Hong Kong-listed Horizon Robotics released its results for the six months ended June 30, 2026, on August 31.
Revenue rose 32.9% year-on-year (YoY) to RMB 2.055 billion (USD 305.4 million) in the first half, while gross profit increased 32.9% to RMB 1.356 billion (USD 201.5 million). Gross margin remained at a high level of 66%.
The results also point to a growing contribution from Horizon Robotics’ combined Arm and Android platform model.
Product solutions generated first-half revenue of RMB 926 million (USD 137.6 million), up 14.8% YoY, while shipments rose 12.1% to 2.218 million units despite the broader downturn in the automotive market. Excluding the impact of the strategic rollout of its HSD driving system, adjusted gross margin for product solutions reached 48.1%, about 3 percentage points above a year earlier.
Revenue from licenses and services rose 52.7% to RMB 1.129 billion (USD 167.8 million). Its share of total revenue increased from 47.8% to 55%, and the business posted a gross margin of 90.4%.
The figures suggest that the two parts of Horizon Robotics’ business can reinforce each other. As chip shipments grow, more customers adopt its algorithm licenses, development tools, and upgrade services, generating licensing revenue. In turn, licensed algorithms simplify development on Horizon Robotics chips and shorten the path to mass production, encouraging customers to buy its hardware.
Horizon Robotics also reached new highs across several market-share metrics in the first half of the year.
Its share of the advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) market among Chinese brands reached 50% for the first time, roughly twice that of the next-largest player. Its share of computing platforms for urban navigate-on-autopilot (NOA) systems rose from 17.9% in 2025 to 22.8%, taking it from third place to second behind Nvidia. Together, the two companies accounted for more than 60% of that market. Horizon Robotics also ranked first in the overall smart driving computing platform market, with a 31.9% share.
As of June 30, 2026, Horizon Robotics had secured design wins, or selections for use in vehicle programs, on nearly 500 models. These included close to 130 models with mid- to high-end driving assistance. HSD is entering a period of large-scale deployment in the second half. By year’s end, the company expects to complete design wins and deliveries for about 20 models, including new Volkswagen vehicles. It expects the number of models equipped with the technology to rise sharply in 2027.
For overseas markets, Horizon Robotics works with all six leading automotive exporters and has secured design wins for more than 60 export models. Several use its mid- to high-end smart driving hardware platforms.
Journey 6B has secured design wins from more than 25 mainstream automakers worldwide, representing expected lifetime volume of more than 20 million units. An integrated front-view camera developed by neueHCT using Journey 6B recently won a place on a global vehicle platform from a mainstream German automotive group. Vehicles using the platform will be sold in markets including Australia, New Zealand, and India.
In the first half, Horizon Robotics also expanded through global tier-one suppliers and partners including neueHCT, Astemo, Bosch, Carizon, and Denso. It reached two major production milestones.
First, Carizon’s advanced driver assistance solution entered mass production and will be installed in seven new electrified models from Volkswagen’s three joint ventures (JVs) in China.
Second, the Journey 6B chip entered mass production globally for the first time in GAC Toyota vehicles, marking its validation under a Japanese automaker’s stringent development requirements.
As Journey 6P and HSD production increases, and design wins for nearly 130 mid- to high-end models and overseas vehicles move into production, Horizon Robotics expects substantial gains in both business scale and average selling price (ASP). It expects these changes to support much faster growth in revenue and profitability.
At the earnings briefing, founder and CEO Yu Kai discussed Horizon Robotics’ product roadmap, the advantages of its business model, and his outlook for the market.
Aiming to become the market leader by 2027
Yu sees Horizon Robotics as a challenger seeking to gain ground in advanced smart driving.
The company began large-scale production of highway NOA chip solutions only in 2025 and started mass production of urban NOA software solutions at the end of that year.
Within six months, its share of smart driving chip solutions supporting urban NOA among Chinese domestic brands had risen by about five percentage points to roughly 23%. Its ranking climbed from third to second over the same period.
Yu described Horizon Robotics’ direct-sales approach as a Wintel model, drawing a parallel with Intel and Microsoft’s Windows business. Journey and Starry generate revenue through chip sales, while HSD and KKClaw generate revenue through direct software sales. When the industry reaches Level 4 autonomous driving, he expects software revenue to shift toward subscriptions.
“Wintel corresponds to Horizon Robotics’ ‘direct market share,’ meaning the share directly represented by our own products,” Yu said. “The Arm plus Android model represents our ‘extended market share,’ meaning the share we generate indirectly by enabling partners to use our technology IP to develop their own products.”
