Huize 2H & FY 2025 Earnings Call - AI drives record premiums and return to profitability
Summary
Huize closed 2025 with record platform volumes and a cautious profitability milestone. Management reported gross written premiums of about CNY 7.4 billion and first year premiums of CNY 4.6 billion, revenue up roughly 27% to CNY 1.6 billion, and a return to positive results with GAAP net profit of CNY 4 million and non-GAAP net profit of about CNY 23 million. Management attributes the improvement to strong demand for participating savings and health products, rapid international expansion, and aggressive deployment of AI across the customer journey and back office.
The call mixed celebration with realism. AI is presented as the operational lever that cut expense intensity and unlocked new product and distribution capabilities, but management also flagged margin pressure from a faster-growing, lower-margin international mix and noted near-term regulatory headwinds in Hong Kong. The strategic priorities are clear, AI first, product innovation in participating and long-term health, and scaling Poni Insurtech overseas, with plenty of execution detail to watch in 2026.
Key Takeaways
- Record volumes: Platform gross written premiums (GWP) ~CNY 7.4 billion (up 21% YoY), first year premiums (FYP) ~CNY 4.6 billion (up 35% YoY).
- Revenue and profitability: Full year revenue ~CNY 1.6 billion, GAAP net profit reported at CNY 4 million, non-GAAP net profit ~CNY 23 million, marking a return to full-year profitability.
- AI as the operational engine: Management credits AI deployment across acquisition, underwriting, recommendations and claims for efficiency gains and improved customer experience.
- Expense efficiency: Total operating expenses rose only 3.4% YoY to CNY 415 million, driving an expense to income ratio improvement of 5.9 percentage points to 26.3%.
- AI product milestones: AI-driven self-service purchases rose 50% YoY; AI agents now can complete sales conversions independently; first end-to-end AI claims settlement closed in 23 minutes.
- Customer metrics: Total customers ~12.3 million (added ~1.7 million in 2025); long-term policyholder average age 35.3; 65.8% live in Tier-2+ cities; persistency at 13th and 25th months >95%.
- Higher-value sales: Management highlighted FYP for long-term savings rising 48% YoY to CNY 3.5 billion, annuity FYP more than doubled to CNY 1.0 billion.
- International traction: Poni Insurtech secured MAS approvals in Singapore; Hong Kong revenue grew more than twofold YoY; Vietnam Global Care GWP +106% and revenue +84%; GoSale users quadrupled and premiums grew >3x.
- Ecosystem and product expansion: Partner network expanded to 158 insurers; new participating annuity and upgraded million-yuan medical products launched to capture wealth and health demand.
- Margin dynamics: Management said gross margin compressed due to a rising share of lower-margin international revenue, though they expect modest improvement as AI scales front-line revenue generation.
- Capital position: Cash and cash equivalents were CNY 251 million at year-end, management emphasised disciplined cost control alongside growth investments.
- Distribution productivity: FYP from IFA channel increased 44% sequentially in 2H25 to CNY 250 million, credited to AI-enhanced advisor productivity.
- Regulatory and market risks: Hong Kong broker referral fee caps and commission changes may dampen some channel growth, but management believes underlying offshore demand remains strong.
- Investor perception gap: Management acknowledged the stock trades below net asset value, suggested the market is skeptical possibly due to the move to half-year reporting cadence, and flagged re-rating potential as AI and international execution prove out.
- Three stated strategic priorities for 2026: 1) deepen AI adoption across service value chain, 2) accelerate product innovation in participating and long-term health products, 3) scale international expansion through Poni Insurtech.
Full Transcript
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Huize second half and full year 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the management’s prepared remarks, we will have a question-and-answer session. Today’s conference call is being recorded, and the webcast replay will be available on Huize IR website at ir.huize.com under the Events and Webcasts section. I’d now like to hand the conference over to your speaker host today, Mr. Kenny Lo, Huize Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead, Kenny.
