WeRide - Earnings Call - Q2 2025
July 31, 2025
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to WeRide's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. The company will be hosting a question and answer session after management's prepared remarks. Please note that today's event is being recorded. The company's financial and operating results were released by the Newswire earlier today and are currently available online. Joining us today are WeRide 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. Today's call will include forward-looking statements, including WeRide strategies and future plans.
Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors. Please refer to the risk factors section of the company's U.S. prospectus filed with the SEC for a full disclosure of these risk factors. Please note that all numbers stated in management's prepared remarks are in RMB terms, and we will discuss non-IFRS measures today, which are more thoroughly explained and reconciled to the most comparable measures reported in the company's earnings release and filings with the SEC. With that, I'll now turn the call over to the company's founder, Chairman and CEO, Dr. Tony Han. Please go ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. Your conference will begin shortly. We do appreciate your patience. Please stand by. Ladies and gentlemen, we do appreciate your patience. Please stand by.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Hello, can you hear me now?
Operator (participant)
Tony, you may begin.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Hello, can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Just want to double check with you,
Operator (participant)
Tony. Your line is loud and clear. You may begin.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Okay, thank you. Sorry about this technical problem. I will start now. Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. This past quarter has been both exciting and full of progress. As WeRide, we remain committed to our long-term vision, transforming the future of mobility through safe and accessible driverless solutions. Over the past few months, our teams have reached significant milestones. Most notably, the rollout of our Robotaxi service to Dubai, Riyadh, and Shanghai. These new locations expand our global footprint to 10 cities around the globe, making a major step forward. We also partnered with Lenovo to launch our latest computing platform, HPC 3.0. This breakthrough offers a new level of cost effectiveness and scalability for Level 4 autonomous vehicles. With that in mind, let's take a look at some of the key highlights from this quarter.
We have made major progress in expanding our global Robotaxi operations and this is just beginning. Today, we operate the largest public commercial Robotaxi fleet outside the U.S. and China. The Middle East is a strategic priority for WeRide and it will remain one of our key growth regions throughout 2025. In 2023, we became the first company to be granted a nationwide permit in the UAE and last December we launched a partnership with Uber. In just six months, the WeRide Uber Robotaxi fleet have tripled in size, now covering roughly 50% of Abu Dhabi's core areas including major highways and airport. By year end, we aim to further scale the fleet to hundreds of vehicles and expand service into new areas such as Khalifa City, Masdar City, and the Mall of Downtown Abu Dhabi. This growth is expected to double our ride volume.
On average, each Robotaxi is to complete dozens of rides in a typical 12-hour shift, with each typical ride exceeding 6 km. We have also begun driverless testing in Abu Dhabi, paving the way for commercial driverless launch in the months ahead. We couldn't be more excited about what is to come. In June, we kicked off testing in Dubai and anticipate launching our pilot operation later this year. During this initial phase, a safety driver will be present in the vehicle, much like our approach in Abu Dhabi. Our ultimate goal is to introduce a full driverless service in Dubai by next year. As part of our strategic plan with Uber, we are expanding commercial Robotaxi service to 15 additional cities. Earlier this month, we partnered with the Transportation General Authority of Saudi Arabia to launch the kingdom's first ever Robotaxi pilot in Riyadh.
The initial rollout covers key locations including King Khalid International Airport, major highways, and several city center destinations. Riyadh is now the third city where WeRide and Uber have introduced Robotaxi services. Together we are also making waves in China where our Robotaxi service not only serves as a proving ground for our technology, but also plays a vital part of our commercial operations. This month at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, we announced our debut in Shanghai through our collaboration with Chery and Jinjiang Taxi. Together we are launching our town's rides to major city landmarks including the Shanghai World Expo Center, Pudong International Airport, and Shanghai Disney Resort. On the heels of our Robotaxi success, new opportunities are emerging for the commercialization of our other airport products. In Guangzhou, our RoboVan W05 has secured a second round of permits.