“So Horizon Robotics’ direct market share plus its extended market share will be larger than the direct share people can see,” he added. “Supporting automakers in developing their own chips or software is a typical example of the extended market concept. A high direct market share means Horizon Robotics itself is moving fast. A high extended market share not only brings in meaningful IP licensing revenue, but also helps us build lasting, long-term partnerships with customers.”
The changes in the ADAS market over the past few years provide one example. Horizon Robotics held less than 5% of the ADAS market in 2022. In the first half of this year, its share exceeded 50% for the first time and was twice that of the No. 2 player.
Gains in both direct and extended market share could allow Horizon Robotics to put pressure on Nvidia.
Yu expects Horizon Robotics chips and automakers’ own chips developed with its support to give the company the largest combined direct and extended share of the advanced driving assistance market by 2027.
Working with China’s leading brands
Yu said that in industries with limited scope for technological progress, leading companies quickly reach the frontier, leaving little room for further advances. Those markets are likely to remain fragmented.
Without a durable technological advantage, no company can establish a strong competitive position, he argued. Competition intensifies and eventually centers on price.
By contrast, he described industries with sustained opportunities for technological progress as having a “long runway with deep snow,” a metaphor for the room and resources needed to compound growth. In those industries, he argued, leaders can widen their advantage each year until latecomers struggle to catch up.
Smart driving, he said, is exactly that kind of industry.
“In the long run, I believe any smart driving player that wants to remain in the game first needs world-class chip and algorithm capabilities,” Yu said. “Then every player also needs the endurance for a long race, the financial capacity for sustained investment, and the ability to keep iterating. Frankly, none of that is easy. Horizon Robotics has all of these capabilities, so I am very confident that, in the eventual shape of the advanced market, Horizon Robotics will capture a larger share. That is my long-term view of the industry.”
According to Yu, Horizon Robotics’ J6M began supplying the largest new energy vehicle automaker only in 2025. By the end of this year, he expects it to account for 70–80% of that customer’s entry-level assisted-driving shipments.
The company’s chip with greater computing power and its HSD solution have also secured a design win for that customer’s advanced platform. Mass production and deliveries are due to begin this year.
Horizon Robotics believes its combined direct and extended shares will account for the bulk of that automaker’s business in this area.
In addition, China’s top five domestic automotive brands, including that customer, as well as its top two JV brands, have all awarded design wins to Horizon Robotics’ J6 chips and HSD solutions.
“The seeds planted this year will bear fruit later,” Yu said. “We expect volume deployment to begin next year.”
Yu said intensifying price competition could work in Horizon Robotics’ favor because it can offer automakers lower costs, stronger performance, and a better user experience.
He also expects more automakers to assess in-house chip and software development more rationally.
“We have always believed that, in the industry’s eventual end state, only the top 20–30% of automakers will continue developing their own technology, while the vast majority will use an independent third-party provider such as Horizon Robotics,” Yu said.
High margins support R&D as Horizon targets breakeven around 2028
Yu argued that sustained, intensive investment in an industry with a long development cycle requires sufficiently high gross margins to fund it.
“This is the foundation of our ability to keep investing,” Yu said. “Without that foundation, any talk of long-term investment is empty.”
“The revenue we see today is the fruit of investments made over the past several years. Put another way, financial statements always reflect the returns on past investments. What really determines the ceiling of our future financial performance is how intensively we invest in R&D today. If we do not invest enough today, we limit the ceiling for our future growth.”
Horizon Robotics therefore intends to sustain intensive investment to strengthen its long-term position rather than leave its progress to chance.
“Ultimate victory is built bit by bit through sustained and solid investment,” Yu said.
Yu argued that annual R&D spending of just over RMB 2 billion (USD 297.3 million) would be far from enough to reach the eventual technological frontier in smart driving.
If a few billion RMB in annual R&D spending were enough to reach that frontier, he reasoned, the barrier to entry would not be particularly high.
“Every automaker above a certain scale would have a chance of reaching roughly the same level,” Yu said. “Then this would become an industry with a low ceiling.”
Yu offered an example: at RMB 10 billion (USD 1.5 billion) in revenue and a 60% gross margin, Horizon Robotics would generate RMB 6 billion (USD 891.8 million) in gross profit. At that scale, it could invest more in chip and artificial intelligence R&D than most automakers could afford.
On profitability, Yu said Horizon Robotics is still aiming to reach breakeven around 2028.
“Considering the pace of revenue growth, our gross margin, and the intensity of R&D investment together, we believe that is an achievable timeframe,” he said.
