WeRide Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 12, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Q2 financial performance improved sharply: Revenue rose 82% year over year and 103% quarter over quarter to RMB232 million, while gross margin expanded to a record 37.5% from 28.1% a year earlier. Net loss narrowed 1% and EBITDA loss narrowed 8.1% year over year.
  • Positive Sentiment: Overseas expansion is accelerating through an asset-light model. Overseas revenue increased 164% year over year and represented nearly 40% of group revenue; the international Robotaxi fleet roughly doubled to about 400 vehicles, with operations spanning 12 countries and management targeting meaningful overseas growth and profitability by the end of 2026.
  • Positive Sentiment: L2++/L3 ADAS commercialization is scaling rapidly: The company delivered approximately 30,000 equipped vehicles during Q2, with revenue increasing about 26 times year over year, and expects more than 100,000 installed units by year-end and over 500,000 cumulative deliveries next year. WeRide also announced an L3 proof-of-concept program with Mercedes-Benz.
  • Negative Sentiment: WeRide remains significantly unprofitable and continues to invest heavily in technology. Q2 net loss was RMB401 million and R&D expense rose 36% year over year to RMB434 million; management expects positive cash flow in a single quarter by 2028 and full-year break-even in 2029.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
WeRide Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the WeRide second quarter and third half 2026 earnings conference call. Please note that today's event is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. For today's call, management will use English as the main language. A third-party interpreter will provide simultaneous Chinese interpretation. The company will be hosting a question and answer session after the management's prepared remarks. If you wish to listen to the management's original statements or ask a question during the question and answer session, please make sure you are dialed in to the English language line. Please note that Chinese interpretation is for convenience purposes only. In the case of any discrepancy, management statements in their original language will prevail.

Operator

Joining us today are WeRide's Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Dr. Tony Han, and CFO and Head of International, Ms. Jennifer Li. Before we continue, I would 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 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 announcement of the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for full disclosure of these risk factors.

Operator

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 the management's prepared remarks are in RMB terms and 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. With that, we will now begin with the company's video presentation.

Speaker 1

In the physical AI era, autonomous driving is evolving from single-vehicle intelligence toward an intelligent flywheel connecting data, models, vehicles, and operations. As the global leader in autonomous driving, WeRide continues to advance physical AI toward its next stage of commercialization. In China, we continue to strengthen our operational capabilities. With Beijing and Guangzhou as our core operating hubs, our fully driverless Robotaxi coverage continues to expand. Through deployment in complex urban environments and real-world operating scenarios, we continue to enhance system robustness, safety, and operational efficiency. To date, WeRide's autonomous driving footprint has expanded to over 60 cities across 13 countries worldwide. Internationally, WeRide is accelerating expansion across Europe and the Middle East through our asset-light model. In the Middle East, we have achieved fully driverless Robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi and Dubai while continuing to expand our operations in Riyadh.

Speaker 1

This proven Robotaxi commercialization model is now expanding from the Middle East to Europe. Following our rollout in Slovakia, WeRide is rapidly scaling across Europe. In June, we announced new Robotaxi deployments in Madrid and Zurich. In August, we announced plans to deploy Denmark's first autonomous shared mobility services. Within two months, we advanced public commercial operations across three countries, with Denmark representing our sixth European market. At the same time, we are accelerating expansion into right-hand drive markets. In April, we partnered with Grab to launch Singapore's first public autonomous driving mobility service. In June, we partnered with Geely, Farizon, and Kwoon Chung Bus to advance right-hand drive Robotaxi commercialization, with Hong Kong as the starting point. This marks a major step toward WeRide's Robotaxi mass production and operational capabilities across both left-hand drive and right-hand drive markets.

Speaker 1

Beyond Robotaxi, our Robobus business continues to advance commercialization in Europe with operational progress across France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, and other markets. Our L2++ and L3 solutions are scaling rapidly. To date, our single-stage end-to-end platform, WR3.0, has won mass production commitments across more than 30 vehicle models, with active road testing and market validation underway in key global markets, including Germany, France, and Japan. Behind these commercial achievements is our continuously evolving physical AI technology foundation. We introduced the WeRide WITT, the physical AI cognitive foundation model pioneering the concept of the minimum physical fact unit and building a new AI understanding framework centered on physical facts. Combined with the GENESIS world model, it connects high-quality real-world driving data, model training, and simulation validation to empower L2++ and L4, accelerating large-scale autonomous driving deployment. Operations validate technology. Technology empowers products. Products drive commercialization.

Speaker 1

WeRide continues to advance along this intelligent flywheel path, accelerating the global commercialization of autonomous driving.