Following its successful debut in April in Singapore, we launched fully driverless Robobus operations in Sentosa, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia. Meanwhile in Paris, we partnered with Renault Group for the second consecutive year to provide robot shuttle service at the prestigious Roland-Garros tennis tournament. These milestones reflect our commitment to safety and our proven track record of transporting tens of thousands of passengers around the world. What truly sets us apart isn't just our ability to commercialize, but our relentless drive to innovate. Earlier this month we unveiled HPC 3.0, our proprietary computing platform developed in collaboration with Lenovo. HPC 3.0, featuring dual NVIDIA Thor chips, delivers up to 2000 TOPS of AI computing power, making it one of the most powerful computing platforms for L4 autonomy.
This full auto grid computing platform with a design 10 years of lifespan is rigorously tested under extreme weather conditions. Not only does it deliver exceptional performance, it also cuts the cost of our autonomous driving suite by 50%, positioning WeRide strong for large scale commercial deployment. HPC 3.0 is already integrated into our GXR Robotaxi, making it the world's first mass-produced Level 4 autonomous vehicle using NVIDIA Thor chip. In partnership with Chery, we have also introduced our next gen Robotaxi CER which is now ready for mass production. CER is built with five-layer redundancy across the core systems including the steering system, braking system, communication system, and power supply, ensuring we maintain the same high safety standards proven over the past 2,200 days of public operation. As we continue to scale our operations, policy compliance remains a critical pillar for our strategy.
We are incredibly proud of the trust we have earned globally. We are now the only company in the world whose products were granted autonomous driving permits in six countries. Each of these permits represents not only the right to operate, but also a stamp of recognition showing that our vehicles meet the high standards wherever we go. To date, we have logged more than 14 million kilometers of real-world autonomous driving mileage, continuously making our system smarter, safer, and more reliable. Now I will pass to our CFO Jennifer Li to discuss the company's financial performance.
Jennifer Li (CFO and Head of International)
Thank you, Tony. Hello everyone. Before we dive into the Q2 financial, I want to highlight that all figures are in RMB and comparisons are year over year unless stated otherwise. Now let's discuss our second quarter financial performance. We delivered total revenue of RMB 127.2 million, up 60.8% year over year, driven by strong growth across both product and service segments. This performance underscored accelerating commercial momentum of our global strategy. Product revenue delivered strong growth of 309% year over year to RMB 59.8 million in Q2, driven by steadily increasing demand for our Robotaxi and RoboSweeper. Robotaxi revenue reached a record high of RMB 45.9 million, up 836.7% year over year, marking its highest ever contribution to group revenue at 36.1% since 2021. This growth reflects our global market leadership.
We now operate the largest Robotaxi fleet in the Middle East, this rapid expansion in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia's first ever Robotaxi pilot operation in Riyadh. We also have strong regulatory momentum. WeRide is the only company with autonomous driving permit in six countries, which means our technology meets a high global safety standard. This demonstrates our technology advantages and encouraging success of our globalization strategy. Service revenue grew 4.3% year over year to RMB 67.4 million, supported by a RMB 35.8 million increase in intelligent data services and L4 operational support, which is partially offset by the completion of legacy ADAS R&D contract. Group level gross profit increased 40.6% to RMB 35.7 million for the second quarter with a group level gross margin of 28.1%, underscoring our continued commercial leadership and industry. This healthy margin reflects the strength of our international expansion and Robotaxi business growth.
Operating expense increased 42.5% year over year to RMB 487.8 million with R&D accounting for 65.4% of the total. To break down this further, R&D expense increased by 33.1% to RMB 318.9 million in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the same period of last 2024. Excluding share-based compensation, R&D expense increased by 50.5% to RMB 280.3 million. The increase in R&D expense was primarily due to an increase of RMB 45.1 million in personnel related expense from headcount increase as well as average salary increase. Also, there is an increase of RMB 31.5 million in services for R&D projects. Administrative expense increased by 71.3% to RMB 155.1 million. Excluding share-based compensation, administrative expense increased by 93.8% to $75.6 million. This increase was primarily due to an increase of $28.9 million in professional service fee mainly related to audit and legal compliance services.
