ECARX Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 11, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Q2 revenue rose 45% year over year to $225.2 million, while gross margin expanded to 19.8% from 10.8% and adjusted EBITDA remained positive for the fourth consecutive quarter.
  • Positive Sentiment: ECARX is benefiting from a higher-value product mix, with Antora shipments up 52% year over year and Pikes shipments up more than 2,000%; together, the platforms represented 42% of Q2 shipments.
  • Positive Sentiment: Global expansion accelerated through nine new model launches across four brands, including four models for Europe, Southeast Asia, and South America, while the Volkswagen program remains on track for a 2027 Latin America launch.
  • Positive Sentiment: The planned approximately $266 million acquisition of Flyme is expected to strengthen ECARX’s software ownership, integration capabilities, licensing revenue, and margins; Flyme Auto is already deployed in more than 2 million vehicles.
  • Negative Sentiment: Management warned that elevated memory costs may pressure gross margin and operating profitability in the second half, even though much of the increase is being passed through to customers; the company nevertheless reaffirmed 2026 revenue guidance of $1.0 billion to $1.1 billion.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
ECARX Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the ECARX Q2 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mark Hankinson. Please go ahead.

Mark Hankinson
Mark Hankinson
Head of Investor Relations at ECARX

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to ECARX's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. With me today from ECARX are our Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Ziyu Shen, Chief Operating Officer Peter Cirino, and Chief Financial Officer Dylan Jeng. Following their prepared remarks, they will all be available to answer your questions. Before we start, I would like to refer you to our forward-looking statements at the bottom of our earnings press release, which also apply to this call. Further information on specific risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially can be found in our filings with the SEC. In addition, this call will include discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the GAAP financial measures can be found at the bottom of our earnings press release.

Mark Hankinson
Mark Hankinson
Head of Investor Relations at ECARX

With that, I'd like to hand the call over to our Founder and CEO, Ziyu Shen. Ziyu, please go ahead.

Ziyu Shen
Ziyu Shen
CEO at ECARX

Thank you, Mark. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Last quarter, we outlined our vision to push the boundaries of automotive intelligence globally and how we are transforming into a truly global business, uniquely positioned to capitalize on the surging demand for higher-value software and physical AI. At our earnings in May, we said we expected a significant rebound in the market from Q2, both in terms of vehicle launches and shipments. The second quarter delivered exactly as expected. We delivered a strong financial result, and we continue to build momentum and make strong progress on our strategic objectives. The second quarter continued to be defined by disciplined execution and accelerating global momentum. Our top-line revenue increased 45% year-over-year and up 71% from Q1. We reduced our operating expenses year-on-year despite the increased revenue.

Ziyu Shen
Ziyu Shen
CEO at ECARX

We grew gross margin to 19.8%, up from 10.8% this time last year. Most notably, we delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA. I want to be clear about the market in which we achieved this. Demand in Chinese automotive has remained challenging through the H1 of this year, and global memory costs continue to be a significant factor. The growth in our revenue and profitability in this environment clearly demonstrates that the lean operating strategy we built through 2025 is doing exactly what we designed it to do. Throughout the quarter, we executed on our core priorities for the year with focus, accelerating our global strategy and investing in our R&D roadmap. That progress has strengthened our confidence going into the H2 of 2026.

Ziyu Shen
Ziyu Shen
CEO at ECARX

First, our global expansion was accelerated during the quarter, with more new models entering mass production, expanding the visibility and scale of our solutions. Our partnership with Volkswagen Group continues to make good progress. We are now putting the engineering, supply chain, and support infrastructure in place across the Latin America region and remain on target for launch in 2027. Second, we continue to invest in our robust product and R&D roadmap. We expanded in two important ways this quarter. In June, we signed a definitive agreement to acquire the entire Flyme software business for approximately $266 million. This brings a highly strategic piece of our full-stack ecosystem into the business. Flyme Auto is already deployed in more than 2 million vehicles, and Flyme OS is already a core part of our Cloudpeak middleware used globally.

Ziyu Shen
Ziyu Shen
CEO at ECARX

We are acquiring a mature platform that our own business already depends on. Flyme's momentum continues. It has recently been nominated to provide the software for a leading international luxury brand in China. In May, we entered into a strategic partnership with TPK Holding to co-develop the ORCA LiDAR platform. As part of the process, ECARX will lead the system's integration capability, and TPK will provide its manufacturing expertise. We are looking forward to seeing mass production begin in 2028. Lastly, we signed a share exchange agreement with Qualcomm Ventures last month. Qualcomm has been a strategic partner of ours for many years. We have collaborated deeply across multiple generations of solutions, including Zenith, which will be built on their upcoming Snapdragon Elite platform for automotive. This agreement reflects another major milestone in our relationship to jointly develop highly specialized and integrated solutions.