Operator

Now, I would like to pass the floor to the company's Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Dr. Tony Han. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 2

Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We had a great second quarter this year. To begin, I'd like to highlight three key factors that defined our strong performance in the second quarter, and emphasize the exciting progress we are making today. That is overseas acceleration, asset light scaling, and a clear path to self-sustaining cash generation. We made strong progress across all three areas during the quarter, positioning the company for the next phase of growth. Turning to our financial performance, total revenue delivered robust growth, nearly doubling year-over-year and more than doubling quarter-over-quarter, with growth of 103%. Overseas revenue increased 164% year-over-year and approximately 170% quarter-over-quarter. Meanwhile, gross margins reached a record high of 38%, representing an improvement of approximately 10 percentage points compared with the second quarter of last year.

Speaker 2

Benefiting from continued improvements in operating efficiency, EBITDA also improved, with the loss narrowing by 8% compared with second quarter of 2025. On operational metrics, our L4 fleet reached approximately 3,400 units, up 22% since earnings release in April. Within that, our Robotaxi fleet grew by 500 units to more than 1,800 vehicles, making a 40% growth over the same period. Furthermore, our one-stage end-to-end L2+/L3 solution has progressed from securing design wins to full-scale mass production. Revenue from this business surged nearly 2,600% year-over-year and increased 219% quarter-over-quarter in the second quarter. During the quarter, we delivered approximately 30,000 units of our L2++ solutions, marking the beginning of a scaled high-growth commercialization for our L2+/L3 business. Across the industry, we believe we are uniquely positioned with both mature technology stacks and large-scale commercial deployment for both product lines.

Speaker 2

The multi-sensor fusion L4 autonomous driving solution and the proprietary one-stage end-to-end L2+/L3 solution for mass production. Turning to our strategy, this quarter, we segmented our business into three areas: L4, L2/L3 ADAS, and AI infrastructure to provide greater clarity into our long-term strategic planning. In the second quarter, we further advanced our strategy as a physical AI company built on proprietary infrastructure and foundation models, with autonomous driving representing the most commercially advanced application of physical AI. Our physical AI infrastructure enables us to distill the capabilities of large foundation models into efficient, lightweight onboard models. The key lies in our ability to transfer the underlying knowledge and the representations learned by large-scale models, not merely their outputs, into smaller models, while preserving the intelligence, generalization, and decision-making capabilities required for real-world autonomous driving.

Speaker 2

This enables us to bring increasingly powerful AI capabilities to cost-efficient onboard systems, supporting both the scaling of our L4 business and the continuous evolution of our WRD 3.0, i.e., our L2+/L3 solution. More importantly, this creates a powerful technology flywheel. Our real-world L4 operations generate high-value data that continuously improve safety, robustness, and generalization, while our growing L2+/L3 fleet generates additional raw data, accelerating L4 model development, and expanding coverage of long-tail scenarios. These are not two separate businesses. They are two reinforcing layers of one physical AI platform, where every vehicle deployed and every mile driven makes our technology smarter, safer, and more capable. Next, I will walk through our specific progress this quarter across technology development and commercial deployment. Starting with our L4 business, specifically Robotaxi. Our core themes are asset-light overseas acceleration and strengthening regulatory modes. Our overseas operations are built upon an asset-light model.

Speaker 2

We do not own operating vehicle assets. Vehicle serves as a hardware entry point for market expansion, while we work with local partners to deploy and operate the business. This model allows us to scale our footprint with significantly lower capital requirements and greater operational flexibility. Based on optimal utilization under normalized driverless operations, we estimate the steady-state annualized technology service revenue per Robotaxi could exceed $50,000. As our fleet scales, we expect increasing benefits from the data network effects, cross-market learning, and algorithm generalization, which should further improve vehicle-level economics and create meaningful operational leverage. I would also like to clarify how we define unit economics. Our overseas UE is not based on a fleet ownership plus ride-hailing platform model, where revenue is derived from fare charging at the gross level. Instead, our economics are based on a licensed virtual driver technology model.

Speaker 2

We provide regulated, locally verified, and recognized autonomous driving capability. We charge a recurrency from autonomous driving technology services and mileage-based fees. Because our positioning and our business model differ fundamentally, the same term UE carries very different operational and financial implications from those in traditional ride-hailing platform. Backed by partners like Grab, Uber, GreenMobility, SBB, et cetera, we are replicating this proven asset-light operational model across Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia. This marks that our overseas expansion is now entering a phase of large-scale commercialization. To put into more details, in second quarter, we announced new Robotaxi commercial partnerships in Madrid, Spain, Zurich, Switzerland, and Copenhagen, Denmark. In the Middle East, we continue to expand the full driverless Robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi and Dubai this quarter, now covering over 70% of the core urban areas.

Speaker 2

In Riyadh, our Robotaxi operation zone has expanded to the airport terminals and surrounding central business districts. By the end of 2026, we will be fully entering a phase of meaningful growth supported by secure licenses, expanding fleets, recurring orders, solid revenue, and profitability in overseas markets. This will demonstrate the successful execution of our overseas acceleration and asset-light expansion strategies. For the domestic market, we continue to strengthen our operational capabilities and extend our driverless operation zones in Guangzhou to key areas of Tianhe District, including Pearl River New Town, and Haizhu District, including the Canton Fair Complex. This represents a nearly threefold expansion in our ODD compared to the end of 2026. More importantly, our operating efficiency continued to improve meaningfully during the quarter. Average daily rides per vehicle reached 21, up by 24% quarter-over-quarter, while peak daily rides completed per vehicle climbed to 28.