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: Thank you, operator. Hello everyone, and welcome to our second half and full year 2025 earnings conference call. Our financial operational results were released earlier today and are currently now available on both our IR website and GlobeNewswire services. Before we continue, I would like to refer you to the safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which also applies to this call as we will be making forward-looking statements. Please also note that we will discuss non-GAAP measures today, which are more thoroughly explained in our earnings release and filings with the SEC. Joining us today are our Founder and CEO, Mr. Cunjun Ma, Co-CFO Mr. Minghan Xiao, and Co-CFO Mr. Ronald Tam. Mr. Ma will start the call by providing an overview of the company’s performance and operational highlights. Followed by Mr.
Tam, who will go over our financial results for the year 2025. We’ll open the call for questions. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Cunjun Ma.
Cunjun Ma, Founder and CEO, Huize: 大家好,欢迎大家参加慧择2025年下半年及全年的业绩发布电话会。2025年,中国的保险行业迎来深刻的结构性的变革。随着银行存款利息的持续下行,居民的财富分配逻辑发生了根本性的转变,资金正加速地向保险等长期稳定资产的迁移。分红型保险凭借其保障与增值的双重属性,正成为驱动行业增长的核心动力。科技层面,生成式AI与AI智能体的技术快速迭代,正在深度重构保险行业和生活生态与运营模式,推动行业向更智能高效的方向演进。放眼海外,东南亚保险市场的数字化渗透加速,人口红利与中产崛起叠加,结构机遇日益凸显。面对这些变化,慧择以前瞻性的战略布局,精准地把握了市场的脉搏,在2025年交出了一份令人振奋的成绩单。
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: Welcome to Huize second half and full year of 2025 earnings conference call. In 2025, China’s insurance industry underwent profound structural trend changes. As bank deposit rates continued to decline, household wealth allocation shifts fundamentally, with capital accelerating to long-term stable assets such as insurance. Participating products that offer both protection and wealth accumulation emerged as a core growth engine for the industry. Furthermore, the rise of generative AI and AI agent capabilities is deeply reshaping the industry ecosystem and operating models, driving the sector towards greater efficiency and intelligence. Internationally, Southeast Asia insurance markets are expecting accelerating digital penetration, urban developments and a growing middle class, creating compelling structural opportunities. Our proactive, forward-looking strategy actively positioned us to capitalize on these dynamics and deliver a strong performance in 2025.
Cunjun Ma, Founder and CEO, Huize: 2025年,慧择全平台促成的总保费达到了74.3亿元,同比增长了21%。首年保费达成了46.3亿元,同比增长了35%,双双创下了历史新高。全年总营收达到了15.8亿元,同比增加了27%。在收入强劲增长及AI驱动全面降本增效的带动下,公司实现了经调整的净利润2,262万元,标志着我们已经连续三年实现盈利,充分印证了我们在不断变化的市场中稳健的执行力,以及业务模式的长期可持续性。
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: Both GWP and FYP facilitated on our platform in 2025 reached record highs of CNY 7.4 billion and CNY 4.6 billion, surging 21% and 35% year-over-year respectively. Total revenue for the year came in at CNY 1.6 billion, growing approximately 27% from last year. Driven by strong top-line growth and also cost efficiency improvement from the strategic deployment of AI solutions across our organization, we delivered non-GAAP net profit of CNY 222.6 million. This marks the third consecutive year of non-GAAP profitability, a testament to our resilience, execution in a dynamic market and the long term sustainability of our business model.
Cunjun Ma, Founder and CEO, Huize: 慧择始终秉持以客户为中心的核心战略,为高成长性的客群提供全生命周期的保险服务。2025年平台新增投保用户约167万,截至年末,累计投保用户超过了1,200万。2025年长期险投保用户平均年龄为35.3岁,其中二线及以上的城市用户占比65.8%,持续彰显高质量客群的画像。以首年保费计,2025年长期险件均保费达到了7,900元,同比上升了38%。截至12月底,长期险第13个月以及第25个月的年度累计继续率均持续高于95%,稳居行业的领先水准,充分验证了慧择客户服务质量及产品竞争力。
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: We remain deeply committed to our customer-centric strategy, serving our high-quality customer base across the full insurance lifecycle. In 2025, we added approximately 1.7 million new customers, bringing the total to over 12 million by year-end. The average age of long-term insurance policyholders was 35.3 years, with 65.8% residing in Tier 2 cities or above, reflecting our focus on high-quality customer demographic segments. The average FYP ticket size for long-term insurance approximately CNY 7,900 in 2025, a 38% increase year-over-year. As of year-end, each of our 13th and 25th month persistency ratios for long-term insurance products remained at industry-leading levels of over 95%, highlighting our strong retention capabilities and fully validating the quality of our service and the competitiveness of our product offerings.
