repurchase may be made from time to time on the open market at the prevailing market price and the privately negotiated transaction in block trade, depending on the market condition and in accordance to the applicable rule and regulation. Yes. That's my answer to your question, Leo. Operator: We will now take our next question from Xinyu Fang of UBS. Xinyu Fang: Congratulations on delivering solid revenue growth and operation expansion. My first question is about revenue structure. We noticed that there has been quarterly fluctuations in the contribution of product and services revenue. How should we think about the revenue structure of the company going forward, both in the near term and medium term? And as for my second question, apart from the CNY 100 million share buyback program, could you please share a little bit more on the future cash deployment plan of WeRide? Xu Han: Okay. I will take the first question. So -- so in 2025, our robotaxi contributed 22% of the total revenue and robobus contributed 34% and our L2++ ADAS and data service contribute 29%. Together, these 3 pillars accounted for around 85% of our business with robovan and robosweeper making up the remaining 15%. So that's the detailed numbers. But if you do forward looking -- looking ahead, robotaxi, robobus and L2++ will remain our core growth engines, supported by strong synergies across our integrated autonomous driving ecosystem. We have a platform strategy. Robotaxi is the fastest-growing segment with significant scalability and improving unit economics, especially overseas. So we expect its revenue share to increase over time. Just want to emphasize, WeRide inherently is a robotaxi technology company, okay? We have many products, but robotaxi is the core. Robobus is currently our most geographically deployed business and benefits from clear synergies with robotaxi in both regulation and commercialization. L2++ continues to gain traction with partners like Chery, GAC and Bosch, serving both as a revenue stream and a platform to validate our technology. Meanwhile, robovans and robosweepers provide complementary value with lower cost, fixed route operation that also help us enter and educate new markets. Overall, this diversified portfolio give us both scale and balance, which we see a key strength. I think if you look at all autonomous driving company in this world, WeRide is unique and only WeRide adopt this technology. Xuan Li: Okay. I'll answer Xin's last question. So for the cash deployment side, we end 2025 with a little bit over CNY 1 billion in the cash reserve and which is a strong foundation to support our expansion. And our net cash burn rate is less than USD 200 million based on the past pattern. At the same time, our revenue growth is really accelerating, we can see from today's results. And our operating cash flow is becoming increasingly a more important funding source for us. So as we scale, we are not just like investing and like raising capital from the capital market and then spending just on R&D, that's it. We are generating cash ourselves and at a relatively fast speed as well. So overall, we are in a very solid liquidity position, and we'll continue to invest with discipline while we are -- we still maintain ample runway to execute our growth strategy. Yes. Operator: Thank you. Due to time constraints, I'll conclude the call today. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Xu Han: Thank you very much. Xuan Li: Thank you. Before you buy stock in WeRide, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and WeRide wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $462,983!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,375,447!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 995% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 212% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. WeRide (WRD) Q4 2025 Earnings Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

WeRide (NASDAQ:WRD) reported first-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company's first-quarter earnings call has been provided below. This transcript is brought to you by Benzinga APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ for a consultation. Access the full call at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/wrtz329a/ WeRide reported a strong Q1 2026 with total revenue of RMB 114 million, a 58% increase year-over-year, driven by the expansion of its autonomous driving and robo taxi services. The company is rapidly expanding its international presence, launching fully driverless services in Dubai and Singapore, and planning to deploy 1,200 robotaxis across the Middle East by 2027. WeRide's ADAS solution, WRD 3.0, has been adopted by nearly 30 vehicle models and supports multi-chip compatibility, enhancing production and cost efficiencies. The global robotaxi fleet reached approximately 1,300 vehicles, with significant operational expansion in China and the Middle East, and plans to extend into Europe. Management emphasized the importance of regulatory compliance and safety, noting that the recent regulatory scrutiny in China is a short-term adjustment rather than a long-term structural change. WeRide maintains a strategic partnership with Uber and is pursuing an asset-light business model for its international operations to optimize scalability and cost efficiency. The company is focused on both technology development and operational efficiency to drive down the cost of autonomous vehicle deployment, aiming for long-term profitability. OPERATOR Good morning and good evening ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to WeRide's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Please note that today's event is being recorded at this time. All participants are in a listen only mode. For today's call, management will use English as the main language. A third party interpreter will provide a simultaneous Chinese interpretation. The Company will host a question and answer session after the management prepared remarks. If you wish to listen to the Management's original statement or ask a question during the question and answer session, please make sure you are dialed into the English line. Please note that the Chinese interpretation is for convenience purposes only. In the case of any discrepancy, management statement in the original language will prevail. Joining us today, WeRide's founder, chairman and CEO Dr. Tony Hahn and CFO and head of international Ms. Jennifer Lee. Before we continue, I would like to refer you to the Safe harbor statement in the Company's earning press release which also applies to the call as Today's call will include forward looking statements including We Write Strategy and Future Plans. These forward looking statements are made under the Safe harbor Provision of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by those forward looking statements as a result of various important factors and Please refer to the Risk Factor section of the Company's form filed with the SEC and announcements on the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for full closure of these risk factors. The Company does not assume any obligations to update any forward looking statements except as required under applicable law. Please note that all numbers stated in the Management's prepared remarks are RMB Terms and will be discussed in non-IFRS measures today which are more thoroughly explained and recalled on those comparable measures reported in the Company's earnings release and filings of the SEC and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Company's unaudited financial and operating results are released earlier today via Newswire and can be found on the Company's Investor Relations website. With that, I will now begin the Company's video presentation. As a global leader in autonomous driving, WeRide operates one of the world's largest commercial robotaxi fleets with over six years of public service in China. Our service is available not only through our WeRide Go app, but also via WeRide Go, WeChat mini program, Tencent Mobility, WeChat mini program and AMAP, bringing autonomous driving into users everyday lives. Our international footprint spans the Middle