Speaker 2

As a ride-hailing platform with self-operated Robotaxi fleets, we recorded nearly 35% quarter-over-quarter growth in registered users in China. This simultaneous expansion in scale, utilization, and user base drove a 140% sequential surge in our ride-hailing revenue, further demonstrating the scalability and strengthening the profitability of our operations. Looking ahead, as China's regulatory framework for autonomous driving continues to mature, we expect to further expand our Robotaxi operations into more cities in near term. At the same time, we will continue to build Guangzhou as our domestic benchmark with the goal of integrating driverless Robotaxi into public transportation system at scale. Together, these initiatives will provide a strong foundation for the next phase of domestic commercialization. Beyond this, I would like to take a step back and discuss our regulatory modes. The operational licenses we have secured overseas are by no means simple administrative approvals.

Speaker 2

They are a combination of years of technology adaptation, ecosystem integration, and rigorous safety validation. This creates a core competitive moat that puts us 2 to 3 years ahead of the market. This moat is built on three core pillars. First, deep technology localization and regulatory engagement. We adapt our technology to local traffic laws, road conditions, and the driving behaviors, while working closely with regulators throughout the process. Second, ecosystem and infrastructure integration. We establish deep technical integration with local operators and service providers, supported by strong on-the-ground execution. Third, rigorous field validation and safety performance. Our fleet continuously accumulates localized real-world data, while safety framework and track record provide the foundation for earning regulatory trust and securing commercial licenses. Importantly, as regulatory frameworks become increasingly aligned across markets, our experience and the validation in one jurisdiction can help accelerate approvals in the others.

Speaker 2

This reduces margin compliance costs, avoids redundant work, and creates increasing operating leverage, allowing us to scale our asset-light autonomous driving business globally with greater speed and capital efficiency. As a growing industry consensus on L4 core barriers was also shared by the same mobility platform during its Q2 investor presentation. Technical competitiveness depends not on total driving miles, but on the acquisition cost of rare scenarios, scenario diversity, and practical data quality. Besides, generic large foundation models cannot satisfy autonomous driving needs. AV systems rely on exclusive vehicle hardware and strict regulatory oversight, which demands customized models matching hardware specification and compliance requirements. Backed by our robust proprietary end-to-end data toolchain, diversified data set accumulated from long-term cross-border L4 operations, and outstanding self-developed algorithms, we keep upgrading vehicle engineering safety.

Speaker 2

Our field-proven safety performance earns sustained trust from global regulators, accelerates regional expansion, and builds an exclusive core advantage for global layout. Turning to our L2+/L3 business, three things define our progress: industry-leading technology, rapid commercialization at scale, and a path towards self-sustaining cash generation. Leveraging on our leading technology advantage in L2+/L3 algorithms, we have secured six consecutive championships at China's Intelligent Driving Competition, reinforcing our leadership position in intelligent driving technology. Commercially, we are entering a clear acceleration phase, with multiple OEM mass production programs advancing steadily. Recently, we launched an L3 autonomous driving POC program with Mercedes-Benz, making an important validation of our technology by leading global OEM and further demonstrating strong industry recognition of our technological capabilities. As of June 30, cumulative delivery of vehicles equipped with our one-stage end-to-end L2+/L3 solution has exceeded 30,000 units during the reporting period.

Speaker 2

Looking ahead, we expect the number of vehicles powered by our solution to exceed 100,000 by year-end and surpass half million units in cumulative deliveries next year, positioning us for significant scale-up in our L2++ ADAS business. Finally, I will provide a brief update on our AI infrastructure. In this quarter, we officially launched the WITT model, which is a physical fact foundation large model, completing a full capability loop spanning data comprehension, data generation, and end-to-end technical stack. It delivers deep synergy with our GENESIS world model. The WITT model extracts and verifies physical facts from road test data to build a cognitive foundation for machines to perceive and understand the real world. Leveraging validated physical facts, GENESIS reconstructs diverse extreme operating conditions and the long-tail scenarios via simulation.

Speaker 2

The two models work in tandem to perform a closed loop covering data generation, simulation, and algorithm iteration, driving continuous upgrades to autonomous driving technology. Currently, it underpins our two core business lines of L4 autonomous driving and mass-produced L2+/L3. In closing, in the second quarter, we delivered meaningful milestones and strong results across the business, which lead us to return to three key themes I highlighted at the beginning of today's call. Overseas acceleration, asset-light expansion, and self-sustaining cash generation. Looking ahead, our focus remains clear. On the L4 side, in overseas markets, leveraging our regulatory leadership and the permit advantages, we will replicate our Robotaxi proven model across Europe and other markets, accelerating the transition from successful validation to scaled deployment.