Ziyu Shen
Ziyu Shen
CEO at ECARX

The progress we made during the quarter all points in the same direction. Our financial results are delivering even in difficult markets. We own more of our technology stack than we did before, allowing us to capture higher value opportunities. We enter the H2 of the year with continued confidence in our strategic and financial direction. I will now pass the call over to Peter Cirino to discuss our operational progress in more detail.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

Thank you, Ziyu. Good morning, everyone. At our earnings in May, we described Q1 as being a historically subdued quarter for both seasonal and quarter-specific reasons, and we guided to increasing momentum from Q2 onwards, both in terms of vehicle launches and shipment volumes. This has played out in Q2 as we expected. We achieved the launch and volume rebound we guided to in the first quarter, underscoring our strategy for our global commercial build-out through executing complex global programs across diverse vehicle lineups and markets. Shipments in the second quarter were approximately 550,000 units, an increase of 51% quarter-on-quarter that directly contributed to strong top-line growth. Against same quarter last year, volumes were 2% lower. While year-on-year shipments were marginally down, overall revenue and revenue quality was significantly increased.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

Sales of goods revenue increased both quarter-on-quarter and year-over-year, as shipments of our high-end solutions continue to grow and demand accelerates. Shipments of our high-end Antora solutions, in particular, increased 92% quarter-over-quarter and 52% year-over-year. Furthermore, shipments of our high-end performance AI-driven computing platform, Pikes, increased 43% quarter-over-quarter and over 2,000% year-over-year. Antora and Pikes now make up 42% of shipments. These are the direct results of the decision we took during Q2 last year to begin phasing out our lower-margin legacy platform business and concentrate on high-end, fully ECARX architected solutions. That decision moderated our unit volumes for a period, but is now improving the quality of what we sell. The second quarter is also where our 2026 model launches began landing at scale, and every launch pulls hardware volume and associated engineering revenue with it.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

Software revenue decreased from the same quarter last year by 42% due to lower sales volume, whereas services revenues increased substantially from the same quarter last year by 21%, driven by new model launches. Services revenue comprise of reoccurring software fees, but the bulk of it today tracks the timing of design and development contracts and the vehicle launch cycles they support, so it can be lumpy by nature. We are pleased to see this improvement as we guided to expect three months ago. As launches accelerate, we anticipate software and services revenue will accelerate with them. To provide some context here, revenue in any given quarter is a function of three things. Those are vehicle model launch timing, shipments driven by end market demand, and component pricing.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

We manage the first through operational discipline, the second through geographical and customer diversification, and the third through pricing adjustments to structurally support top-line revenue and protect profitability. But this business will show quarter-to-quarter variability, and we encourage you to look at the trailing four quarters rather than any single one. Turning to our customer base and growth strategy. During the quarter, we began mass production for nine new models across four brands, of which a majority are using our next generation Pikes or Antora Series solutions. Of these new models, four are designated for markets outside of China, including Europe, Southeast Asia, and South America. We are pleased to see this type of growth that further reinforces our strategy on transforming into a global company. We now have 12 million vehicles with our technology on the road.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

As Ziyu mentioned, our partnership with Volkswagen Group continues to drive forward during the quarter as we continue to build out engineering, supply chain, and support infrastructure in the first region to support its expected launch in 2027. The program integrates our high-end Antora 1000 with Cloudpeak and Google built-in for premium segment vehicles, alongside our cost-effective Antora 500 for entry-level segments. I want to again highlight the flexibility and scalability of the unique value proposition we are offering here, one portfolio of solutions that covers the full price ladder. Ziyu has already covered the strategic rationale of the pending Flyme acquisition. Flyme consists of two distinct but related pieces of software. The first is Flyme Auto, which is the application layer, which we use for the interface for products sold in China. In international markets, we use Google built-in for this layer.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

The second piece is Flyme OS, which is the Android platform that we embed into our Cloudpeak middleware. This is the core of our software stack, due both in China and internationally. Let me turn to what this acquisition will change operationally in both of these markets. The first is roadmap control. A competitive advantage of ECARX is our ability to tightly integrate our product solutions across layers, from silicon to sensors to software. Owning Flyme allows for deeper hardware and software integration and greater customization. That shortens the integration timelines for automakers, provides them with standardized, flexible solutions for diverse vehicle lineup, and accelerates time to market. More importantly, this will also create a competitive moat, strengthening our ability to execute complex vehicle programs at scale. The second is a revenue stream that is not tied to hardware volume.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