East Europe and Asia. In Abu Dhabi, we now provide driverless commercial robo taxi service covering 70% of the city's core area. We expanded this leadership further with the launch of fully driverless robo taxi services in Dubai in March. We also launched robo taxi public operations in Riyadh in October 2025. In April, in partnership with Grab, we launched Singapore's first autonomous public ride service in Punggol. Bring Robotaxi GXR service to residential communities we are accelerating commercialization through key partnerships with Geely Farazan to deliver 2000 purpose built robotaxi GXRS by 2026 and with Lenovo to jointly deploy 200,000 autonomous vehicles globally by 2030. Our technology is the foundation of our sustained leadership. WeRide is the only only company that has commercialized both L2 and L4 autonomous driving technology at scale powered by shared underlying algorithms and our dual flywheel strategy. Our self developed general purpose simulation world model WeRide Genesis enables extensive training and closed loop validation in high fidelity simulation environments at scale to continuously advance system intelligence. These unparalleled capabilities are distilled into WeRide 3.0, our one stage end to end ADAS solution bringing proven L4 technology capabilities to mass market L2 vehicles. The Chery Xeed Stera model equipped with WeRide 3.0 has won four consecutive championships at the China Urban Intelligent Driving Competition, setting a historic record. WeRide 3.0 has secured production design wins across nearly 30 vehicle models and is now in mass production across multiple models including the Cherry Xeed Stera Eset, Cherry Xceed EX7 and GAC Ion N60. WeRide 3.0 now supports multi chip compatibility across Nvidia, Qualcomm and Cy Engine platforms, providing global automakers one of the most flexible high performance L2 solutions. Looking ahead, WeRide will continue to lead the way in advancing autonomous technology and making autonomous mobility a daily reality. Now I would like to pass the floor to the company's founder, chairman and CEO Dr. Tony Hahn. Please go ahead sir. Tony Hahn Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. We started 2026 with strong momentum as a global leader in autonomous driving. In the first quarter the total revenue of WeRide reached RMB114 million, 58% up year over year. These results are driven by our accelerating robo taxi deployment growth across our broader autonomous driving business and the great success of our L2 level ADAS solution. By the end of April our global Robotaxi fleet grow to around 1,300 vehicles, representing one of the largest robotaxi fleets globally. At the same time, our level 4 autonomous driving fleet including Robovan and Robobus has grown to around 2,800 units. They have been deployed to or tested in 12 countries and over 40 cities worldwide. We believe the steady and significant progress this quarter reflects not only the maturity of our technology but also the growing operational experience for thousands level fleet in multiple cities. First of all, I want to point out that we have made a major technical breakthrough through Genesis, our closed loop world model based simulation engine which boosted our model evolution pace by several folds. We can now train AI model for autonomous driving with synthesized corner cases which may be very rare or even imaginary. With a compact AI model leveraged on our Genesis, we have achieved four consecutive championships in China Urban Intelligence Driving Competition. This is unprecedented. The best previous record is held by Huawei ADAS System which got two consecutive championships today. Many companies talk about world model and simulation platforms, but WeRide is one of very few companies that have publicly demonstrate footage of a highly realistic autonomous driving world model at scale. We have already released Genesis demonstration video on YouTube where viewers can check the model's ability to reconstruct and simulate visually realistic driving environments strictly following physical laws. As well, Genesis can generate holistic virtual driving environment consistent to the desired locations including traffic flows, pedestrians, weather conditions and the complex interactions between vehicles and the surrounding objects. More importantly, we can edit this environment components to simulate highly challenging scenarios such as aggressive driving behavior, dense traffic, extreme weather on euro road conditions and many other long tail corner cases that are very difficult and extremely expensive to replicate in the real world. By leveraging on synthetic data and large scale simulation, Genesis improves training and validation efficiency by thousands of times compared to traditional road testing. It also significantly reduces the crucial dependence on large scale testing fleet and accelerates deployment process in new operational regions globally. Genesis is not just a capability, it is a unified simulation and AI training platform supporting applications from L2ATIS to L4Robotaxi and it is very same tech stack that makes us the only company in the world to have already achieved the scaled commercialization of both L4 and the mass production L2 vehicles. The newly developed Genesis now has paved the way of WeRide to the physical AI world with Genesis. The ADAS system developed by vWrite is comparable to the performance of FSD 14.3 from Tesla in California. You know I personally own two Tesla and I drive 14.3 with FSD 14.3 from Tesla every day. I look forward to entering a global urban intelligence driving competition directly facing FSD 14.3 from Tesla from Tesla. Hope one day we can meet in US or Europe and give our consumers a head to head comparison. Today, we are seeing our technology leadership translate into real global commercial scale. Let me walk you through the key operational and commercialization milestones we have achieved this quarter. First in China, our robotaxi business continue to make strong progress in scale, operational efficiency and commercialization debt. First in China, our robotaxi business continue to make strong progress in scale and operational efficiency. By the end of April, our domestic robotaxi fleet expanded to about 1,000 vehicles, while our service area in Guangzhou increased by 97% compared to the end of 2025, including additional downtown districts. On the demand side, average daily order per vehicle domestically reached 17 trips during Q1, with peak periods reaching 28 trips per vehicle. Registered robo taxi users also doubled almost every year. We believe these metrics continue to demonstrate growing user adoption and improving unit economics as robo taxi commercialization scales. In this quarter, we also continue to deepen our partner ecosystem. In April, we extended our collaboration with Lenovo in autonomous driving computing platforms with a joint target to deploy 200,000 autonomous driving vehicles globally over the next five years. Together with geely far reason, we plan to deliver 2000 upgraded purposely built robo taxi gxr in 2026. We believe these partnerships further strengthen our manufacturing scalability and deployment capability globally. Now turning into international markets, we also continue to see strong momentum in both new market launches and the commercialization progress. In Singapore, we launched the country's first public autonomous driving service together with grab since the initial development. I'm sorry. Since the initial deployment plan began in the second half of last year, the fleet has built a trustworthy operational track record in a highly regulated international market. In the Mid east, we have launched fully driverless commercial robo taxi operation in Dubai. Together with Uber and Dubai's rta, this is the city's first fully driverless commercial robo taxi service. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi service coverage expanded to around 70% of the city's core area. Across the Mid east, together with Uber, we remain on track to deploy at least 1,200 robotaxis across Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh by 2027. In Europe, we entered Slovakia in March, our fourth European market, and continue progressing toward fully driverless commercialized commercial operation in Zurich. Overall, we continue to believe VRISE remains the most globally deployed autonomous driving company today, with deployments across 12 countries and permits in eight markets. This global footprint not only diversify our revenue, but also demonstrates operational and regulatory capabilities that are hard for borrowers to replicate. It also keeps us on track toward our long term vision of deploying tens of thousands of robo taxi globally by 2030. Beyond global taxi, our ADASS business is also seeing growing commercial traction. Our current version of ADASS system, WRD 3.0 has been adopted by nearly 30 vehicle models including vehicles from leading OEMs such as GAC and Cherry. In April, GAC Ion launched pre sales for the ion n 60, the first mass production vehicle with VRI solution. Leveraging the generalization capability of Genesis, our WRD 3.0 solution is now supporting three major chip Nvidia Drive, Qualcomm, Snapdragon and the Cengine Starlight. We believe this level of multi chip compatibility for crucial because it enables faster mass production, greater cost optimization and broader OEM adoption. At the same time, we continue expanding internationally with partners including Tigo, Lapis, Omanda JCO bringing WeRide powered AWS solution to consumer globally. Finally, for Robopass, we also continue making progress globally. We are collaborating with the Geneva public transport operator TPG on autonomous bus deployment. Meanwhile, we are preparing for the robo bus operation with Renault at the Holongarho French open for the third consecutive year. To summarize, the first quarter of 2026 was about substantiating technology leadership of VRIDE into commercial scalability through growing robo taxi operations, expansion into new international market, growing deployment pipelines or continued unrivaled winning momentum in adas. We believe we are exciting, we believe we are executing well with our global strategy and we continue to see a clear path toward long term growth. With that, let me turn the call over to our CFO Jennifer Lee for a deeper view of the financial results this quarter. Jennifer Lee Thank you, thank you Tony hello everyone. Before we dive into the financials, I want to highlight that all figures are in rmb. Comparisons are year over year unless stated otherwise. And we will discuss non IFRS measures today which are more solely explained and reconciled to the most comparable matters reported in the company's earnings release and filing with SEC and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Now let's discuss our first quarter financial performance. We delivered total revenue of 114 million in the first quarter, representing an increase of 58%. Product revenue increased 116% to 20 million, mainly driven by increased deployment of Robo taxi and other L4 vehicles. Service revenue increased 49% to 94 million. This revenue growth mirrors the solid commercial progress we made in this quarter together with our proven track record in execution and deployment. Considering the seasonal impact of Chinese New Year and Ramden in Middle east, our business performance surpassed our original internal targets. Group level gross profit increased 56% to 40 million in the first quarter with a group level gross margin of approximately 35%. We maintain top line expansion without sacrificing margin discipline, underscoring the inherent profitability of our autonomous driving business as we further scale. This was also supported by the increased exposure of our ex China market where we continue to see the structural stronger margin profile as we expand into new additional international territories. Operating expense were at $469 million with R&D expense accounting for 77% of the total operating expense. Our operating expense are stable in absolute dollar amount compared to the same period in 2025. To break down further, R and D expense increased by 12% to $363 million in Q1 2026. Excluding share based compensation, R&D expense grew 16% to $322 million. This consistent investment in R and D underpin our technology roadmap and ensures we stay at the forefront of autonomous driving innovation. Administrative expense decreased by 33% to $83 million in the first quarter. Excluding share based compensation, administrative expense decreased by 17% to $61 million. The decrease was primarily driven by lower professional services fee mainly related to audit and legal compliance services and partially offset by increased personnel costs for the expansion of our team. As a foregoing business selling expense increased by 63% to 23 million in Q1 2026. Excluding share based compensation, selling expense increased by 81% to 22 million, the increase corresponding to ongoing expansion for our business underscoring our commitment to support growth appropriately. Our net loss kept stable at 369 million in the first quarter. On a non IFRS basis, the net loss increased slightly by 11% to $326 million in the first quarter. The slight uptick was largely driven by ongoing R and D expanding and separate. We continue to invest ahead of scale in our long term technology leadership. As of 3-31-2026 we had total capital reserve of 6.22 billion, comprising 6.18 billion in cash and cash equivalent and time deposits, 29 million in investment and wealth management products and 18 million in restricted cash. We maintain short term bank loans of 294 million to support daily operation. We have well positioned our capital base to match our cash deployment need. It had room to support ongoing growth and strategic initiatives. Under the US$100 Million share repurchase program authorized by our Board of Director on March 23, 2026, we have repurchased approximately 24.4 million Class A ordinary share including in the form of American depository shares as of market close on May 12th for a total consideration of approximately 61.4 million in US dollar. This reflects our firm belief in companies long term value and growth potential. Moving forward we proceed with confidence and a well defined focus. By end of 2026 we remain on track to deploy 2,600 robotaxis worldwide marking the first milestone in our journey towards hundreds of thousands by 2030. As we continue to scale, our approach is to enter new regions and cities which have proven which has proven effective and replicable. Supported by strong technological leadership, operational know how and increasingly robust global rollout. We're prepared to lead the next phase of autonomous driving with that operator. We are now ready to take on some quest to take some questions. OPERATOR Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, we only accept questions in the English language line. To ask a question, please dial into the English line and press Star 11 on your telephone keypad. If you have any follow on questions, please re enter the queue. Thank you. Just a moment for our first question please. First question comes from Stanley Wang from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Stanley Wang (Equity Analyst) Thank you. Tony and Jennifer, this is Stanley from Morgan Stanley. I have two questions. So first one is on your robotaxi expansion. Are you on track to meet your expansion roadmap in 2026 and could you update us on the latest expansion progress in China, the Middle east and the rest of the world? And my second question is on WeRide's overseas business with the company's core advantage being its possession of overseas operating licenses in eight countries. And in light of the global expansion of players like Waymo and Zoox and also the accelerating regulatory approvals, how do you view the key growth drivers, profitability path and timeline for tangible contributions from your overseas operations in 2026 to 2027? Thank you. Okay, so I will take the first question and then I will let Jennifer to answer the second question about the profitability. Okay, so first question is about the on track, whether we are on track with our robo tax expansion. I think overall we are very optimistic and confident in our global robo tax expansion and we have, we have been making the steady progress all the time at the. You