Cunjun Ma, Founder and CEO, Huize: 截至年末,惠择持续拓展合作生态版图,已与158家保险公司建立并保持稳定的合作关系,持续创新推出多元化、定制化的保险产品。为应对人口老龄化背景下日益增长的高质量财务规划需求,我们推出了大家惠选2.0分红型年金,旨在提供优质多元化的退休规划方案,积极契合市场对分红型保险的强劲需求。此外,我们还定制推出了年款百万医疗险产品,新享舍2.0与长享安3.0,分别以二十年保证续保及免健康告知等差异化的优势,满足不同细分客群对综合健康保障的多元需求,进一步巩固了公司在医疗险领域的核心竞争力,为可持续的高质量发展奠定了坚实的基础。
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: By year-end, our partner ecosystem grew to 158 insured partners, allowing us to continue expanding the differentiated customized products we offer. To address the growing demand for wealth management and financial planning solutions in an aging society, we launched 大家惠选 2.0, a participating annuity product designed to provide premium diversified retirement planning solutions. We also launched two customized million-yuan medical insurance products, 新享舍 2.0 and 长享安 3.0, each offering differentiated features including 20-year guaranteed renewal and simplified health underwriting that cater to the diverse health protection needs of different customer segments. Together, these launches reinforce our core competitiveness in the medical insurance segment and lay a solid foundation for our long-term sustainable growth.
Cunjun Ma, Founder and CEO, Huize: 2025年,我们全面推进了AI原生文化的培训,将AI深度地融入到保险服务价值链,助力推动全年总费用与收入比率同比下降了5.9个百分点至26.3%。同时,我们将AI能力延伸至用户服务全链路,涵盖客户意图识别、产品推荐、核保及理赔,实现智能化服务体验。2025年,AI驱动的新用户自主投保率同比提升了50%。同时,我们推出了AI已经能够独立完成销售转化。此外,AI规划师的推出正是这一转型的缩影,AI可直接根据用户的画像直接生成个性化的家庭保险方案,助力惠择升级为用户全生命周期的财务规划伙伴。近日,惠择正式发布上线AI理赔,其AI理赔的智能体已与核心理赔系统完成了全面的对接。首笔经AI审核的理赔案件仅用23分钟便顺利结案,成为保险中介行业内首例全流程由AI智能体完成的理赔实践,成功实现了全链路的服务闭环。未来,惠择将携手保险公司共同构建连接用户、保险公司与代理人的智能生态,将AI元素融入保险服务和财务规划的各个环节,全面落地构建AI驱动的保险生态平台。
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: We began fostering an AI-native culture across the organization during the year, deploying AI solutions across the insurance service value chain. This significantly improved our expense to revenue ratio, which fell 5.9 percentage points year-over-year to 26.3%, and was a key contributor to our return to full-year profitability. We also deployed our AI solutions across the entire customer journey, covering intent recognition, product recommendations, underwriting claims. This meaningfully enhanced the user experience and supported a 50% year-over-year increase in AI-driven self-service policy purchases among our AI systems are now capable of independently completing sales conversion. The launch of our AI financial planner highlights this evolution into a full lifecycle financial planning partner for our customers. AI can now directly generate personalized family insurance plans directly from individual users’ profiles.
More recently, we launched our AI claims service with our AI agent fully embedded across core claim system. The first AI reviewed claims was settled in just 23 minutes and marks the first fully end-to-end AI agent-driven claim settlement in China’s insurance intermediary sector and the completion of our intelligent closed-loop service capability. Looking ahead, we will collaborate with insurance carriers to build an intelligent, connected ecosystem spanning users, issuers and agents, embedding AI across every stage of insurance services and financial planning to fully realize our vision of an AI-driven insurance platform.