Selling expense increased by 12.9% to $13.8 million. Excluding share-based compensation, selling expense increased by 17.5% to $12.1 million. We continue to prioritize our talent strategy, recognizing that a growing team of high-caliber professionals remains pivotal to sustain our technological leadership. Together with our expanding commercial outreach, those investments are laying a resilient foundation for long-term competitiveness. Our net loss decreased by 1.7% to $406.4 million in the second quarter of 2025. On a non-IFRS basis, the net loss increased to $306 million mainly due to continued investment in R&D and the broader operating activities. As of June 30, 2025, we hold a total capital reserve of $5.8 billion including $4.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents and time deposits, $1.7 billion in wealth management products, and $15.4 million in restricted cash. We believe our sustainable liquidity position will continue to fuel robust R&D effort and support our scale-up ambitions.
In conclusion, our recent progress in jobless activities, which is now underway in Abu Dhabi, and the recent launch in Riyadh, Shanghai, and Singapore validate our path to commercialization. This Robotaxi unit economic improving and partnership accelerating. We are confident our ability to convert global potential into long-term value. With that, operator, we are now ready to take some questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile our Q and A roster. One moment for our first question, which will be coming from Life Museo and CICC. Your line is open.
Good evening, Tony and Jennifer. Congrats on your strong results, and thanks for taking my questions.
For Tony, could you elaborate a little.
bit about how should we consider your company's multi product strategy?
What is the relationship between Robotaxi.
Other products such as Robobus?
Jennifer, we see an expanding revenue contribution of your Robotaxi business.
Is this trend going to sustain in the coming quarters? What are the key drivers? Thanks.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Okay, so thank you for the question. I will answer the first one and I think Jennifer can follow up with the second one. This is about our multi product strategy. I think all over the world, among all autonomous driving companies, I mean leading top rated leading autonomous driving company WeRide is the only company have this multi product strategy. You know at WeRide we take a one platform approach. That is we do build up a universal platform called WeRide One and that one actually, that platform powers multiple urban mobility applications including all of the products you mentioned. Among all of this Robotaxi is our flagship user case. What is the advantage of this one? The advantage, there are several advantages of this strategy. One is like this setup gives us access to a huge pool of high quality and well-bore data.
That means the data you collected with a RoboSweeper or with a Robobus actually can be used for Robotaxi. During the past eight years people keep on talking about in order to build a great Robotaxi or any L4 products, you need cover lots of long tail corner cases. These corner cases are very rare. There's no guarantee like you can use your Robotaxi to capture all corner cases. However, if we have RoboSweeper, RoboVan and Robobus all over the city, then we have much bigger, four or five times bigger chance to capture this very precious corner case so that we can improve our system. Besides, for the marketing expansion reason, not every market is actually ready for full blown Robotaxi service yet. That is the reality.
Our multi product lineup gives partners and governments the flexibility to roll out autonomy in a way that fits their pace and priorities. For example, take Paris, Singapore and Japan as examples. These regions, these countries actually having some problem of aging population and a shrinking public transport workforce. For them Robobus is often the entry point to alpha autonomy. Starting with Robobus actually helps us to build public trust and gives regulators time to develop the right framework. It's a smart way to actually avoid costar problem that often stops a new tech rollout. Also, I'm proud to share with you that because all these products and we have already worked with all governments, I'm appointed as a member of Singapore steering committee on AVs. This committee actually is chaired by the Acting Minister for Transport in Singapore, Mr.
The committee is tasked to looking to ensure AVs are safely integrated into Singapore's land transport system, create new jobs and improve everybody's connectivity for residents. Actually, it is a great honor for us to contribute to this important national initiative and also to support the development of AVs through strategic guidance, ship and leadership. Overall, I think with all these products and we have many more opportunities, many times more efficiency in data collection and many times more robust in supply chain. I believe this strategy is one key factor that make WeRide so successful. That's all I want to say about this first question and Jen, do you want to answer the second question?