know I would share some numbers I have already told to the market. That is as of at the end of April, our global robotaxi fleet reached approximately 1300 vehicles. That is to my best knowledge one of the biggest robotaxi fleets globally in China. Our robo taxi fleet has grown to approximately 1000 vehicles with solid demand, healthy daily order volume and a growing user base. And I want to share you a number. Our average daily order per vehicle exceeded 17 trips during the first quarter. That is an amazing number. And our overseas robo taxi fleet has expanded to approximately 300 vehicles across multiple markets in the Middle East. We recently launched a full driverless commercial operation in Dubai and on Uber platform today. You know, if you really want to hail a full driverless robo taxi, to my best knowledge, you know, I look at all our competitors outside of US and China. If you want to hail a full driverless robotaxi, the only way is through Uber hailing. We ride robo taxi in Abu Dhabi or Dubai. Okay, that's the our current stage with regional tensions created from. I know regional tensions create some short term softness in utilization, but we remain very confident. More important, we remain firmly committed to the Middle east. And our long term investment and operational presence are well received by local governments. We remain on track toward our commitment to deploy 1,200 vehicles across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh. As additional driverless odd to be added in Europe, we are expanding our footprint in Switzerland. We obtained regionals first driverless commercial permit and continue progressing toward public operations in Zurich. We also recently launched our national autonomous driving program in Slovakia. Making our entry into another new European market. More broadly, we believe VRIDE has established a meaningful advantage first mover advantage through years of global expansion. And overall I think this global operation and regulatory footprint is becoming an increasing important differentiator as autonomous driving commercialization accelerates worldwide. So that's overall conclude my answer to your question our global roadmap and our plan. Okay, about profit profitability. Would you pick up the question, Jennifer? Jennifer Lee Yeah, yeah, answer the second one. Yeah. So just now Stanley also mentioned the various core advantage is having like operating license in eight countries actually now comparing the total number of robo taxi deployed and driverless permit hold by any autonomous vehicle autonomous driving company outside China and the US VRide ranks first across like among all the different companies outboard companies. We are very encouraged by the momentum of our international expansion so far. And as we can recall from the last earning release, international revenue already account for approximately one third of the total group the group revenue last year and our Middle east subsidiary was already profitable at net level. And also Tony just discussed just already talked through our key developments in some of the regions of China this year. And we will announce some more exciting announcements in robotaxis deployment in due course. So this year we expect international revenue to grow even faster and contribute a even larger share of group revenue supported by the positive unit economics. And maybe I would like to just to also to elaborate a little bit more about our city selection criteria here. Now people always ask us, you know, you guys already have like presence in like 40 cities so do you still want to expand to more cities or focusing on the current ones? So our strategy is to focusing on scale in existing city as well as interning additional cities under a more selective criteria. So we really need to we really consider whether the market has the potential to support scalable and commercially attractive operations over long term. And especially on the monetization potential side we pay close attention to the overall gross booking opportunities as well as the gross bookings per mile because both scale and unit price matter significantly for long term robo taxi unit economics. And besides we focus heavily on whether there is a realistic path to scale for all the cities we are currently deploying. We do see potentials for each city to deploy thousands of autonomous driving vehicles. Yeah, and something more to mention here. Europe remains to be a key focus for us this year. We will share our exciting news in more deployment in more cities in Europe hopefully soon. Yes, that concludes my answer for this question. OPERATOR Thank you. Just a moment for the next question please. Next we have Ming Sun Li from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Ming Sun Li (Equity Analyst) Hi Tony and Jennifer, thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise a question. I also have two questions. So the first one, how do the recent report about China holding a new self driving approvals to impact we rise? And a second question, it's about the technology difference. So I think since the past there has been a consistent and industry wide debate over the LIDAR and the HD map approach that Waymo adopts and the camera only solution by Tesla. What is Rewrite's view? Thank you. Questions? I think I will take them one by one. Okay, I did take some notes. So let's see the first question. You know I think everybody have already realized the recent halt about the recent halting about the new self driving approvals. You know we all noticed you know this kind of accidents of Baidu in Wuhan and we have seen reports. So first of all our view is that we view this as more of a short term regulatory adjustment rather than structural change to the industry. Because from our discussion with the central government and local government and through this kind of communication and careful investigation, first of all WeRide, if you check our record wewride has a very good safety and operational record and both central government and local local Government just like gave us very strong support. And through our discussion we were assured that the central government, local government supporting support to the autonomous driving remains very, very strong. That is what we have learned and we talk with the local regulators, legislators and officials. This remains very supportive. It is a short term adjustment. They basically halting the new approvals for the added autonomous driving vehicles. But current autonomous vehicles remain actively operational for Vritt and our orders are increasing, as I have already mentioned to you. And as autonomous driving moves from early pilots towards larger scale commercialization, I think it is natural for regulators to place great focus on safety. And we really think this is a very responsible attitude. We actually think this is definitely a very responsible, responsible action and we fully support this. From our perspective, this is automatically positive for the long term development for the industry. A company with a safety with a very good safety record should be rewarded. A company with lousy safety reward should be punished. That is definitely, I think just think about airlines. It's the same results, right? So the airlines with good safety record remain in the market without a good safety record got eliminated. And we do suggest like the regulatory framework should favor companies with proven technology, operational experience and strong safety record. We also expect regulation over time to become more differentiated based on factors such as safety performance, operational track record and technical capability. For VRI specifically, we remain confident because we have accumulated meaningful real world operational experience both in China and internationally. Just two numbers, right? We operate and test across more than 40 cities in 12 countries. Who else have achieved such number overall? We view this necessary step for the industry and believe it will ultimately lead to a more sustainable, sustainable competitive landscape. I don't want a kind of company with lousy safety record to ramp around in the market. It's not safe to the public, not safe