Huize Holding (NASDAQ:HUIZ) reported quarterly financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s quarterly earnings call has been provided below.
Benzinga APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ to learn more.
The full earnings call is available at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/p2v9f5qz/
Summary
Huize Holding reported a significant increase in Gross Written Premiums (GWP) and First Year Premiums (FYP) for the first half of 2026, with GWP reaching RMB 4.2 billion and FYP increasing 49% year over year to RMB 2.76 billion.
The company continues its strategic push towards becoming an AI-native organization, integrating AI into operations to enhance efficiency, customer engagement, and profitability, resulting in a net profit of RMB 25.3 million.
Huize expanded its international presence, particularly in Vietnam and Singapore, contributing to RMB 220 million in international revenue, and maintaining profitability in key markets like Hong Kong.
AI applications have led to reduced operating costs and improved agent productivity, with AI consultations increasing self-directed policy purchases and conversion rates.
The company launched new insurance products, including Leese 5.0 and Darwin No. 15, to cater to diverse customer needs in savings, retirement, and health protection.
Looking forward, Huize plans to strengthen its AI strategy, enhance product innovation, and expand its international operations, particularly in key Asian markets.
Management expressed confidence in the company’s cash position, indicating no immediate need for raising additional capital unless a major M&A opportunity arises.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Huize Holding first half 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management’s prepared remarks, we will have a question-and-answer session. Today’s conference call is being recorded and a webcast replay will be available on the IR website at ir.huize.com under the Events and Webcast section. I’d now like to hand the conference over to your host today, Mr. Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead, Kenny.
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director
Thank you, operator. Hello everyone, and welcome to our first half 2026 earnings conference call. Our financial and operational results were released earlier today and are currently available on both our IR website and GlobeNewswire services. 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 founder and CEO Mr. Chen Jun Ma, Co-CFO Mr. Minghan Chiao, and Co-CFO Mr. Ron 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 first half of 2026. Then we will open the call for questions. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Ma.
Chen Jun Ma, Founder and CEO
Hello everyone, and welcome to Huize Holding’s first half 2026 earnings conference call. 2026 marks Huize’s 20th anniversary. Over the past two decades, we have witnessed the insurance industry evolve from a market dominated by traditional distribution and agent-led sales into a more digital and professionalized ecosystem where product innovation, customer engagement, and operating efficiency have become increasingly important sources of competitive differentiation.
Today, the low interest rate environment and shifting demographics are driving sustained demand for long-term savings, retirement planning, and health protection. At the same time, rapid advances in AI are reshaping both the delivery of insurance services and the way companies operate. Against this backdrop, we are building on capabilities developed over the past 20 years to unlock new growth opportunities while continuing to improve efficiency and operating quality.
In the first half of 2026, GWP facilitated on our platform reached RMB 4.2 billion, up 30% year over year and marking a new all-time high, while FYP increased 49% year over year to RMB 2.76 billion. As our business continued to scale, total revenue reached RMB 720 million. At the same time, AI became more deeply embedded across our internal operations and core workflows as Huize advances its transition toward an AI-native organization, supporting continued improvements in organizational efficiency and operating capabilities.
As a result, net profit attributable to common shareholders increased to RMB 25.3 million. Overall, the first half was marked not only by strong premium growth, but also by broader growth momentum, improved operating efficiency, and stronger profitability. We remain firmly committed to our customer-centric approach, continuously deepening customer engagement across the entire life cycle. During the first half, we added approximately 798,000 new customers, bringing the cumulative number of insurance clients served to approximately 13.1 million.
As of June 30, the average age of customers purchasing long-term insurance products was 35.3 years, with 62.5% coming from tier-2 cities and above. The average FYP ticket size for long-term insurance products increased 25% year over year to approximately RMB 8,211. As of May 31, both our 13th- and 25th-month persistency ratios remained above 95%, continuing to rank among the highest. Together, these metrics underscore the quality and long-term value of our customer base.
We are also using AI to further deepen customer engagement. Our AI financial planning agents can generate personalized family insurance plans based on each customer’s profile and protection needs. Among active users, the planning report generation rate has now reached 45%, demonstrating AI engagement is expanding beyond individual consultations toward more comprehensive household protection planning. This enables us to serve customers’ long-term protection needs with greater depth, personalization, and efficiency.