Jennifer Li (CFO and Head of International)
Yeah, I'll take the second question for the revenue contribution on Robotaxi side. We have seen strong momentum in our Robotaxi revenue and we believe this trend is here to stay. In Q2 2025, Robotaxi revenue hit a record high, accounting for 36% of the total revenue. Going forward, we expect it to continue and remain to be a major revenue contributor as we continue to scale globally and lead a charge in commercialization of the Robotaxi. Our core engines are driving the growth are as follows. First of all, it's on the fleet expansion side. As we roll out more Robotaxi and launch operation in key overseas markets, a larger fleet directly translates into stronger revenue. Secondly, our Robotaxi runs a triple growth engine. It started with the hardware sale and it follows with the service revenue as well as the revenue sharing.
While the hardware anchors the growth today, the service and service revenue as well as the revenue sharing model offers the long term upside as our operation matures. Thirdly, we're targeting markets with the stronger unit economics, especially in those with a higher price per km. This is a key factor in scaling revenue efficiently. Robotaxi isn't just part of our product lineup, it's the heart of our global strategy. That will be all from my answer.
Yeah.
Got it.
Thank you, Tony and Jennifer.
That's helpful, thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question will come from Tim Hsiao of Morgan Stanley. Tim, your line is open.
Again.
Tim of Morgan Stanley, your line is open.
Tim Hsiao (VP and Equity Research Analyst)
Yes, thank you very much for that. This is Tim from Bogus Daily. Thanks Tony, Jennifer, and Tim for taking my questions. Congratulations on the solid progress in the Robotaxi business. I have two questions. The first one is about the auto grade HPC 3.0 platform. Apparently, it's super impressive that the new generation platform could cut the cost by 50%. I just want to know when we are going to deploy the HPC 3.0 platform on our next generation Robotaxi and when we are going to start the mass production. In the meantime, I also want to know if there will be any design changes to revise the next generation Robotaxi that can help to further enhance the passenger user experience. That's my first question.
Thank you.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Okay, thank you, Tim. First of all, for about one question, I think HPC 3.0 is already on road. We have spent more than two years working on this very exciting project and now finally we got the results, a very satisfactory results. Our Robotaxi GXR is the world's first mass production L4 autonomous driving Robotaxi actually with NVIDIA Thor platform. As people know, Thor is currently the most advanced auto grade computational platform produced by NVIDIA. We have achieved that. I do believe HPC 3.0, with that dual NVIDIA Thor platform, dual Thor chipset, is a game changer. Why is that? The computational power is absolutely next next level. Previously, competitors' computational platform is around anything between 500 TOPS to at most 1000 TOPS. Now our fully auto grade computational platform is 2000 TOPS.
This actual horsepower allows us to process more sensor data using large models and have lower latency all in real time. That must lead to much better user experience. I also want to emphasize making a computational platform of 2000 TOPS is quite hard. Make it full auto grade is much harder. This is actually really critical. There are a lot of industry standards such as ISO 26262 and functional safety and AEC Q100 for quality, we have to handle all of this. Actually, the HPC 3.0 meets these standards. Also, HPC cuts our manufacturing cost by up to 50% so it's ready for large scale mass production. That's a very important breakthrough. One major improvement in terms of our planning algorithm is actually with this enhanced computational platform, we can launch a groundbreaking free pickup drop off called to do setup for users now at Beijing Yizhuang.
We achieve this kind of to do functionality, so pick up, drop off. Of course, you cannot drop off at any street that is not allowed to pick up and drop off, but as long as the municipal government allows us to pick up and drop off, we can achieve that kind of functionality. The user experience has been improved a lot. That's my answer to the question.