Cunjun Ma, Founder and CEO, Huize: 2025年,惠择国际业务持续交出了亮眼的表现。在新加坡作为Poni Insurtech的总部所在地,公司已成功地取得了新加坡金融管理局颁发的金融顾问及保险经纪牌照,正式开启当地的业务布局。同时,我们积极推动内部技术应用的海外输出,以AI赋能的创新方式拓展新加坡市场,为消费者带来保险选购的新体验。在香港市场,凭借差异化的保险产品功能,市场对香港保险产品的需求持续强烈。香港业务于2025年实现显著的增长,业务营收同比提升超过两倍。在越南,Global Care的全年总保费同比增长了106%,收入同比增长了484%。尤为值得关注的是,GoSale的业务线实现了突破性的增长,平台用户数年内增长了四倍,总保费同比增长超过三倍,充分验证了我们在东南亚市场的数字化分销模式的规模化能力。
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: Our international business continued to deliver a strong performance. In Singapore, headquarters of Poni Insurtech, we obtained a financial advising exam insurance broker license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, formally establishing our local operational footprint. Simultaneously, we are actively expanding our proprietary AI solutions to Singapore to offer an innovative and differentiated insurance experience. Demand for our insurance products in Hong Kong remained robust in 2025, with revenue increasing more than twofold year-over-year, driven by their differentiated product features. In Vietnam, Global Care generated a 106% year-over-year increase in full year GWP and an 84% increase in revenue growth. Notably, the GoSale business line has a standout performance, with platform users quadrupling during the year and premiums growing more than threefold year-over-year, strongly validating the scalability of our digital distribution model in Southeast Asia.
Cunjun Ma, Founder and CEO, Huize: 展望未来,惠择持续聚焦三大战略方向,推动公司的高质量发展。第一,以AI全面赋能,深耕服务品质,持续为客户提供最优的保险服务体验。通过AI优化各环节的工作流,将释放的资源回归至服务质量的提升,并拓展更多的AI应用场景,让技术真正服务于人。第二,深化产品创新,聚焦核心赛道,持续定制打造创新差异化的保险产品,精准满足精细化客群的多元需求,持续发力分红险及长期健康险的产品迭代与革新,为客户构建覆盖医疗与财富管理的全方位保障。第三,依托Poni Insurtech的加速并深化海外业务布局的深度与广度,推动国际业务营收占比持续提升,致力于为股东带来长期可持续的价值回报。
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on three strategic priorities to drive high quality growth. First, we will continue to deploy AI across our business to deepen service quality and improve user experience. By using AI to streamline workflows, we will deploy freed-up resources towards further improving service quality and expanding AI application scenarios, facilitating technology in creating real value for our customers. Second, we will deepen product innovation in our core growth areas, developing differentiated and innovative products tailored to specific customer segments. Our focus will remain on participating products in long-term health insurance to address demand for comprehensive coverage across both healthcare and wealth management. Third, we will accelerate and deepen our international expansion through Poni Insurtech, growing the proportion of overseas revenue contribution and delivering sustainable long-term value for our shareholders.
Cunjun Ma, Founder and CEO, Huize: 接下来请我们的CFO Ronald为大家详细地解读惠择的业绩与财务报、财务数据。
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: This concludes my prepared remarks for today. I will now turn the call to our CFO, Mr. Ronald Tam, who will provide an overview of our key financial highlights.
Ronald Tam, Co-CFO, Huize: Thank you, Mr. Ma and Kenny. Good evening, everyone. First of all, we closed out the year very strongly with another solid performance, despite a volatile macroeconomic and geopolitical landscape. On a full year basis, both gross written premiums and first year premiums facilitated on our platform has reached record highs of CNY 7.4 billion and CNY 4.6 billion respectively, representing year-over-year increases of 21% and 35%. While total revenue grew 27% year-over-year to CNY 1.6 billion. Notably, we gained profitability with net profit of CNY 4 million and non-GAAP net profit of CNY 23 million. Our financial growth position remains solid, with cash and cash equivalents of CNY 251 million as of the year-end.