to our community. So we are very confident that safety company with very safe with very good safety record like Vride have a higher motor and we write will continue as a leading, leading player, first mover to keep our very good safety record and keep our reliable operation. We try every effort we possibly can to maintain this very good record. Second question, you know, because my answer is a little bit lengthy. Sorry about that for the first question. The second question is just want to remind everybody a question is about actually it's the long term debate that is LIDAR versus HDMAP and approach from Waymo versus Tesla. So my view is single. Okay. I spent many years in Missouri, okay. More than 1012 years. Missouri has been long called a show me state. Okay. To me I don't want to argue about approach, I want to see the results for L4 level robo taxi today. I think everybody have already seen that Waymo deployed thousands of Robo taxi and safely operated in many city in the United States. There are all kinds of claimers but I just want to say for L4 level robo taxis, driverless autonomous driving vehicle and safety is very important. If we can use HD map as an actual layer of information, why not? We have long adopted multi sensor redundancy oriented technology paths. We believe that camera and the LIDAR combining together build a strong robust autonomous driving system. And this approach actually is broadly aligned with the direction adopted by leading global robo taxi players like Waymo. At the same time we are closely watching the progress of vision only based on my flat approach including Tesla's recent approach. I have to say FSD 14.3 make a very good progress and we admire Tesla's achievement. However, it is still not Robo taxi, not driverless. But we took a similar approach as I mentioned at the opening remarks, right? Our ADA system based on one stage end to end world model has achieved four consecutive championships in China. Basically we beat all other ADA system solutions. I think the only competitor we haven't have a direct face to face matching that is Tesla FSD 14.3 and we look forward, as I mentioned, we look forward to comparison and give our consumers back. So with that, with that said I said I just want to emphasize we are very very aware the advantage of camera only solution based on foundation model and world model and we are pretty good at it. That's why I think I'm currently the best suitable CEO to answer this question. And we really consider about very complicated traffic scenarios in cities like Madrid. In Europe we have already spent lots of time to solving all possible corner cases in Madrid because we have to be prepared to deploy a busy city in a busy European city like Madrid. Historically city like Zurich and Madrid would require significant localization and testing resources. But with our genesis model we believe we can really combining the HCMAP H MAP approach with the Map Light version. So one of vwrite's strength is flexibility across different architectures and we can make a perfect marriage between this HD Map LIDAR based with camera solution and Map Light solution. But overall I just want to emphasize to have a reliable and safe HD safe robotaxi deployment at current stage we need to really rely on HD map. But gradually we may use Map Light approach to accommodate emergency emergency road construction and the MAP change and we can keep the freshness of map. But overall we have to cherry pick the advantage of camera solution, map light solution based on world model like Tesla support into L4 system. That's our approach and I think currently only company are capable of doing this in the world is vray. Because our ADAS progress in ADAS programs and because our L4 level deployment operational experience. Okay, that concludes my answer. Thank you. Thank you Tony. That's all my question. Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. Next we have Purdy Hu from Hometown Securities. Please go ahead. Purdy Hu (Equity Analyst) Hello Tony and Jennifer. Yeah, thank you for taking my question. So yeah, I got two questions for you guys. So first of all we are seeing more and more level two totally announcing plans to enter level four market. So what's your view on this? And then also can you give us more details on your multi chip platform compatibility for level 2? And I understand that this chip. So how do you achieve this chip divergence? Tony Hahn Okay, so thanks, thank you for these two questions. I think these questions are more like technical questions so I'll answer both questions. Okay, so first question is about like overview about like the so called L2 company or ADAS company although they themselves don't want to call them themselves. As L2 company plans to enter L4 market, what's our view? So to us like you know currently I still want to emphasize there's only one quantity to my best knowledge. Like doing L4 level robo taxi at the same time doing L2 ADA system. I have some standard that is for company. You claim yourself as a robo taxi company or elbow level automobile driving vehicle. You have to have a robo taxi fleet of 100 driverless robo taxi fleet open to public operate for more than half a year and without any significant or serious serious accidents. So I'm sorry may I remind like the listeners if you are not speaking please mute your mic because I hear some background noise. So please mute your noise if you are not speaking. Okay? Okay. So I so for L4 level company you have to have a fleet of 100 vehicles open to public operate for half a year and then you can call it yourself a robo taxi company. For ADAS company you have to deploy your system to mass production car. You know previously I would say three years ago or four years ago, we although have some ADA solution in our lab but we cannot call ourselves ADAS company because we hadn't deployed our system to mass production car. But now we can because we have deployed our ADA system to more than close to 30 types of vehicles and several of them are selling by tens of thousands every month. Okay, so now we know the difference. I believe with all of that said, I believe there is still a significant gap between advanced driver assistance system IA system and a true L4 robo taxi driverless system. The challenge is fundamentally about system robustness, operation capability and scalability. So there are some numbers I want to share with you. Okay, so usually most of the most of the ADA system Today according to our test, you know, mile per critical intervention, if you, if you measure in kilometers, although it's called MPCI and mild percritical intervention, you know lots of competitors in China they aim at to be to reach 1000km of MPCI. But you want to show you a number that for L4 level autonomous driving you can see numbers from VWA and from Waymo. And the mileage per critical intervention is at above 1 million km level. So there's a 3 magnitudes difference. So although some quality claimed they can boost their MPCI by a factor of 10 every year, that's still three years away. But let me tell you, like you boost your MPCI every 10 times, every year is a formidable task, mission impossible. Because if some company can do that, then you know, we write Waymo. So many good companies start autonomous driving in the year of 2017, you know, within seven years think about the MPCI. So, so basically all I'm saying is like you really need to operate for half a year before you know the difficulties about L4. So it's great to have ambitious goal, but always you need to really try to achieve your ambitious goals through a concrete path. And the concrete path is the key. And you know from our past experience, it takes many years to really make your fleet available and reliable for driverless operation. So I have a golden test rule that is made a driverless fleet of at least 100 cars, make it available to the market, operate for half a year and see what happened. And I don't want to see some tragedy names. You know, you see some companies actually quit the market because some accidents. You all know the names. So I don't want to mention them anymore. Okay. Second question is about our multi chip platform. That is actually something I love to to answer. I think the key, the key source is the secret source is our genesis model. Our genesis model creates AI model that can trim to different chipset of different complexity. And so far we have already rolled out our system based on Nvidia's SOAX dual Soarex Orin X Orin Wax system. And also we roll out our system GAC N60 based on Qualcomm 8650 and we are going to roll out system based on 5 gene on 5 engines of chipset. Okay. So basically we believe, we believe, you know with our current Genesis based approach we build up world model and we can really support different platform and this gives us a great competitive advantage. And again to my best knowledge, we haven't seen any other company can can support such a wide spectrum of chipset at the same time make them available for ADA solution as well as for Robo taxi solution. Okay, that's my answer to these two questions. Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. Just a moment for our next question please. Next we have Kai Xiao from cicc. Please go ahead. Kai Xiao (Equity Analyst) Thank you. Tony and Jennifer, this is Kai from cscc. So Michael, I also have a question on the multi chip platform strategy you mentioned. Can you share why is this strategy important for your L2 ADAS business? Thank you. Okay, so basically the main reason is like different OEMs have different hardware preference. Some OEMs they want extremely cost effective chipset. Some chipset some OEMs want very high tops computational platform and they have different supply chain requirements. Basically a flexible multi chip architecture allow us to support a broader range of vehicle platforms without like redesigning system every time. But the secret sauce is really our genesis model because genesis model can help us to tune a spectrum of onboard AI model which accommodates different tops requirements like 8650, 200 tops, SOR U700 tops, SOAX 1000 tops, RNX 250 tops. So we have to be able to adjust. More importantly, multi chip vendor flexibility enables faster mass production and great cost optimization. Different chip platforms offer different cost and supply chain advantages. And so that one, you know, if a company, if ADAS company or tunnel driving software company can apply a spectrum of solutions based on different chipsets, the car OEM tends to work with you more closely. And we believe this flexibility also help us secure more production, more vehicle type. And we also look forward to deploy all these systems for the over for the abroad market. One thing I want to bring all the investors attention that is this year you see the export of Chinese automobile to the Chinese automobile product to the rest of the world. It's actually growing, but most of them don't have a very good ADAS system. And we actually have already secured more than Thai vehicle models to supply ADA system for them. So maybe next year you will see some overseas models. You can maybe drive a car with vride ADA system in Mideast Asia. Mideast Asia, Southeast Asia. In some countries even in Europe. Please stay tuned. Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. Just a moment for our next question please. Next we have Xin Yu Fang from ubs. Please go ahead. Xin Yu Fang (Equity Analyst) Hi, thank you for taking my question. I have one question about the strategic balance and prioritization between China and international business. As we know, as Tony mentioned, there has been news about tightening scrutiny for autonomous driving permits domestically. And Werai has been making steady advancement in international markets with better ue could management. Please share your thoughts on the balance and priority of domestic and overseas operation lately. Thank you. Jennifer Lee Okay, I'll take your question. So we see both China and our international markets strategically important for vride in. Of course in near to medium term circle international market offers a clearer and faster path to commercially attractive Robotaxi economics. Thanks to the favorable pricing partnership and friendly like favorable regulations and demonstrating sustainable profitability early on in is critical for our industry where healthy cash flow enables self sustained growth. And in local market that's actually very important. We see it's very important to get into this, we call it the material effect type of like self sustained growth. So we started building a significant international Mode Starting in 2021 ahead of most of the PE and we have since then gained very hard to replicate expertise in global deployment, in regulation, localization, home location and fleet operation. And meanwhile China remains to be a key long term market due to the size, ecosystem, infrastructure and after all it's our home and we continue to maintain a very strong presence here as well. So overall we see a powerful flywheel effect as we scale across more cities in more countries and we have more data and more validation to improve the performance and also to improve the regulatory trust. So this accelerating the permits, audit expansion and commercialization. So yeah, so both are very important for us. Of course we are very pleased to say we see a huge potential that international revenue will grow rapidly this year. And we are very on track to achieve our all year revenue target this year. That's all she. Thank you. OPERATOR Thank you. Next we have Tan Liu from Sato Securities. Please go ahead. Tan Yu Hi Tony, I'm Jennifer, this is Tan Yu from PT and I have two questions. The first one is what's Uber's current shareholding? And how should investors think about the relationship between RERAT and Uber? And secondly, could you share your go to market model across different markets? Thank you very much. Jennifer Lee All right, thank you Tanyu. So Uber holds more than 5%. Uber is a strategic shareholder and a key partner for Vrite. So based on their latest public filing they hold over 5% of Vrite which we view as A strong endorsement of the technology and our solid deployment and commercialization strategy. So operationally, we're already deploying this Uber in more cities outside the US than any of the AV players out there. So which reflects both the depth of our relationship and our ability to execute at scale. So we expect we will expand. There's like Echo Song. Can someone. Can you mute. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we expect to expand to. There's still echo. Okay. Yeah, we will enter into more cities over this year and, and we remain to be a trusted partner as they build up, as they build their global AV strategy. Of course, at the same time, our go to market approach is diversified. We work this partner that fits each other in each market. And in China we operate our own app and to build the brand awareness and operational capabilities. You can get our robotaxi on vrigo and you can also get it from the AMAP and then also the Tencent mini program. In Southeast Asia we partner with Grab and in Europe we collaborate with local platforms, operators and PTOs including SPB in Zurich, TPGA in Geneva and Elevate in Slovakia, et cetera. So all of this will accelerate our deployment and the permitting process. Yeah. So overall we see strong alignment with a platform like Uber in scaling our robotaxic globally. And of course we continue to take flexible approach in working with multiple platforms to ensure that we execute very effectively across different markets. Thank you. And the second one, the other one is our asset line business model for robotaxi. Yeah, I think the time is running out. I'll just be short. I'll try to be quick. So outside China, we already implement asset live business model in all markets. It's a mature and proven structure for vride. So I'll just give you example. In some cases, robo taxis are purchased by the Rhythm platform or like local consumer customers. In some other cases they're owned by third party fleet owners. We have already executed in both models successfully. So the asset light model means like VY will focus on providing the tag and operation while leveraging the local capital to scale more efficiently. And in China right now, the priority is to continue improving the uni economic and of