Tim Hsiao (VP and Equity Research Analyst)
That's super helpful, thank you Tony. My second question is also about Robotaxi. As Jennifer mentioned during the presentation, WeRide leads the pack to hold the AD permits in six countries. I think Tony also mentions this is just beginning. I just want to know how many permits currently are in our pipelines where we can get by end of this year, and separately, if excluding China, what's WeRide's current fleet size in those countries globally? What's our expansion target for Robotaxi by end of this year and for 2026? That's my second question.
Thank you.
Jennifer Li (CFO and Head of International)
I'll take this question. About the permit side, right. The granting of the permit is a rigorous process in each country. We are making responsible progress every step along the way. Now we have obtained the driverless testing permit in Abu Dhabi and we expect to upgrade the testing permit to driverless commercial permit in the coming months, which is a huge step for Abu Dhabi. We will have similar progress take place in other countries. Fleet size wise, now we have a fleet size of more than 1,300 autonomous vehicles globally, and we're still growing. Now about a little bit less than one third of the fleet is outside China in the domestic market. Our focus will be just on steady, policy-aligned expansion. Wherever the policy allows us, we will just go to those places. We are building on those existing open zones and open regulatory progress.
Recently, we just got the autonomous driving permit in Shanghai together with Chery, and in China we expect by end of this year we aim to add hundreds more vehicles to our fleet. Internationally, which is more a focus for the earning, you can tell that we can see tremendous upside, especially in those regions like Middle East, Singapore, Europe, where the market potential and unit economics are highly attractive for Robotaxi deployment. Governments in those regions are also setting very ambitious goals. I'll give you one example. Saudi Arabia's Transport General Authority has publicly committed that they will reach 25% autonomous driving penetration by 2030. Similar plans were also announced by Abu Dhabi and by Dubai. That sends a clear signal that autonomous driving products will be a key part of the region's future mobility. We did a simple math.
If by hitting a similar penetration rate in the region, that will give us the room of 30,000 or more like 80 products in this region, like for global tax as example. We're moving fast to capture those early opportunities in those developed countries. Our goal is to develop hundreds and maybe next year thousands of vehicles globally. This year we'll do hundreds, and next year, hopefully if the permit allows, we would love to do thousands. Focusing, we would like to focus on those markets where the demand, the support, and the infrastructure are already lining up. Those are the targeted areas. I hope that answers your question, Tim.
Tim Hsiao (VP and Equity Research Analyst)
Yes, thanks for sharing all the details, and congratulations again. Looking forward for more good news.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you.
Jennifer Li (CFO and Head of International)
Thank you, Tim.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question will be coming from Jia Shen of JPMorgan. Your line is open.
Yeah, thank you for taking my question. This is Jiajia from JPMorgan. I have two questions. The first one is regarding the business model of your Robotaxi. In long run, how should we think about it? Through your collaboration with ride-hailing platform, what kind of role will they play? My second question is regarding the HPC. It's glad to see you launch the new generation of the computing platform. My question is, how is HPC 3.0 going to drive your scaling from here and what's its implications? Your unit economics. Thank you.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Okay, can you hear me? Can you hear me clearly? I'm not sure.
Jia Shen (Assistant VP)
Yes.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Okay, good. Okay. First of all, about the Robotaxi business model. I think to WeRide, the keywords for WeRide's business model is actually partnership. For WeRide's Robotaxi strategy, we want to develop and build a deep win-win partnership with top mobility players in the market. That means we focus on what we are good at. We are good at developing L4 level autonomous driving technology, and at the same time our strong partners will bring their expertise in fleet operations, maintenance, marketplace, and customer service. This kind of collaboration will build up a kind of union which supplies the best service to our users. Just to give an example, our partnership with Uber not only led to their second investment in WeRide, but also set up a blueprint for how we enter new international markets. Together, we prove that autonomous tech.
We.
Provide actually autonomous driving technology and they bring operational help across the whole Middle East. We collaborate. We also collaborate with Steer AI in Saudi Arabia and Text AI in UAE. In Europe we have launched Robobus service with Renault and kick off robotext texting with SBB and STL. In Southeast Asia, our strategic alliance is Grab and also SMRT and others helping us, helping us in the relative regions. We are very actively seeking for the collaborators. With all that said, we believe for strategy, we believe like first-mover advantage is critical. By partnering with strong local operators, global operators, we are not only shortening our time to market, but also build a very robust scalable ecosystem that combines cutting-edge technology with proven operation excellence. That's how we push for the large scale. That's our strategy.