This exceptional performance was driven by our omni-channel distribution network, expanding high-quality customer base and efficiency gains from the strategic deployment of our advanced proprietary AI solutions, underpinned by continued progress in the execution of our international expansion strategy. Looking at our core business, long-term insurance products continue to be our strategic focus, which accounts for over 90% of our total GWP in 2025. FYP from our long-term savings products surged 48% year-over-year to CNY 3.5 billion in 2025. Notably, FYP for annuity products more than doubled year-over-year to CNY 1 billion, which is driven by robust demand for wealth management and financial planning solutions in a lowering interest rate environment in China. We have capitalized on the national strategic guidance to build a multi-tiered healthcare protection system and the release of National Commercial Insurance Innovative Drug List.
With the launch of million-yuan medical insurance products to address the long-term comprehensive health protection needs of mid- to high-income families. By leveraging our well-established omni-channel distribution network and advanced AI solutions, we have significantly enhanced customer acquisition and engagement. Our total customer base has reached 12.3 million as of December 31, 2025, reflecting an increase of approximately 1.7 million customers over the full year. The repurchase ratio for our long-term insurance products remains solid at 36%, highlighting our ability to grow Customer Lifetime Value through effective upselling and cross-selling. I would like to highlight several key operational achievements for the year that further demonstrate this progress.
The FYP from our IFA business has increased by 44% sequentially to CNY 250 million in the second half of 2025, reflecting the impact our AI solutions are having in enhancing the productivity of both our internal and independent financial advisors. FYP from short-term health and accident insurance grew 12% year-over-year to CNY 613 million, demonstrating our ability to innovate and deliver an increasingly diverse range of product offerings. As of December 31, 2025, our 13th and 25th month persistency ratios for long-term life and health insurance has remained at industry-leading levels of over 95%, underscoring the strong customer loyalty we attract with these diverse product offerings and the effectiveness of a post-sale servicing.
The average ticket size of a long-term savings product rose 37% year-over-year to CNY 103,000 in 2025, driven in part by the increased sales of premium products internationally. In 2025, we have implemented our systematic three-pillar AI strategy to enhance internal operational efficiency, to improve customer experience and to drive platform transformation. Internally, we are fostering an AI-native culture across the organization, deploying AI solutions tailored to various business units that automate routine tasks and optimize workflows. On the customer front, we have upgraded our AI app with multi-agent architecture that facilitates integrated end-to-end user journeys with product recommendations, insurance underwriting and policy servicing. Additionally, we also unlocked new revenue opportunities through AI-driven product and service innovations. For instance, our AI financial planner is capable of designing tailored family insurance solutions based on client specific information.
Collectively, these AI solutions have delivered meaningful cost savings and productivity gains. Our total operating expenses increased at a slower pace than revenue, rising by just 3.4% year-over-year to CNY 415 million. Consequently, our expense to income ratio improved significantly by 5.9 percentage points year-over-year to 26.3% for the full year of 2025. Furthermore, our AI-driven self-directed policy processes grew by 50% year-over-year in 2025, underscoring the effectiveness of our AI agents. Poni Insurtech, our international arm, delivered another strong performance and remains a key pillar of our long-term growth strategy.
In Vietnam, our majority owned subsidiary, Global Care, achieved impressive growth. With the number of insurance policies issued increasing by 31% year-over-year, driving a surge of 106% and 84% year-over-year growth in GWP and revenue, respectively. Our IFA business in Vietnam had a particularly standout year with a number of active platform users quadrupling and policies issued growing by 2.3-fold year-over-year in 2025. While GWP and revenue from this channel also grew significantly over 3.8 times and 2.5 times, respectively. Global Care also onboarded new merchant partners and launched Vietnam’s first insurance KOL platform in July, a proven distribution model that’s pioneered by Huize in China, further extending our digital reach in the local market.