Speaker 2

In China, we will continue to expand our deep market strategy, building benchmark operations that are fully integrated into urban transportation system before expanding in a disciplined and a repeatable manner across major cities nationwide. On the L2+/L3 side, our top priority is straightforward. Win more OEM partnerships, increase our market share with key OEMs, and accelerate deployments at scale. Growth installed vehicles is our ultimate objective. Oh, I am sorry. Growth is the key. We will invest where we see clear conviction and the meaningful scale potential, rather than pursue growth for growth's sake. At the same time, we will remain focused on both long-term cash flow generation and profitability, rather than expand simply for the sake of expansion. Here, beyond the numbers, I would like to thank my team. This is a team that embraces hard problems, confronts reality head-on, and remain relentlessly focused on execution.

Speaker 2

That culture of intellectual honesty and operational excellence is what enable us to consistently turn vision into products into services, and services into large-scale commercial value, even in uncertain environments. Just as our physical AI foundation model, the WITT, World Intelligence Toward Truth, reminds us, true intelligence must be grounded in observable, verifiable facts about the physical world. The same holds our business. What ultimately matters is not what we claim, but what we continue to deliver in the real world. Narratives may change, technologies may evolve, and the market cycles may come and go, but facts endure. Real-world performance endures, and a proven track record remains the most powerful language of all. Next, I will turn the call over to our CFO, Jennifer, who will walk you through our second quarter 2026 financial performance in detail.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Tony. Hello, everyone. Let me start with a key message from the quarter. Q2 marks an important inflection point for WeRide, with strong revenue growth, continued gross margin expansion, and increasing operating leverage across the businesses. Importantly, this growth was driven by three areas where we believe we can support a more sustainable financial model over time. The acceleration of our overseas business, the scaling of our asset-light L4 model, and the rapid commercialization of our L2+/L3 business. We are increasingly seeing the benefit of the strategy in our financial results, particularly revenue growth, gross margin, and capital efficiency. In Q2, WeRide generated RMB 232 million of revenue, up 82% year-over-year and 103% quarter-over-quarter. Importantly, growth is broadening across both our businesses and geographies. Our L4 revenue reached RMB 125 million, up 47% year-over-year, primarily driven by Robotaxi. Our focus remained on scaling the core L4 business, particularly Robotaxi.

Speaker 3

Meanwhile, some of our other L4 businesses have natural seasonal cycles, with commercial negotiations typically complete in the first half, and revenue recognized as deployment takes place in the second half of the year. As those projects move into deployment, we expect stronger contribution from our broader L4 portfolio in the second half of this year. Our L2+/L3 business continued to accelerate rapidly, with revenue increasing approximately 26 times year-over-year, and 219 times quarter-over-quarter. This reflects the important transition from project development into mass production and scaled vehicle deployment. As more OEM programs move towards mass production, we expect L2+/L3 to become an increasingly important driver of our overall revenue growth. Overseas market accounts for nearly 40% of group revenue, and it is becoming an increasingly important growth driver as well. Overseas revenue increased 164% year-over-year, and approximately 170% quarter-over-quarter. More importantly, the economics of our overseas business are increasingly attractive.

Speaker 3

Our asset-light model allows us to scale through local partners and operating ecosystem without requiring a proportional increase in our own balance sheet investment. This gives us three important advantages: faster geographic expansion, improving margin as operation scales, and lower incremental capital requirements. We believe this model is an important foundation for our long-term path towards self-sustained growth. Turning to profitability at the gross profit level. Gross profit increased 143% year-over-year to RMB 87 million, while gross margin expanded 9.4 percentage points to 37.5%, compared to 28.1% in the same quarter last year. The improvement was driven by continuous scaling of our high-margin, asset-light overseas Auto business, rapid growth in the L2++, and an overall shift towards higher value AI service-oriented revenue. As this mix continues to improve, we believe gross profits can grow even faster than the revenue over time.

Speaker 3

Total operating expense were RMB 533 million in Q2, slightly up 9.2% year-over-year, slightly slower than the revenue growth. This is an early indication that operating leverage is taking hold. R&D expense increased 36% year-over-year to RMB 434 million, primarily reflecting our additional investments in AI infrastructure and foundation models. At the same time, a much slower growth in the total operating expense demonstrate that we are beginning to achieve greater efficiency as business scales. G&A declined significantly to RMB 69 million, mainly due to lower share-based compensation and professional fee. While selling expense only increased to RMB 29 million as we expand our commercial activities. Overall, we are seeing increasing operating leverage, while operating expense growing well below the revenue. Putting all this together, our net loss narrowed 1% year-over-year to RMB 401 million in Q2, while EBITDA loss narrowed 8.1% year-over-year to RMB 335 million.