course operational efficiency with a larger odd so that the revenue share will become sizable enough for for it to become appealing to third party asset owner to participate. So over long term, we also expect China to move into the same direction as utilization continue to strengthen the model should naturally transition towards more as a life structure. Thank you, Dany. OPERATOR Thank you. Our last question comes from Mei Lu from hsbc. Please go Ahead. Mai Lu (Equity Analyst) Hi, thanks management for taking my questions. This is Mai from hsbc. So I will only have one question. So what's the trajectory for Robo taxi vehicle? Cost reduction. Thanks. Jennifer Lee Okay, I'll take this one. Thank you, Mei. So cost reduction of course always remains to be one of our key focus areas and we continue to see meaningful progress. There are three main drivers. The first one is the hardware and the system integration. So with our latest platform and our purpose-built vehicle like GXR, we are moving towards like the pre-integrated and very standard solution. Every year the BOM costs continue to drop. The second is scale and supply chain optimization. As now we are moving to like a unit deployment. We are able to do better cost efficiency across different components and manufacturing. The last one is on operational efficiency. We already see that there's a strong efficiency improvement as fleet scales and utilization increase. For example, in last quarter we announced that our remote safety officer ratio has already improved to 1 to 40 from previously 1 to 10 to 120. Now it's already 11 to 40. Internationally we are following the same trend, but now of course it's not one to 40 yet, but we're moving in the same direction. We believe all of this is very important because remote operation efficiency has a very meaningful impact over per vehicle TCO and overall unit economics. Additionally, when we enter some new markets, there might be some upfront localization costs which sometimes temporarily increase the per vehicle cost in early stages. However, as deployment scales within each market, those costs are amortized and the overall impact will become very limited and manageable. This is a cost reduction as a combination of hardware as well as operational efficiency. Thank you, Mei. OPERATOR Thank you. Due to time restraints, I will conclude the call today. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice. UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga: WERIDE (WRD): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Transcript: WeRide Q1 2026 Earnings Conference Call originally appeared on Benzinga.com © 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Total Revenue: RMB114 million, up 58% year-over-year. Product Revenue: RMB20 million, increased 116%. Service Revenue: RMB94 million, increased 49%. Gross Profit: RMB40 million, increased 56%. Gross Margin: Approximately 35%. Operating Expenses: RMB469 million, with R&D expenses accounting for 77%. R&D Expenses: RMB363 million, increased 12%. Administrative Expenses: RMB83 million, decreased 33%. Selling Expenses: RMB23 million, increased 63%. Net Loss: RMB369 million, stable year-over-year. Non-IFRS Net Loss: RMB326 million, increased 11%. Capital Reserve: RMB6.22 billion, with RMB6.18 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Short-term Bank Loans: RMB294 million. Share Repurchase Program: Approximately RMB61.4 million spent on repurchasing shares. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 2 Warning Signs with WRD. Is WRD fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: May 13, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD) reported a 58% year-over-year increase in total revenue, reaching RMB114 million in Q1 2026. The company achieved significant growth in its Robotaxi fleet, expanding to approximately 1,300 vehicles globally, making it one of the largest fleets worldwide. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD) made a major technical breakthrough with its Genesis simulation engine, enhancing AI model training efficiency and supporting both L2 and L4 autonomous driving applications. The company has established a strong international presence, operating in 12 countries and securing permits in eight markets, which diversifies revenue and demonstrates regulatory capabilities. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD) has formed strategic partnerships with companies like Lenovo and Uber, enhancing its manufacturing scalability and global deployment capabilities. Operating expenses were high at RMB469 million, with R&D expenses accounting for 77% of the total, indicating significant ongoing investment. The company reported a net loss of RMB369 million in Q1 2026, with a slight increase in non-IFRS net loss by 11% to RMB326 million. There are concerns about regulatory challenges in China, with recent halts on new self-driving approvals potentially impacting future growth. The company faces intense competition from global players like Waymo and Tesla, particularly in the technology and regulatory approval space. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ:WRD) is still working on reducing Robotaxi vehicle costs, which remain a key focus area for achieving better unit economics. Q: Are you on track to meet your Robotaxi expansion roadmap in 2026, and could you update us on the latest expansion progress in China, the Middle East, and the rest of the world? A: Tony Han, CEO: We are optimistic and confident in our global Robotaxi expansion. By the end of April, our global fleet reached approximately 1,300 vehicles, with 1,000 in China and 300 overseas. We recently launched a full driverless commercial operation in Dubai with Uber. We remain committed to deploying 1,200 vehicles across Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh. In Europe, we are progressing toward public operations in Zurich and have launched a program in Slovakia. Q: How do you view the key growth drivers, profitability path, and timeline for tangible contributions from your overseas operations in 2026 to 2027? A: Jennifer Li, CFO: International revenue already accounts for about one-third of total group revenue, with our Middle East subsidiary profitable at the net level. We expect international revenue to grow faster and contribute more significantly to group revenue this year. Our strategy focuses on scaling in existing cities and entering new ones with strong monetization potential. Q: How do the recent reports about China holding new self-driving approvals impact WeRide? A: Tony Han, CEO: We view this as a short-term regulatory adjustment rather than a structural change. WeRide has a strong safety and operational record, and both central and local governments support us. We believe this regulatory focus on safety will ultimately benefit the industry by rewarding companies with proven technology and strong safety records. Q: What's your view on the industry-wide debate over LiDAR and HD map approaches versus camera-only solutions? A: Tony Han, CEO: For L4 Robotaxi, safety is paramount, and we adopt a multi-sensor redundancy approach combining camera and LiDAR. This aligns with leading players like Waymo. We are also closely watching vision-only approaches like Tesla's. Our ADAS system has achieved significant success, and we look forward to head-to-head comparisons with Tesla's FSD. Q: Can you share why the multi-chip platform strategy is important for your L2++ ADAS business? A: Tony Han, CEO: Different OEMs have varying hardware preferences, and a flexible multi-chip architecture allows us to support a broader range of vehicle platforms. This flexibility enables faster mass production, cost optimization, and better alignment with OEMs' supply chain requirements. Our Genesis model helps us tune AI models for different chipsets, providing a competitive advantage. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