In Singapore, we obtain approval from the MAS to operate as a financial advisory and exempt insurance broker, marking a significant milestone in our regional expansion. This license reinforces our dual regional hub strategy across Singapore and Hong Kong, positioning us to attract cross-border assets and deliver premier protection and wealth management solutions to consumers across Asia. Collectively, the continued expansion of Poni Insurtech will diversify our revenue streams and create new growth drivers, enhancing long-term shareholder value for Huize. In conclusion, we are confident in our ability to capitalize on the opportunities arising from China’s evolving industry landscape and the broader Asian market. Domestically, prevailing low time deposit rates are expected to continue to encourage retail depositors to reallocate their wealth towards higher yield savings and participating insurance products.
In parallel, aligned with the national strategic directive to establish a multi-tiered protection system, demand for long-term commercial insurance protection for health is expected to grow steadily, underpinning healthy and sustainable development across the entire value chain. Internationally, through Poni Insurtech, we are replicating our proven model in China and proprietary AI solutions to drive our expansion into high-growth Southeast Asian markets, with a particular focus on the young and fast-growing middle-class demographic in the region. We will remain steadfastly committed to strengthening our positioning as Asia’s leading insurtech platform by harnessing our advanced data analytics, fully integrated AI solutions, and a proven market penetration strategy. Our vision remains focused on building an AI-driven intelligence ecosystem that seamlessly connects consumers, our carrier partners, and distribution partners, while consistently delivering and doing value to all stakeholders.
With that, we will conclude the opening remark and open up the call to questions. Thank you very much, and over to you, operator.
Operator: Thank you so much. Dear participants, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please stand by. We’ll compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one. Now we’re going to take our first question, and it comes from the line of Kenny Lim from UOB Kay Hian. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Kenny Lim, Analyst, UOB Kay Hian: Good evening, Ross. First of all, congratulations on a strong result. A couple of questions from my end. First, your OPEX was well contained, but I noticed that the operating costs grew faster than the revenue. Could you give us more color on this and how are you going to improve this? Second question will be, we know that a few regulatory changes in Hong Kong, like the broker referral fee cap and also the commission spreading, are taking effect this year. How does Huize plan to sustain your growth momentum in Hong Kong? Yeah, these two questions from my end. Thanks.
Ronald Tam, Co-CFO, Huize: Okay, great. Thank you, Kenny, for your two questions. On the first question regarding your observation on the operating costs growing faster than revenue growth, I think in effect that would mean that there’s a depressed gross margin year over year. The main reason for this has to do with the makeup of our revenue for the domestic market and also the international markets. The domestic market revenue contribution has declined because of the high growth of our international revenues. Our international revenue segment incurs a slightly lower gross margin and therefore,
That’s an observation that you’ve made that the operating costs has, you know, the growth of that has surpassed revenue growth, and that has to do with the makeup of the revenue as I just explained. That’s the first question. We do expect that the gross margins or operating margin to remain at this level. We do expect a slight improvement over the course of this year. Your second question on the Hong Kong market with regards to the regulatory cap on the referral fees and also on the commission spreading that has been in effect since the first of January this year.
We do expect and which has been seen in the market that there’s been a dampening effect on the growth momentum of the overall brokerage market channel in Hong Kong, specifically coming from the MPF segment, which obviously I think most of the China-based, you know, brokers are focused on. However, we do note that the underlying growth drivers for customers to seek out offshore product in Hong Kong remains very robust, and the momentum has not decreased year-over-year. We do see that with the, you know, substantive maturity of time deposits in the onshore market, which is to the tune of, you know, for very optimistic, putting that at around CNY 3 trillion-CNY 5 trillion.
A meaningful proportion of this could be allocated to offshore markets, and Hong Kong would definitely be a natural recipient of this outflow. Therefore, the underpinning growth momentum should remain relatively robust for the Hong Kong savings plans, which is the main, you know, products that are being distributed by brokers in Hong Kong. With that, we do believe that we do expect that strong growth momentum would persist for our Hong Kong business in 2026. Back to the operator.
Operator: Kenny, any further questions? That’s all from my end. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot.