Speaker 3

These results reflect the early benefit of our asset-light model and increasing operating leverage, particularly as we scale our overseas business and reinforce our path towards sustained cash generation. Finally, as of June 30th, we have approximately RMB 5.4 billion in cash and other liquid financial resource. This provides us a strong financial foundation for continued expansion. Let me close with four key takeaways. First, revenue growth is accelerating and becoming increasingly diversified. Second, our revenue mix is shifting towards higher margin physical AI service-oriented business. Third, operating leverage is beginning to emerge, with expense growing significantly slower than revenue. And fourth, our strong balance sheet and asset-light model provide a capital-efficient foundation for continued expansion. We believe Q2 demonstrate an early financial benefit of the model, and we have been building. Global expansion, asset-light deployment, higher physical AI service revenue, and increasing operating leverage.

Speaker 3

Looking ahead, our focus is to convert our commercial pipeline into scaled deployments, continue improving margin, and progressively translating revenue growth into stronger cash generation. We believe these are the key building blocks for durable capital-efficient growth, a leading position in global autonomous driving, and a sustained path to profitability. With that, operator, we are now ready to take questions. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, we only accept question in the English language line. To ask a question, please dial in to the English line and then press star 11 on your telephone touch tone keypad. If you have any follow-up question, please re-enter the queue. Thank you. Now we will take our first question. Just give us a moment. The question comes line of Jeff Chang from CT. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Speaker 4

Hi. Hi, Tony, Janice. Congratulations with the great result. My first question is that we note that WeRide currently has a diversified business portfolio spanning L4, L2++, L3, as well as the AI infrastructure. The question from me is how does management prioritize resources allocation across different business and regions? What are your goals for the second half this year? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thanks for the question. First, let me start with a little bit explanation about our financial foundation model. As you have noticed, these days, I think almost every industry have their capability boost. Back to five years ago, without large language model and AI progress, I do not think any company in this world can do L4 and L2++, L3 and AI infrastructure simultaneously. But recently we noticed with our boost in the AI model, especially our GENESIS and the WITT, we found suddenly we can build lots of technology into data synergies. That is, by the way, I want to explain a little bit about the name of the WITT. This model, W-I-T-T, we announced in a 2026 AI World Conference. It is a solution to a famous German philosopher, I think the greatest philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Speaker 2

His famous word, "The limit of my language is the limit of my world," is exactly what we just learned. We can segment every video into what we have called so-called minimal fact units. We basically can dissect every video and analyze every video into very atomic facts. Combined with our GENESIS model, we suddenly find out we can generate all kinds of data as we desired. Just like in The Matrix, one day, Neo just notice he see the nature of the world. We have this kind of feeling. So drastically, we reduce the resource we need and we can just, with one investment, we can do three things. That is L4 and L2++/L3 ADAS and AI infra.

Speaker 2

We build up our infra very strongly and generate the data from L4 and also generate data from ADAS and make these two things complement each other, build up a, we call it, double data flywheel. Actually, this flywheel is why we are the only company globally that has achieved driverless vehicle operation at large scale. At the same time, we have many car OEMs adopt our ADAS system. For the goal of our second quarter, we have several aspects. One is we want to toward accumulated half-million installation goal to work, and we want to really push forward to have lots of car OEMs adopting our ADAS system.

Speaker 2

Hopefully, in the fourth quarter, Tesla FSD may enter China, and we want to do a directly head-to-head comparison against FSD, because I am a heavily FSD user in California, and I drove our own ADAS system, our own car's based on WeRide ADAS system, WRD 3.0. I think these two things are comparable, so I want to see more car OEMs adopt ADAS system. Meanwhile, we will continue expand our Robotaxi fleet. Thirdly, for our AI infrastructure, we want more companies in the robotic industry, humanoid robot industry to adopt our infrastructure. That is the goal. Here I conclude my answer.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Tony.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 4

No more question.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The question comes line of Tim Hsiao from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Speaker 5

Hi, this is Tim from Morgan Stanley. Thanks for taking my question. First of all, congratulations on the robust top-line growth and the global expansion during the quarter. Just a quick question about the overseas business. I think on the call, the management has highlighted accelerating overseas expansion and large-scale commercialization. Just wondering, could you share more detail? How should we view your overseas strategy? In the meantime, can it be replicated across different regions? That's my question. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Tim. So yeah, like we just mentioned, overseas market is an important growth driver engine for us, and it's already contribute approximately for almost 40% of the group revenue. We do believe there is significant room to run, and the structural case is very compelling. Those markets we're entering into, they're all facing acute labor shortage and rising labor cost, which creates a strong natural demand for autonomous mobility. If we can, let me give you a sense of the pace. So for the Q2, in the past quarter, we launched three new Robotaxi deployments in Spain and Switzerland and in Denmark and in the Middle East. Our Robotaxi fleet has roughly doubled to around 400 vehicles since last quarter. If you recall from the Q1 earnings, at that time, we have around 200.