Operator (participant)
One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Zhenyu Feng of UBS. Your line is open. Our next question comes from Xinyu Fang of UBS.
Xinyu Fang (Analyst)
Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Yes, we can.
Xinyu Fang (Analyst)
Okay, great. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. My first one is that recently we've seen OEMs like Tesla entering the space of Robotaxi operation. Could you kindly share your thoughts on the future competitive landscape of Robotaxi.
Both domestic and overseas?
Thank you.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Okay, so I'll take this question. It's about a competitive landscape. First of all, I want to mention Robotaxi because it is such an important area and with huge market potential in this field. Over the past 10 years, there has never been one day without lots of competitors. You know, since we founded this company in the year 2017, there are many very well known giants and also very well known startups that entered this field. The Robotaxi competition actually has been ongoing for more than eight years. Over the eight years, WeRide has grown into a top autonomous driving and Robotaxi company in this world. We have expanded our operations in more than 10 cities and many, many countries. We hold six testing permits from six countries. I think we really are very confident about our competition capability.
I want to emphasize what really sets WeRide apart is actually WeRide's proven ability to deliver safe, reliable, and scalable public transportation. We have been offering public global tech service since the year of 2019. We are still proud to say over the past 2,200 days of operation there is a zero regulatory discipline caused by our autonomous driving system failure. This is a very, very good safety track record. In future, what is our competitive edge, I think we have many capabilities, just to name a few. One is our HPC 3.0. I just mentioned, you know, computational platform is the most advanced. WeRide's computational platform is the most advanced. It's the most advanced around the world. Our products and algorithm are highly adaptable and in some cities we can go from zero to deployment in just two weeks.
This agility has helped us to secure permits for our products in six countries. We have already successfully built a win-win collaboration model with local partners. With all that said, I think the other things are we have a very strong mission. That is we want to provide safe, reliable, and greater rider experience to our drivers with our cutting edge autonomous driving technology. With all of this, I think we are very confident for the competition today and for the competition of tomorrow.
Xinyu Fang (Analyst)
Okay, thank you for your answer.
That's very clear.
Can you also elaborate on how WeRide leverage new AI models such as the World Model or VLM or VL8? How would you think about the future technology trend for Robotaxi and other autonomous vehicles? Thank you.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Okay, very good question. I think for VLM, now everybody is talking about VLM and in the era of developing AGI and great programs in AGI, of course, everybody is talking about this video language model. One thing I want to mention is there is some good technology, but in order to really adopt this good technology, you have to have a very good pool of talents to develop this technology. These days we all witness this kind of competition for talents in Silicon Valley. Luckily, WeRide has a pool of great talents working on deep learning, large language model, and VLM. We have lots of very, very, very, very excellent talented engineers.
One thing I want to point out is we are actually working on the VLM at the same time we actually build a proprietary end-to-end architecture that can function independently on ADAS system and on our L4 fleet. Actually, we can make this ADAS system integrated into our L4 system. To my best knowledge, this is very unique. We have this kind of visual language model-based end-to-end system and it's already integrated into our L4 system. We actually are also working on how to really utilize this VLM with lots of data. Of course, the data labeling is very, very tedious and sometimes very expensive. To work with visual large language model, visual language model, and all kinds of deep learning algorithm, we actually developed a very, very important platform, Genesis. This Genesis stands for Generative Engineered Neural Environment for Simulated Intelligence in Self Driving.