Flyme generates revenues today from software licensing, from custom development work, and from intelligent cockpit system delivery. Adding a licensable software asset will allow us to move up the automotive value chain and capture greater margin. The third is interoperability. Flyme OS, which is embedded in Cloudpeak, already spans vehicles, smartphones, and wearable smart devices, which means the car connects seamlessly to these devices, which drivers already carry. What differentiates Flyme OS from current products is its speed and close integration with the rest of the stack, delivering a superior user experience. This fully integrated cross-domain ecosystem equips automakers with solutions they can deploy, whether that is Flyme Auto in China or Google built-in outside of China, across a lineup to differentiate their vehicles in an intensely competitive market.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

We will operate Flyme as an independent software division, which will preserve R&D continuity and ensure a seamless transition for existing customers. Existing operators of Flyme OS will continue to receive updates, and user data remains in each operator's ownership. The second addition to our portfolio is our partnership with TPK to co-develop the ORCA LiDAR platform, making our formal entry into the LiDAR sector. Under that agreement, we will lead system integration, sensor fusion, and global commercialization, drawing upon our relationships with international automakers and robotaxi operators. TPK will contribute optical design, engineering, and high volume precision manufacturing. Mass production is scheduled for 2028 at TPK's facility in Thailand, and we're excited about the additional options this will allow us to provide automakers as we continue to drive further hardware and software integration. Before I pass the call to Dylan, I want to leave you with one final thought.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

What these partnerships and solutions provide are critical to our broader strategy. When a global automaker asks us for a solution, we can answer with our own silicon heritage, our own computing platform, and soon, our own operating system, and our own expanding sensor technology. Very few companies in the industry can offer this sort of closely integrated stack comprising silicon to software to sensors. With that, I will turn the call over to Dylan.

Dylan Jeng
Dylan Jeng
CFO at ECARX

Thank you, Peter, and hi, everyone. The second quarter performance is a clear demonstration of the operating leverage we have been building into this business. Revenue rebounded as strongly as launches and volumes recovered after a historically weak Q1. Our cost structure continued to improve, and we delivered our fourth consecutive quarter of a positive adjusted EBITDA. We achieved this while managing a memory cost environment that has moved sharply against our industry. Starting with the top line, total revenue was driven by four factors. Growing demand outside of China, higher value products, new model launches, and the DDR memory price adjustment flowing through our pricing. Sales of goods revenue was $196 million, increasing 73% sequentially and 50% year-over-year. Software revenue was $0.7 million or a 42% decrease year-over-year due to lower sales volume.

Dylan Jeng
Dylan Jeng
CFO at ECARX

Service revenue was $28 million or a 21% increase year-over-year, driven by the new model launches in the quarter. The Chinese auto market remains challenging. However, as we guided in the first quarter, market condition improved overall in the second quarter, particularly momentum related to the first quarter. Shipped van volumes were up 51% quarter-to-quarter. I want to spend a moment on ASPs because arithmetic this quarter points directly at it. While volume was slightly lower year-over-year, revenue was up 45%. This was driven by two main factors. The first is the quality of the revenue with our high-end products increasingly accounting for a larger share of our shipments. Our Antora and Pikes solution both increased in volume year-over-year, resulting in combined 71% gains in unit shipment.

Dylan Jeng
Dylan Jeng
CFO at ECARX

This is the deliberated and mixed shift we began executing last year, and it is working as intended. The second is the memory cost. Higher global memory costs have structurally supported our top-line revenue, as those costs are passed through into our pricing. Gross profit was at $44.5 million, with the gross margin expanding to 19.8%. A significant improvement on the same quarter last year, where margin was at 10.8%. Looking forward, our margin profile will continue to be influenced by global memory cost. While higher memory costs drive higher revenue, we continue to expect that gross margin and the operating profitability may be negatively impacted by memory cost dynamics in the coming quarters. Our response to manage this impact is the one we have executed consistently.

Dylan Jeng
Dylan Jeng
CFO at ECARX

That means managing our supply chains, controlling our cost structure, maintaining pricing disciplines, and concentrating R&D on the higher impact solutions. Our lean operating strategy continued to deliver substantial efficiency gains. Operating expenses actually declined 11% year-over-year. Set that against the 45% revenue growth, and you have the cleanest single measure of how this business has been transformed over the past 12 months. A contributor to efficiency is the internal deployment of AI across our organization. This is changing the cost curve of the software development for us. With over 90% of our developers now use Cloudpeak code and other solutions in their workflow. This becomes structurally more valuable as our software footprint expands with the addition of Flyme. On a sequential basis, we realized improvements across almost every key metric. Revenue up, cost down, profitability increased.