Setting a new chip benchmark, with robotaxi trials on the way
On new products, Journey 7 is a chip designed for Level 3 and 4 applications.
Its architecture incorporates several advances. Computing power has increased substantially, and the chip is optimized to run Horizon Robotics’ next-generation HSD model, which has more parameters, and its KKClaw cockpit model locally.
Development is progressing smoothly, and the chip is expected to reach the market in 2027.
“Even though the product is still in development, Journey 7 has already attracted enormous attention from the market,” Yu said. “A number of leading automakers and first-tier suppliers have proactively approached us and expressed an interest in working together.”
“That indirectly demonstrates the market’s high expectations for a chip that we believe represents the most advanced level in the industry. We are also confident that, together with them, we can turn Journey 7 into a new benchmark for autonomous driving chips.”
Beyond hardware for Level 3 and 4 applications, Horizon Robotics plans to work with a leading technology platform on Level 4 robotaxi pilots in several cities this year. The projects will test and broaden the use of its software in advanced autonomous driving.
Yu said that once autonomous driving technology truly reaches Level 4, it will no longer matter whether people travel from point A to point B in their own car or in a driverless taxi.
“At Level 4, the underlying technology is the same,” he said.
The integrated cockpit and driving solution based on the Starry chip and KKClaw remains on schedule for mass production in the fourth quarter. That would maintain Horizon Robotics’ record of moving from tape-out, the completion of a chip’s design for fabrication, to mass production in a few months.
Despite a challenging industry environment, Yu said the company’s second-half outlook gives it confidence in generating more than RMB 5 billion (USD 743.2 million) in full-year revenue and building a solid pipeline for next year.
Expanding the market with partners
At the end of the earnings briefing, Yu reiterated the value and potential of Horizon Robotics’ business model.
First, Horizon Robotics has both chip and software platforms.
Its chip platform resembles Intel’s. On the software side, HSD and KKClaw serve as the operating system for a new generation of vehicles, with a sales model closer to Windows.
As HSD evolves, and KKClaw becomes a personal assistant embedded in vehicle owners’ daily lives, Yu expects the business model for automotive software to shift toward per-mile charges or subscription fees, similar to Microsoft 365 and many other products today.
Under its Arm plus Android licensing model, Horizon Robotics has licensed technology for years to multiple world-class automotive customers with the capabilities to develop their own products.
These include the world’s largest new energy vehicle automaker, one of the world’s largest automotive component groups, and China’s largest JV automaker.
Yu said the model encourages lasting relationships by embedding customers’ products in Horizon Robotics’ technology ecosystem and supporting cooperation across successive product generations.
“Our JV with Volkswagen, Carizon, as well as one of the world’s largest automotive component groups that I just mentioned, both continued to license algorithms, software, and services from Horizon Robotics in the first half of 2026, and they remained among our five largest customers,” Yu said.
“I have always believed that technology and the ecosystem are equally important. In technology, we pursue capabilities that can break through the ceiling, reach the top of the industry, and set the standard. In the ecosystem, we insist on an open and flexible business model designed to benefit partners across the board, so they can share in the gains and grow together with us.”
“Partners are willing to stay with you because you can genuinely support them through chips, software, and toolchains. That is how you expand the market together.”
Beyond automobiles, Horizon Robotics has found that technologies developed for vehicles can be adapted and extended to other uses.
They can support applications running on devices rather than in remote data centers. These include humanoid, wheeled, and quadruped robots; a “Jarvis” for the home, referring to an AI assistant that can help with household needs; and autonomous delivery vehicles that improve logistics efficiency.
One example is D-Robotics, a Horizon Robotics affiliate. It has supported more than 100 downstream robot categories for over 400 customers, reaching more than half the companies in China’s embodied intelligence sector.
“Horizon Robotics focuses on BPU and AI foundation models and licenses them externally, from automobiles to robotics, through the Arm plus Android model,” Yu said.
“Horizon Robotics and D-Robotics have quickly become the ‘common denominator’ for domestic robotics computing chips and model foundations.”
In addition, Horizon Robotics’ open-source embodied models have now been tested or used by more than 100 academic institutions and companies, including Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft, ByteDance, Alibaba Group, Unitree Robotics, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, and Stanford University.
Within the next six months, Horizon Robotics also plans to release its next-generation models for cognition and motor control, combining a world model with a general-purpose understanding model.
This article was adapted based on a feature originally written by Stone Jin and published on IPO Zaozhidao. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.
Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.73 = USD 1 based on estimates as of September 11, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.