Speaker 3

Even considering the recent geopolitical tension in the region, we have doubled the fleet in the quarter. So the momentum is real, and it's accelerating. Also on the rapid capability. This is where we think our model generally differentiated. We operate overseas. We don't own any of the vehicles in operation. What we do is we handle the localized taxi adaptation and the regulatory compliance. Then we license our physical AI driver to local partners. So we capture the recurring technological service revenue, especially as our operation scales. This can let us expand very quickly without having heavy capital. Also we can maintain a good margin and good cash flow. What's more important, if we're looking at on the unit economic, the annualized recurring revenue per vehicle exceeds $40,000-$50,000.

Speaker 3

It also has meaningful upside as density builds up in each city. For us, our primary goal is just to increase the fleet size in cities where we already operate. We are very disciplined about where we go next. Usually, we pick the market with proven commercial potential and a reasonable regulatory barrier to entry. The playbook is well-established. Everywhere we go, we secure the permits, we adapt the technology locally, we set up a benchmark project in the region and flagship project in the region, then we replicate at a lower marginal cost. We generally believe this is going to be repeatable at scale, and today we have active L4 operations across 12 countries, all well on track. We are confident in the model and in our pipeline, and we look forward in serving passengers in more markets soon. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you very much for sharing all these details. It is really helpful. That is all my questions. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Tim.

Operator

Thank you. Now we are going to take our next question. The question comes line of Fulong from UBS. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Speaker 6

Thanks for having me, Jennifer. I have two questions. The first question is regarding the ADAS. Can you please update the latest progress and future plan for your L2++ and L3 business? Given the relatively small size of WeRide's team on this front, what is your competitive advantage in this highly intensive competition? My second question, if I may, is how do you see the OEMs and also the ADAS companies claim that they can build a Robotaxi by leveraging with the data they accumulated through the ADAS? How do you see these trends? Does this pose a threat to your Robotaxi business? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you so much for these two very important questions. Let me answer them one by one. The first question is about our latest progress and plan for our L2++/L3 ADAS system. To make it short, I would just use the ADAS to mean our business, including both L2++ and L3 systems. Also the question is about our currently competitive edge. First of all, I think, I have to say, the competition in ADAS system in China and also globally is quite intensive. Now everybody's trying to compare their ADAS system to the FSD version 14. According to our internal evaluation, I think we are currently definitely, in the urban scenario in China, we are on par with FSD.

Speaker 2

I am not sure whether you have noticed or not, just last week, I did a live stream with our ADAS experience in Zhujiang Xincheng, i.e., the Pearl River New Town, which is the central CBD area in Guangzhou. I drove the Aion N60 based on our WRD 3.0 ADAS system. At the same time, I do the live stream answering the questions from all audience from my live stream room. I do this live stream for 2 hours and just driving rush hour in Guangzhou without any intervention. The video is online. You can check it. I think according to my best knowledge, this is the first time a founder of ADAS company or autonomous driving company do a live stream in the rush hour in first-tier city without any intervention and answer the questions. That shows the breakthrough of our technology.

Speaker 2

In terms of the installation units, our revenue grows by 2,600%, that is 26 times year-over-year, and 220% quarter-over-quarter. In a very short of time, we have already had 30,000 units installed in our quarter. Our goal this year is to get 100,000 units installed, and next year, accumulatively, we want to get to half a million. This is by far the fastest speed I have ever noticed in the ADAS growth in terms of the installation unit. This is actually why can we do that? Thank you for your high praise. We are doing with a very relatively small team. The secret sauce is our two important large language model, GENESIS model and the WITT model. I do believe, as you guys already noticed, with AI, people can form a one-person company.

Speaker 2

With our very good AI infrastructure and the foundation model, we can actually build the best ADAS solution in China and in the world with a team of 200 or 300 people. That is the power of AI. Okay. So that is what I want to mention about our current progress. The second question, thank you. It is an outstanding question. That is, we have seen many OEMs, which are car OEMs or some company with ADAS solutions, claim like in a very high tone that, "We are entering Robotaxi sector, and we will do great things," lots of PR.

Speaker 2

My answer to this claim, or this goal is, actually, first of all, we welcome this kind of competition, and because this competition will make us stronger, WeRide as the leader and the first mover in Robotaxi industry, we expand globally, and we also have a very strong background in ADAS. We know the big difference. We know the requirements for redundancy, for the reliability. There is a 1,000 times difference. I just want to, as I mentioned at the beginning of this year, I proposed a qualification threshold for Robotaxi. That is, a company needs to operate at least for half year with a fleet of 100 driverless Robotaxi without any significant accidents, without severe accidents, they can claim themselves a Robotaxi company. Otherwise, it is just a claim. People make claim every day, and I do not need to respond to this kind of claim.

Speaker 2

I just want to mention, there is a big difference between ADAS system and L4 Robotaxi. People will say, "Okay, with this progress in large language model, we can solve the problems, like previously it takes 10 years of your efforts, we can solve probably half year." Now I make another claim, that is, hallucination in digital AI may be entertaining, but it is fatal in physical AI. So in physical AI, our society, our public roads cannot stand a fatal accident, if we can avoid it. But in digital world, you just restart computer or just do it again. But in the real world, a life lost is lost. You can never get it back. So with this kind of philosophy, with this kind of priority on safety, we know that we have very, very strong competitive edge. We have very deep moat for our L4 business.