Dylan Jeng
Dylan Jeng
CFO at ECARX

The only exception is the adjusted EBITDA, which remained positive but was down from $4 million last quarter to $0.5 million in Q2, and improved annually by $30.2 million. To explain in more detail, last quarter's adjusted EBITDA of $4 million included that $14 million of partial monetization of our shareholdings in SiEngine, which was a one-time item. There was no similar one-time item this quarter. We are very pleased to have delivered our fourth consecutive quarters of a positive EBITDA, which is a testament both to the recovery in the market that we guided at Q1 and our robust cost discipline. Our confidence going into the H2 of the year rests on three things. The first is the launch cadence Peter described, which lean heavily toward the H2 of this year. The second is the order backlog underpinning those programs.

Dylan Jeng
Dylan Jeng
CFO at ECARX

The third is the historical seasonality of our business, where the H2 was consistently carry the larger shares of annual revenue. With that confidence in mind, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 revenue guidance of $1 billion-$1.1 billion. In summary, the second quarter delivered the rebounds that we guided to in April. Our cost structure continues to improve, and we have added materially to the strategic assets of this business to drive growth. We remain focused on the disciplined execution and creating long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I will hand back to Ziyu for his closing remarks.

Ziyu Shen
Ziyu Shen
CEO at ECARX

Thank you, Dylan. As you have heard today, we have made meaningful progress across our strategic priorities for 2026. This positions us for growth in the near and long term. In the H1 of the year, we entered into an agreement to expand our capabilities with the addition of the Flyme business portfolio. We extended our global reach with the Volkswagen commercial build-out, and we delivered a strong financial result on both top line and gross profit against a challenging backdrop. I would now like to open the call for questions. Operator, please open the line.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To raise your question, please press star one and one again. Once again, that is star one and one to ask a question. Please stand by. We will compile the Q&A roster. We will now take our first question from the line of Wei Huang from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Wei Huang
Wei Huang
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Thank you very much for taking my question. First, I would like to ask a bit about our gross margin. You have guided in 1Q that in this quarter that our memory price are going to be pressuring our gross margin this year. But 2Q hardware gross margin was quite strong, actually at 15%, even though memory prices also increased quite a bit this quarter as well. What is the outlook for the H2 of the year?

Dylan Jeng
Dylan Jeng
CFO at ECARX

Yeah, thanks. Wei elevated our comments about the margins at sets of earnings, and obviously, the higher memory cost to support structurally the higher revenue as the balance is memory cost with our customers. However, this sort of a pass-through does come at the understandably lower margin. We do the right things and it does not really indicate any negative about this business. In terms of the 2Q's, you are right about this was a strong performance, and that was really driven by a few things. First, as with any cost increase in components in some of the, which that we already have in stock. There are timing discrepancy between the purchasing and the passing through. Also, they are selling higher value products than we did last year. Pikes and Antora are up significantly, which support both the revenues and revenue quality.

Dylan Jeng
Dylan Jeng
CFO at ECARX

Very importantly, we also did a great job on managing costs in the business, and we reduced our operating costs year-over-year despite the growing revenue by 45%. I think with all the elements and the reasons that really helped during the second quarter.

Wei Huang
Wei Huang
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Thank you very much. Just to follow up on that, can I assume that our memory purchase inventory is going to be depleted, and I guess the memory price hike is going to hit us more, I guess, in the third quarter and fourth quarter?

Mark Hankinson
Mark Hankinson
Head of Investor Relations at ECARX

Wei, I'm sorry. The question wasn't very clear. Would you mind repeating it, please?

Wei Huang
Wei Huang
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Yes, no problem. You stated that one of the factors that led to the strong hardware gross margin this quarter was the memory that you already had in stock. So I assume as this gets depleted, our margin is going to be more under pressure in the third quarter and fourth quarter.

Dylan Jeng
Dylan Jeng
CFO at ECARX

Yeah, it is. We're very working closely, our supply chain teams and also working very closely with the marketplace. So we'll continue to manage that going forward. We do anticipate.

Company Representative at ECARX

Yeah. This is Zhou speaking. Sorry, I jumped in here. I would say our supply chain team had a great job. We built a very strong strategic partnership with NXP and also Samsung. We are far partner with them. From memory supply point of view, we are very leading. We had a very strong inventory and future pipeline. Also, principally, I want to say, and confidently, that I think most of increase actually pass over to the customer. No impact on our gross margin, that for sure. But we will strongly maintain our good supply chain operation to sustainably support our customers. That is our very strong advantage in market currently. Is that all clear?

