Nasdaq-listed WeRide released its financial results for the second quarter and first half of 2026 on August 12.
The company generated RMB 345.9 million (USD 51.2 million) in total revenue in the first half of the year, up 73.3% year-on-year (YoY). Second-quarter revenue reached RMB 231.7 million (USD 34.3 million), up 82.2% YoY and 103.1% quarter over quarter. Gross margin rose to 37.5%, up 9.4 percentage points from the second quarter of 2025.
As of July 31, WeRide’s global Level 4 fleet stood at about 3,400 vehicles, including more than 1,800 robotaxis.
WeRide founder and CEO Tony Han said the company made significant progress during the second quarter in accelerating overseas expansion, scaling through an asset-light model, and building more self-sustaining cash generation capabilities.
Jennifer Li, WeRide’s CFO and head of international business, said the company continues to pursue a balance among business defensibility, scale expansion, and cash flow stability, and plans to maintain that approach over the long term.
Robotaxi unit economics continue to improve
By revenue mix, WeRide is advancing the commercialization of its Level 2++, Level 3, and Level 4 businesses in parallel.
Second-quarter revenue from its Level 4 business rose 130.6% quarter over quarter to RMB 125.2 million (USD 18.5 million), while registered robotaxi users increased 35%.
During the quarter, WeRide’s robotaxis averaged more than 21 rides per vehicle per day, up 24% quarter over quarter, with a peak of 28 rides per vehicle per day. Ride-hailing revenue increased about 140% quarter over quarter.
In China, particularly at its two core operating hubs in Beijing and Guangzhou, WeRide continued to expand robotaxi coverage. In Guangzhou, its service area now covers Huangpu, Tianhe, Haizhu, and other districts. The coverage area has expanded to three times its size at the end of 2025, while the service now operates commercially around the clock.
WeRide said robotaxi utilization and per-vehicle unit economics continued to improve.
At the same time, supported by the rapid growth of its Level 4 business, WeRide’s Level 2++ and Level 3 operations have emerged as another growth driver.
Its self-developed WRD 3.0 one-stage solution has secured production design wins for more than 30 vehicle models. It is also undergoing on-road testing and localization validation in Germany, France, Japan, and other overseas markets.
Those design wins give WeRide a visible revenue pipeline for its Level 2++ and Level 3 business over the next two to three years.
Even as WeRide expands its overseas validation infrastructure, its WRD 3.0 smart driving solution continues to undergo testing on China’s roads.
Over the past six months, Chery’s Exeed Sterra ES and ET models equipped with the system have won six consecutive rounds of the China Urban Intelligent Driving Competition. The solution has also secured production design wins across more than 30 models from customers including Chery Automobile and GAC Group, expanding WeRide’s potential commercial pipeline.
Asset-light overseas expansion begins to scale
Overseas expansion has become one of WeRide’s strongest sources of growth. International revenue rose 154.4% YoY in the first half of 2026. In the second quarter, it increased 164.4% YoY and 169.3% quarter over quarter.
In June, WeRide and Uber announced plans to launch Spain’s first commercial robotaxi service in Madrid in 2026. The companies later announced plans to introduce commercial robotaxi services in Zurich.
In August, WeRide entered the Nordic region for the first time, partnering with GreenMobility on Denmark’s first autonomous shared mobility project. Public robotaxi operations are scheduled to begin in the first half of 2027.
In the UAE, WeRide has launched fully driverless robotaxi operations in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with its service footprint in each city covering more than 70% of core local areas, according to the company. Its robotaxi fleet in the Middle East currently numbers about 400 vehicles.
As of August 12, WeRide said its autonomous driving businesses had expanded to more than 60 cities across 13 countries.
As WeRide accelerates its global expansion, it is relying primarily on an asset-light model. The company combines its Level 4 autonomous driving technology with established local operating systems and ride-sharing expertise through partnerships, allowing it to adapt vehicle operations and local resources to the needs of individual markets.
Li said WeRide’s asset-light model is highly replicable, supported by the performance of its driverless vehicles and its established overseas ecosystem, and has already scaled rapidly across multiple cities.
Business mix lifts gross margin
WeRide’s second-quarter gross margin rose 9.4 percentage points to 37.5%, supported by a sharp increase in overseas revenue and a greater contribution from higher-margin Level 2++ service revenue.
The shift in business mix could support further growth if those trends continue. As of June 30, the company held about RMB 5.4 billion (USD 799.2 million) in cash, time deposits, wealth management products, and other liquid financial resources, giving it additional capacity to fund commercial deployment.
At the same time, WeRide continues to invest in new technologies and product development.
In July, WeRide launched WITT, a model designed to extract structured knowledge from operating data. According to the company, WITT processes real-world driving data through fact extraction, reasoning, verification, and curation.
Compared with general-purpose large models with hundreds of billions of parameters, WeRide said WITT uses a lighter-weight architecture that can reduce token costs by as much as 98% on comparable tasks. The company also said a single graphics processing unit can process as much as 10,000 minutes of vehicle operation video per day, delivering up to a 200-fold improvement in data-processing efficiency while supporting artificial intelligence training, evaluation, and model iteration.
Earlier, in June, WeRide announced a partnership with Geely Farizon and Kwoon Chung Bus Holdings to develop a robotaxi for right-hand-drive markets. The companies plan to begin deployments in Singapore and Hong Kong, with the goal of extending the product to other right-hand-drive markets.
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 6.76 = USD 1 based on estimates as of August 14, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.