Interested in WeRide Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. WeRide posted strong Q1 growth, with revenue up 58% year over year to RMB 114 million and gross profit rising 56% to RMB 40 million. The company said the gains were driven by expanding Robotaxi deployments and broader commercialization of its autonomous driving products. Robotaxi operations continued to scale globally, reaching about 1,300 vehicles worldwide and roughly 2,800 Level 4 autonomous vehicles deployed or tested across 12 countries and more than 40 cities. Management also said it remains on track to deploy 2,600 Robotaxis globally by the end of 2026. WeRide’s ADAS and international partnerships are gaining momentum, with its WRD 3.0 system adopted by nearly 30 vehicle models and new commercial launches with partners like Uber, Grab and automakers such as GAC and Chery. Management said international revenue should grow faster this year and contribute a larger share of total revenue. From Science Project to Solvent: WeRide’s 761% Revenue Surge WeRide (NASDAQ:WRD) reported first-quarter 2026 revenue growth of 58% year over year, as management pointed to expanding Robotaxi deployments, broader autonomous driving commercialization and traction for its L2++ advanced driver assistance system. Founder, Chairman and CEO Dr. Tony Han said total revenue reached RMB 114 million in the quarter. He said the company ended April with about 1,300 Robotaxis globally, which he described as one of the largest Robotaxi fleets worldwide. WeRide’s broader Level 4 autonomous driving fleet, including Robovan and Robobus vehicles, grew to about 2,800 units deployed or tested across 12 countries and more than 40 cities. → Rocket Lab Just Hit a New All-Time High—Time to Buy or Let It Breathe? Top 5 AI & Autonomy Stocks Trading Under $15 With Big Potential Han said the quarter showed “the maturity of our technology” and the company’s growing experience operating thousand-vehicle fleets in multiple cities. He also highlighted WeRide’s GENESIS simulation engine, a closed-loop, world-model-based system that the company says can generate synthetic driving scenarios and accelerate training and validation. CFO and Head of International Jennifer Li said product revenue increased 116% year over year to RMB 20 million, mainly due to increased deployment of Robotaxi and other L4 vehicles. Service revenue rose 49% to RMB 94 million. → MercadoLibre Boldly Invests in Growth: Discount Deepens These Are the Only 6 Stock Stocks in NVIDIA's 13F Portfolio Li said the company’s performance exceeded internal targets despite seasonal effects from Chinese New Year and Ramadan in the Middle East. Group-level gross profit increased 56% to RMB 40 million, with gross margin of approximately 35%. Operating expenses totaled RMB 469 million, which Li said were stable in absolute terms compared with the prior-year period. Research and development expenses accounted for 77% of operating expenses and rose 12% to RMB 363 million. Administrative expenses fell 33% to RMB 83 million, while selling expenses increased 63% to RMB 23 million. → MP Materials Is Quietly Building a Rare Earth Powerhouse Net loss was stable at RMB 369 million. On a non-IFRS basis, net loss increased 11% to RMB 326 million, which Li attributed largely to continued R&D investment. As of March 31, WeRide had total capital reserves of RMB 6.22 billion, including RMB 6.18 billion in cash and cash equivalents and time deposits. The company also had short-term bank loans of RMB 294 million. Under a $100 million share repurchase program authorized in March, Li said WeRide had repurchased about 24.4 million Class A ordinary shares, including American depositary shares, for approximately $61.4 million as of the market close on May 12. Han said WeRide’s domestic Robotaxi fleet grew to about 1,000 vehicles by the end of April. In Guangzhou, the service area expanded 97% compared with the end of 2025, including additional downtown districts. He said average daily orders per vehicle in China reached 17 trips during the first quarter, with peak periods reaching 28 trips per vehicle. Internationally, Han said the overseas Robotaxi fleet totaled about 300 vehicles across multiple markets. In the Middle East, WeRide launched fully driverless commercial Robotaxi operations in Dubai with Uber and Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority, while Abu Dhabi coverage expanded to about 70% of the city’s core area. Han said the company and Uber remain on track to deploy at least 1,200 Robotaxis across Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh by 2027. In Singapore, the company launched what it described as the country’s first public autonomous driving service with Grab. In Europe, WeRide entered Slovakia in March and is progressing toward fully driverless commercial operation in Zurich. Han said WeRide has permits in eight markets. Li said international revenue accounted for about one-third of total group revenue last year, and that the company’s Middle East subsidiary was already profitable at the net level. She said WeRide expects international revenue to grow faster this year and contribute a larger share of total revenue. Management also emphasized growth in WeRide’s L2++ ADAS business. Han said WRD 3.0, the company’s current ADAS system, has been adopted by nearly 30 vehicle models, including vehicles from GAC and Chery. He said GAC Aion launched pre-sales in April for the AION N60, the first mass-production vehicle using WeRide’s solution. Han said WRD 3.0 supports three major chip platforms: NVIDIA DRIVE, Qualcomm Snapdragon and SiEngine Starlight. He said multi-chip compatibility enables faster mass production, cost optimization and broader adoption by automakers. During the question-and-answer session, Han said the company has secured more than 10 overseas vehicle models for ADAS supply. Han compared WeRide’s technology approach with industry peers, saying the company uses multi-sensor redundancy for L4 Robotaxi systems while also developing camera-oriented and world-model capabilities for ADAS. He said the company believes high-definition maps remain important for reliable L4 deployment at the current stage, while mapless approaches may help address construction, map changes and other dynamic road conditions over time. Asked about reports of China halting new self-driving approvals, Han characterized the situation as a “short-term regulatory adjustment rather than structural change.” He said current WeRide autonomous vehicles remain operational and that the company continues to receive support from central and local governments. Han said tighter safety scrutiny could favor companies with strong safety records and operational experience. Li said Uber holds more than 5% of WeRide based on its latest public filing and described Uber as both a strategic shareholder and key partner. She said WeRide is deploying with Uber in more cities outside the U.S. than other autonomous vehicle players, while also using a diversified go-to-market strategy with partners such as Grab in Southeast Asia and local operators in Europe. On vehicle cost reduction, Li said WeRide is focused on hardware and system integration, scale and supply chain optimization, and operational efficiency. She cited improvement in the company’s remote safety officer ratio to 1-to-40 from a previous range of 1-to-10 to 1-to-20, saying remote operation efficiency has a meaningful impact on per-vehicle total cost of ownership and unit economics. Looking ahead, Li said WeRide remains on track to deploy 2,600 Robotaxis worldwide by the end of 2026, which she described as the first milestone toward a long-term goal of deploying hundreds of thousands of autonomous vehicles by 2030. WeRide Inc (NASDAQ: WRD) is a developer of autonomous driving technology focused on providing Level 4 (L4) self-driving solutions for passenger mobility and logistics. The company's full-stack platform integrates sensors, computing hardware, software algorithms and vehicle controls to enable driverless taxis, shuttles and goods delivery vehicles. By combining perception, planning and controls in a turnkey system, WeRide aims to accelerate the commercialization of robotaxi services and autonomous fleet operations. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Guangzhou, China, WeRide maintains research and development centers in Silicon Valley and China. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "WeRide Q1 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for May 2026.