Ronald Tam, Co-CFO, Huize: Thank you.
Operator: Dear participants, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Now we’re going to take our next question. Just give us a moment. Now we’re going to take our next question. The question comes from Mona Wang from Greenridge Global. Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Mona Wang, Analyst, Greenridge Global: Hello, everyone. This is Mona from Greenridge Global. It’s great to see the company delivering several positive developments recently. There are two questions. First question, there was some growth margin compression in the first half of 2025 as compared to the same period in 2024 when looking at brokerage income against the cost of revenue. Except for the AI, is there opportunity or another opportunity for margin expansion? Second question. You saw stronger top-line growth and a strong comeback to profitability in 2025, but the stock still trades below cash value. Why do you think the stock is not moving with the fundamentals? Thank you.
Ronald Tam, Co-CFO, Huize: Great. Thank you for the questions, Mona, and thanks for joining us for the first time. Appreciate your attendance. With respect to your two questions, I believe the first question was about the compression of gross margin as it compressed across 2025 and 2024, and whether AI could have a you know a positive effect on improving gross margins. I think two fronts here. I think as I explained to Kenny just now in his first question, the gross margin depression in 2025 has to do with the makeup of our revenue and specifically the contribution of our international revenues to the overall revenue pool, which has increased substantially over the course of 2025.
As a result, the gross margin has decreased because the international revenue carries a lower margin as compared to our domestic or mainland China revenue segment. As a result of the two, the gross margin has been decreased. However, as you know, very accurately, with the deployment of AI solutions and the initial result that we are seeing, obviously AI deployment has a significant cost savings or productivity efficiency improvement in the business flow in the mid to back office. As you can see, the expense ratio has improved by, you know, almost 6%. That’s more to do with the expense or cost savings point of view.
On a growth margin level, I think that what we can potentially envisage over the course of the next few years as AI continue to be deployed in the front line, i.e., in terms of customer acquisition, in terms of lead generation, we do believe that there could be a potential for a significant re-rating or upgrade of our gross margin going forward. For example, we have noted in our opening remarks that, you know, AI has been driving a 50% year-over-year increase in self-service policy purchases by our customers in 2025. Our AI systems are capable of independently completing sales conversions, you know, and we have been generating, you know, over millions of CNY of premiums already through the AI engines.
This obviously we do have the high hopes and high expectations that AI will continue to drive and you know scale our revenue generating capabilities to the tune that we don’t need any human interaction or involvement in the entire customer acquisition and conversion process. I think that’s something that we are continuing to work hard towards, and that probably is the holy grail in terms of how AI can scale our profitability over the next you know foreseeable future. That’s something that we have already proven to the market, and we will continue to invest in AI driven growth in 2026.
With respect to your second question, about the fundamentals somehow is not tying with our share price performance. We do note that the market has been relatively pessimistic, I believe on the performance of our company. It may have to do with the switch of our reporting schedule, since the second half of last year, we have migrated to a half yearly announcement schedule. Therefore, the market may have certain concerns on the continued sustainable growth and, you know, performance of the company.
As we have shown in this earnings release, we have delivered strong growth, not in terms of just top line and/or premium growth, but also in terms of bottom line profitability. We have demonstrated that we are able to, you know, operate a very slim business model. With the advances in AI and our strong investment in AI-related proprietary products, you know, across our business value chain, both in the front end and we do expect that, altogether we are looking at a very robust growth momentum in 2026. So that would hopefully drive a re-rating in our share price.
As you have noted that our share price right now is trading even below our Net Asset Value, and therefore there’s significant room for us to re-rate our share price to the more of an intrinsic value. Thanks for your question once again.
Operator: Thank you. Dear speakers, we’ll just give a moment to our participants to press star one one if they have any additional questions. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one one. That’s all for the questions for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Kenny Lo, Huize IR Director, for any closing remarks.
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director, Huize: Thank you, Operator. In closing, on behalf of Huize management team, we would like to thank you for your participation in today’s call. If you require any further information, feel free to reach out to us. Thank you for joining us today. This concludes the call.
Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.