It's actually our core part of task training and validating our system. With this new deep learning algorithm, we can actually have a mechanism or an environment to generate world VRIO. Genesis can actually reconstruct full urban environments in minutes and also complete with camera and radar views to help us simulate all kinds of scenarios. It's coupled with 3D reconstruction of everything with all the geolocation information and is very realistic. With the generative AI function, we can support different scenarios like snowing weather, raining weather, all of these kinds of scenarios we can generate and put all of this generated data to train our visual large language model. I believe this is one of our muscle, one of our competitive edge. With all of this newly developed technique and algorithm, we hope to develop the best autonomous driving technology for our users.
Xinyu Fang (Analyst)
Got it, thank you.
Operator (participant)
One moment for our next question. Our next question will be coming from Olivia Niu of BOCI. Your line is open.
Hi Tony. Hi Jennifer. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first one is regarding the global market expansion because we see that WeRide is accelerating the global market expansion to deploy Robotaxi business in recent quarters, especially in Middle East. Just wondering, do you see any challenges of deploying Robotaxi service in such destination markets? Maybe from the perspective of market adaptation and compliance related issues. That's my first question.
Jennifer Li (CFO and Head of International)
Yeah, I'll take your question. For the challenge side of deploying overseas, let's start with adaptation. Taking our tech globally means we have to tailor everything to the local conditions, which are often very different from what we have seen in China. I'll give you a few examples, like in some regions if the climate changes, it's a climate that's different, some extreme temperature like heavy snow, and like in the Middle East we deal with extreme desert heat. You encounter very large construction sites on the road, and sometimes the road direction changes on a monthly basis for those construction sites. To prepare, we've leaned heavily on the robust model we have developed over the years as well as all the diverse data we collect locally. Tony just explained our model progress. Genesys, it's extremely helpful. It's not only a word model but it's a closed loop simulation system.
All of that has given us a very solid base to fine-tune our algorithm before we scale the operation locally. If we move on to the compliance side, every market has its own stance on autonomous driving vehicles, and many countries are still figuring it out. Some, like the Middle East, are pushing aggressively to bring in autonomous driverless solutions, and there are other countries taking a more step-by-step approach. For both scenarios, early movers will have a real advantage. Getting in early, we can help to shape the regulatory framework itself. Just like Tony just mentioned, he sits on the regulatory board in Singapore, and that in turn will help to smooth our path into those new regions. Licensing, together with the regulatory side, is another major piece of the puzzle. Every market follows a phased regulatory path. That's pretty common.
You have to get the testing permit, do it for a while, and then move it into a commercial license if the regulator is happy with the performance. You do it with a safety driver on board and gradually move it to full driverless. It's a rigorous process, and we're very proud to say we are. Now, if you look at the result, we are the only tech company with product brand autonomous driving license in six different countries. We run all of our autonomous driving products in 10 countries in more than 30 cities. That's a very strong testament of the maturity and the readiness of our technology and our getting permit know-how.
Last but not least, we'd like to mention on the data privacy and localization, we do take those very seriously and we don't engage in cross-border data transfer and all the data we collect, they stay within the country where it's generated. Usually, we definitely strictly follow the local data governance, privacy, and cybersecurity requirements. With all this years.
Experience.
Overseas deployment, and we have built a very deep understanding of what it really takes to succeed in different markets. This kind of hands-on know-how was earned through the actual deployment. It's not just like signing some MOU and some very beginning pilot program. We believe this is one of our core moats, and this will set us up to scale up efficiently and confidently around the world. Yeah.
Olivia Niu (VP and Equity Analyst)
Thanks Jennifer. It's quite clear. My second question is about the technology competency. If we look at all autonomous driving software developers or maybe traditional OEM players that focus on developing fully automated vehicles like Waymo and also the others originally focus on developing L2 or L2 ADAS system but now play catch up in L4 competition such as Tesla. Just wondering if from the technological perspective how do we think about the competitive edge of WeRide and how to sustain the tech leadership in future. Thanks.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Okay, thank you. I'll take this question. I think people have been debating about whether Waymo's approach will realize autonomous driving or is there a possibility like Tesla's approach will reach autonomous driving. People can debate this for, for, for.
For.