Speaker 2

Okay, here are my answers to your two great questions. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Thank you very much. That is very clear. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Now we are going to take our next question. The question comes line of Tianyu Lu from CITIC Securities. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Speaker 7

Hi, Tony and Jennifer. This is Tianyu from CITIC Securities. I have only one question. How does management view the overall trajectory of future operating expenses, particularly R&D expense? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Hey, Tianyu, I will take your question. Well, like we just explained our financial result, you can see the operating leverage is already emerging. Revenue grow 87% this quarter, and R&D only increased like 36%. Our R&D is largely shared, like a technology platform supporting L4, L2++, L3, and all the other product categories. It does not really scale linearly with revenue or the vehicle deployment. As we can see, as we scale across different business, the R&D cost per vehicle will continue to decline. We have also moved past the peak investment phase for the AI infrastructure build-up and where the city deployment costs taper significantly once operations are established.

Speaker 3

Looking ahead, we think we will remain very disciplined in R&D spending and continue to invest in the technology mode, like say, for the foundation model, like on the GENESIS and WITT, what Tony Han just described. As our light L4 business scales and L2++, L3 enter into mass commercialization, we expect the operating leverage to accelerate. We remain very well on track to achieve a positive cash flow in a single quarter by 2028. And, we aim to have like a break-even in the full year 2029. Thank you.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question, and the question comes line of Mai Liu from HSBC. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Speaker 2

Thanks for taking my questions. The company just launched the WITT model. Tony Han, could you please share more about this? Thanks. Okay. I would like to share more about the WITT model. Okay. You can see from the WITT model. Basically, I will say the key part of the WITT model is trying, it provide WeRide a unique analysis tool for video. And combined with GENESIS model in tandem, we can first of all, if your video, it has many facts, and you cannot simply do causal inference across different videos. And it's just like I give you a machine, and WITT model can help you to dissect the machine and find out the relationship between different components. And GENESIS give you another capability of learning the functionality of components and put them together to build another machine.

Speaker 2

Basically, just like if I give you a Lego toy of maybe, say, for example, a Lego toy of a Jeep, then I can dissect it and make it into a cargo ship. By putting these two together, we believe we find a very unique path to analyze hundreds of videos, thousands, billions of videos, and find out the causal relationship between all the facts and then use them to generate the relevant data or very long-tail data for our autonomous driving. By this way, we actually boost our training capability and lower our training cost and build up the desired distilled onboard model. In the urban challenge, we won six consecutive championships. Our on-domain controller is relatively smaller, and the TOPS is much lower than our competitors. They may have 2,000 TOPS domain controller. We only have a 200 TOPS controller. But we are winning.

Speaker 2

Why? Because we can distill model according to our special needs, and we can get multiple long tail. That's the power of our tool foundation model. I will stop here. If you have further questions, you can also ask.

Speaker 8

Yeah. Thanks a lot, Tony. That's super clear. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Now we are going to take our next question. The question comes line of Ming Sun Lee from Bank of America. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Speaker 9

Oh, thank you, Tony and Jennifer, to give me the opportunity to ask. I just only have one question. We have noted that management emphasized your competitive advantages. The market's view on the industry are currently split. Could management articulate your competitive modes? Thank you.

Speaker 2

I want to understand what are the splits. Can you be a little bit more specific?

Speaker 9

Oh, yes.

Speaker 2

What kind of split view?

Speaker 9

What I mean is that, I think the industry, I think currently, the competition is getting more intensified. I think that's why the capital market has a different view on the industry competitive landscape. Just want the management team can articulate more about your competitive modes. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Okay, I got you. Okay, thank you for the clarification. I think, just I've mentioned, explained the foundation model we developed, right? The WITT and the GENESIS. I think people may want to try to do the same thing, but we have all the same objectives. Like everybody want to build electric cars. But the company who build up the best motor, the best battery, who has the best design aerodynamics will win big orders. For ADAS, I think, there's a grand challenge. I keep on saying that we won six consecutive championships. That is a challenge. We compete against all the top-notch ADAS system company. Also, our leverage on our L4 capability. We have a very large scale L4 driverless operations fleet, and it also operates globally, in Middle East, in Europe, and in China.

Speaker 2

We can gather all kinds of different data and improve our model. I think the only company in this world have so-called dual flywheel mechanism, that is getting data from L4 Robotaxi feed to help to improve L2/L3 ADAS system, and also get from L2, L3 ADAS data and help to improve L4. Because, with WeRide design, they are built on the same foundation model based on the very similar sensor configuration. We can use these two things in tandem to help leverage on each other and boost on each other. With this, I think we have our unique competitive edge and our results, our financial numbers, our competition numbers, our evaluation numbers have already show we're really in a leading position.