Wei Huang
Wei Huang
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Understood. Very clear. Yes, very clear.

Company Representative at ECARX

Thank you.

Wei Huang
Wei Huang
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

The second question is on our high-end Antora and Pikes. You mentioned it increased quite a bit sequentially as well. Did you have a number for what percentage of our volume was it in the first quarter? You said 2Q was 42%. I wanted to do a comparison year-on-year basis.

Mark Hankinson
Mark Hankinson
Head of Investor Relations at ECARX

I do not know if we have that number to hand. We can come back to you with that. I think we did talk about it at the Q1s, but let us confirm. I do not think we have that number to hand.

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

Wei, maybe I just make some comments. I mean, we see very good traction on these two product lines, and they continue to roll out across multiple customers for us in China and in the global market. I think they are two strong lighthouse project programs for the organization. As I mentioned in my comments, Antora saw a 52% increase year-on-year. I think on a year-on-year basis and on a quarter-on-quarter basis, I do suspect we will continue to see increases in that platform. Pikes was just launched last year, so it saw over a 2,000% growth year-on-year. Again, I am very confident it will continue to grow. We are offering a great user experience to our customers on those two platforms, and I think they are solid performers for us in the market and show exceptional technology leadership.

Wei Huang
Wei Huang
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Well noted. I assume our improved product mix is also one of the reasons our ASP has increased to roughly around $360 in the second quarter. Do you have an idea on what is a reasonable level to assume for the third quarter and fourth quarter, assuming with the new product launches and the old models upgrading to these newer platforms, how much higher can this go?

Mark Hankinson
Mark Hankinson
Head of Investor Relations at ECARX

Wei, I am sorry, the question again was quite muffled. Would you mind repeating it?

Wei Huang
Wei Huang
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Yes, no problem. I wanted to ask about our ASP outlook for 3Q and 4Q, since it reached around $360 in the second quarter due to, I assume, higher shipments of Antora and Pikes, and given the new model launches and the old models upgrading their chips to the newer platform, how much higher can this ASP go?

Peter Cirino
Peter Cirino
COO at ECARX

Wei, I don't think we'll announce a specific number on that, but that's a trend that you should see from us, I think, and you see from most of the industry who's investing in new platforms and delivering these high-end user experience. You'll see that as just an industry trend, which we'll feel as a tailwind. As our older products roll off and these newer, higher performance products roll on, and the customer experience is actually a net decrease in their vehicle architecture cost because more functions go onto these platforms, more of the vehicle becomes software-defined. It actually enables the automaker to deploy additional features inside their vehicle environment. But with a higher performance computer in the car and higher performance software, we should continue to see, I would say, an increase in ASP.

Wei Huang
Wei Huang
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Well noted. My last question is on our software license as well as our service business. Gross margin for these two actually declined sequentially for the second quarter. Software license went to almost zero breakeven and service gross margin declined as well. Do you have anything to highlight that contribute to this or just normal business amount?

Mark Hankinson
Mark Hankinson
Head of Investor Relations at ECARX

Wei, perhaps if I comment on that. The software line item in our financials is one that gets a lot of attention because it moves up and down by a big percentage every quarter. But it's a very, very small number. And the way that we think about that is that's generally around, say, $1 million-$2 million a quarter, except when there's a significant event in the quarter. We saw that in Q1 2025, for instance. But we'd encourage people not to focus too much on the movement within software. I think it's important to understand as well that a lot of what people might think of as software comes into our services line item as well. I think the movements around margin on those are just general business dynamics as the quarters move over. It's principally driven by new product launches and being specified on platform.

Wei Huang
Wei Huang
Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Thank you very much. That's all from me. Thank you.

Mark Hankinson
Mark Hankinson
Head of Investor Relations at ECARX

Thanks, Wei. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. Once again, that's star one and one to ask a question. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Mark Hankinson for closing remarks.

Mark Hankinson
Mark Hankinson
Head of Investor Relations at ECARX

Thanks very much, operator, and thanks for joining today. The second quarter clearly reflected strong execution. We saw this demonstrated through our financial performance, and we saw it in progress against our strategic objectives. ECARX is positioned to become a leading global supplier of innovative next-generation solutions for OEMs, and we look forward to providing more updates on our progress in the second half of the year. Thank you very much. With that, we'll conclude the call.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Mark Hankinson
      Mark Hankinson
      Head of Investor Relations
    • Ziyu Shen
      Ziyu Shen
      CEO
    • Peter Cirino
      Peter Cirino
      COO
    • Dylan Jeng
      Dylan Jeng
      CFO
    • Company Representative
Analysts
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