For a long time. Okay. I want to point out actually you have to actually finally you have to show all the people with real operation. Here I just want to say no matter what kind of approach you mentioned, finally you have to supply very reliable, very very affordable and honorable taxi service with very good uses, with very good user experience. Having that said I just want to emphasize there's only one company in the world that currently is doing both Robotaxi service using L4 level autonomous driving technology at the same time supplying other system for massive production car, that is WeRide. Actually we can do all range of autonomous driving system or algorithm starting from L2 to L4 system. Our four vehicles actually already operate with some very good performance in Beijing and Guangzhou.
I think they are comparable to Waymo's operation in San Francisco or in LA or potentially in New York. On ADAS side we have built state-of-the-art one stage end-to-end model. We are integrating BLM as I mentioned before. Our ADAS system has been adopted by many mass production car and have very good ADAS experience. By advancing L4 autonomous driving system and ADAS technology in parallel, we are building a tech foundation with the potential to break past traditional autonomous driving systems performance ceiling and achieve a much higher level of generalization. That's exactly why we are able to support a wide range of urban mobility applications and has successfully deployed in 10 diverse countries in all different conditions.
I just want to share with all the people no matter which approach people think have high likelihood, actually WeRide is the only company doing very very significant progress and actually generate significant results in both end. Hopefully in future we will have great system, have the merits of both, have the merits of both approach with a very efficient model and we can bring the best quality of service of Robotaxi service to the world.
Olivia Niu (VP and Equity Analyst)
Thanks, Sonic. Quite helpful. I have no further questions, and I'm looking forward to hear more good news next quarter.
Thanks.
Jennifer Li (CFO and Head of International)
Thank you, Olivia.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.
Jennifer Li (CFO and Head of International)
Do we have more questions coming?
Operator (participant)
We have one more question for Tianyu Liu of Citic Securities. Your line is open. Okay.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Good morning, I'm Lu Tianyu from CITIC Securities. Thank you very much and congratulations on the results. We believe that the level for autonomous driving is an international topic, not only in China. My question is that some companies also are in the Middle East. What's your take and how does WeRide stand out?
Thank you,
Jennifer Li (CFO and Head of International)
I'll take your question. JinTiangyi, so yeah, like what we just mentioned, Middle East is a dynamic market with huge potential and which is exactly why we chose it as the launchpad for our global expansion back in 2021. Even then, back then we weren't the first one to announce plan there, but today WeRide operates the largest commercial Robotaxi fleet in the entire region and we're just getting started. Let's just look back the past few years. Like in 2023 we became the first and only autonomous driving company to receive a national autonomous driving permit in the UAE granted to us by the UAE Prime Minister. That milestone opens the door for our flagship partnership with Uber which actually kicked off last December.
Now we have a strong partnership in the region with Uber, with TX, AI, with TGA, with AI Driver and to the best of my knowledge, today we are the only Robotaxi player based operation in Abu Dhabi and we're one of the two that has started testing in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and obviously we are the only one in Riyadh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well. If we're coming back to, like, say, Abu Dhabi, our Robotaxi fleet already covers half of the urban city. That is unprecedented for the region. What makes all of that possible is we have a very standardized deployment playbook and the proven localized capabilities. It's not easy for everyone to, it's not like anyone can just go into the region and start to deploy. There are a lot of the localized issues that they have to solve.
We have already gotten the, we can get the fleet up and running in weeks and also we have the local team to support. Even in the region's extreme environment, like, say, two weeks ago I was down there in Riyadh for the Robotaxi deployment ceremony, the weather is already 46, 47 degrees. You can imagine when we first hit it, like open the car, the temperature within the vehicle is even higher. All of the other issues that every participant in the region has to overcome, and it takes a strong team to overcome those challenges. With all the expertise that we build there, we think.
We.
Will remain to be the leading one in the Middle East, and we'll take it global to scale faster, smarter, and with very strong local impact. I hope that answers your question.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.
Tony Han (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you. We'll see you next quarter. Thank you.
Jennifer Li (CFO and Head of International)
Thank you.