Speaker 2

Just a simple question, which company else have their founder, have their ADAS system doing live stream video and in the Tier 1 city for 2 hours without any intervention, parking lot to parking lot? To me, I am the only guy who first tried, and next month I am going to try it again. I think all the results make it quite straightforward that WeRide is a leader in both L2++ and L4, and we have very strong competitive edge.

Speaker 9

Thank you very much, Tony Han.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Now we are going to take our final question for today. The question comes from the line of Walter Patrick from LightShed. The line is open. Please ask the question.

Speaker 10

Thanks for taking the question. On the asset-light model and the platform relationships, under this structure, your partners own the vehicles, and the platforms basically own the riders. WeRide basically is sitting in the middle licensing the driver. That makes the durability of those relationships kind of the whole thing. On Uber, one of your partners, obviously in some markets, their track record here is obvious. You had them rotating Waymo out in Phoenix. They just wound down their Serve Robotics relationship. I guess if you can just review what exclusivity or minimum volume commitments that you have in the Uber markets. In the asset-light model, where you don't own the cars or the customers, what ends up being your leverage if the platform, Uber or whoever, decides to route demand to other partners?

Speaker 2

Jet, do you want to take this question, or you want me to take this question?

Speaker 3

Sure, I can take this question. First of all, Walter, we have this asset-light business model so that we can expand relatively faster, in the global market. Especially, wherever we go, we try to build an ecosystem with the local partners and, of course, also with the platform partners. We work with multiple platform partners, and we work with multiple and local partners. For us, this is really a huge market out there. This is really at the beginning. We think setting up a healthy ecosystem, it's going to set a good foundation for everybody. If you are looking at the real deployment figures globally, we believe we have the largest Robotaxi fleet outside China and U.S. among all of the AV competitors by a lot.

Speaker 3

We think that our strategic mode is not only just deploying the asset there and that's it. Basically, if you're looking at what we do everywhere, we sell the assets to the local partners or the fleet operators. Because we do have a bombed advantage from China, so we're going to keep that advantage. What's more importantly, because WeRide has a superior safety record, that's why we can get autonomous driving license in so many countries. Right now, we have autonomous driving license, official license from eight countries. We operate in 12 countries. Nobody else, based on my knowledge, have such an operation scale. For us, the responsibility, the key responsibility, is to get the regulatory permit. That responsibility is with WeRide, and that's going to be the key for the longer term.

Speaker 3

Everyone can be on the platform, but not everyone can get the regulatory permit. For regulator, everything is merit-basis. For the AV player who keeps having the good safety record locally, globally, they definitely can get more permit as business scales. But for some of them who does not have such a good record, in fact, some of the competitors, they will get questions, get suspension from the regulator when their safety accidents continues to happen. We have a strong confidence in our tech capability, in our local deployment capability, our regulator communication, and our safety capability, and we have strong confidence in WeRide's safety record. With all of that is how we build the strategic modes globally. Hope that answers your question.

Speaker 10

That is very help. No, that is actually very helpful, especially on the regulator side in terms of who has the power in the market. I just have one follow-up on the OEM side, and specifically with Mercedes-Benz. On the call, you just framed the L3 proof of concept as kind of a validation of the leading OEMs. But then Mercedes-Benz is also an NVIDIA flagship partner doing this autonomous program on the full NVIDIA stack. So they are not just using NVIDIA's open model. They are obviously doing the full stack. Can you just help us understand how this OEM, as an example, is evaluating WeRide, which NVIDIA would not already cover? Is this just a Chinese market thing difference where NVIDIA stack would not necessarily be accepted? Is it about cost? Is it again on the regulatory?

Speaker 10

Is it that the OEMs will have multiple sources for L3 or L4 or L2++, whatever it is? I guess the bigger question is, over time, if NVIDIA has a lot of money and they mature, what is ultimately going to have your software win at a company like Mercedes-Benz? Obviously NVIDIA with this open model and doing everything else, whether that is China, regulatory, or just cost.

Speaker 2

Let me answer this question. I think, first of all, under the contract, we cannot reveal too many detailed things. But I really appreciate this question. I always make a joke internally. I said, "Look, if you look at the internal nature of the company, WeRide doing lots of things. It is just like DeepSeek." I think previously, I always heard Sam Altman answer the questions from India engineers saying, "Okay, if you do not have such money," I do not remember that exact figure. It is like maybe, "If you do not have $20 billion, never think about trying large language model." But look what DeepSeek have done. I always believe the genius, the great engineers, the great minds can beat funds. That is why I like Silicon Valley. I believe the creativity of human nature.

Speaker 2

Therefore, I think WeRide is such a company with great creativity, with a lot of genius, and we will build out the best ADAS system, the best Robotaxi, which have already proved by the market. Look at the resource we put in our company, and look at results we have got so far. I think the answer to this question is very straightforward, and I really appreciate this great question. Hello? Can you hear me?

Operator

Thank you.

Operator

Yes, we do.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Operator

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Due to time constraints, I will conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much. Bye.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

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