As of June 30, we maintained stable partnerships with 159 insurance carriers and continue to co-develop customized products across multiple insurance categories, addressing customers’ increasingly diverse needs in savings, retirement, and health protection. As demand for long-term financial planning continues to grow, we further expanded our core annuity product franchise with the launch of Leese 5.0, a participating annuity product designed to support long-term wealth accumulation, family asset planning, and retirement preparation.
In the health protection segment, we further expanded the scope of coverage and broadened our service offerings. Darwin No. 15 Kids Protection integrates critical illness protection for children with long-term medical coverage, extending protection beyond a one-time financial payout toward long-term health support. Tangxiang An 5.0 further expands mid- to high-end medical coverage to customers with certain pre-existing conditions and other needs that are traditionally underserved by medical insurance.
We remain firmly committed to our AI-native strategy, further deepening the adoption of AI applications and expanding coverage across our business. Huize’s AI app completed its upgrade to a 2.0 multi-agent architecture, with the number of users engaging in AI conversations increasing 65% from the beginning of the year. AI is gradually becoming an important gateway for users to access insurance services. With more customers using AI for insurance consultation, product recommendations, and preliminary protection planning across our service operations, AI is becoming more deeply involved in customer analysis, solution generation, and customer engagement.
Family insurance plans can now be generated in under five minutes, while intelligent customer screening and AI-powered outbound calls are helping identify and qualify business opportunities, demonstrating that AI is evolving beyond an operational efficiency tool into an intelligent engine for business growth. On the claims side, Xiaomi Claims AI has expanded from completing its first pilot claim line covering four core insurance categories and supporting most of our mainstream products end to end.
AI claims processing can now be completed within one hour, with more products processed in minutes. We are also continuing to strengthen fundamental capabilities, such as our professional insurance knowledge base, providing specialized and granular data support for the deployment of AI agents across a broader range of service scenarios. Going forward, we will place greater emphasis on the practical impact of our AI applications and the value they deliver across customer experience, professional services, operating efficiency, and business conversion.
On the international front, Pony InsurTech continued to deepen its presence across key Asian markets, generating approximately RMB 220 million in international revenue during the first half. In Vietnam, GlobalCare maintained strong business momentum, with GWP and revenue increasing approximately 45% and 24% year over year, respectively. Our customized maternal and child health insurance product received a positive initial market response, and we accelerated its rollout through our agent channels, successfully validating local demand for maternal and child health protection.
In Singapore, we are focused on serving high-value customers with protection, wealth allocation, and long-term financial planning needs while continuing to broaden our high-value offerings through differentiated products. Looking ahead to the second half, Huize will remain focused on three priorities. First, we will continue to advance our AI-native strategy, deepening the adoption and practical impact of AI applications so that, alongside improving customer experience, professional service capabilities, and operating efficiency, AI can increasingly generate sustainable business value.
Second, we’ll further strengthen customer-driven product innovation while reinforcing our competitiveness in savings products such as participating insurance. We’ll have long-term health and corporate protection products and continue to build and upgrade our flagship product franchises to better address customer retirement, health, and family protection needs. Third, through prudent initiatives, we will deepen our operations across key Asian markets, leverage Hong Kong and Singapore as our regional hubs, and continue strengthening local product and distribution capabilities to build a solid foundation for the long-term development of our international business. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Ron Tam, who will provide a detailed review of Huize’s operating and financial results for the first half of 2026.
Ron Tam, Co-CFO
Thank you, Mr. Ma, and Kenny. Good evening everyone in Asia and good morning for those in the U.S. Against the backdrop of continued macro and geopolitical uncertainty, we have delivered another set of very strong results. In the first half of 2026, total GWP facilitated on the platform reached a record high of RMB 4.2 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 29.8%. Total FYP also surged by 48.7% year over year to RMB 2.76 billion. Total revenue rose to RMB 720 million.
Our GAAP net profit increased to RMB 25.3 million. Our financial position remains very solid with cash and cash equivalents totaling RMB 241 million as of June 30. These exceptional results underscore the effectiveness of our omni-channel distribution network, our disciplined focus on attracting high-quality customers from the market, and the extensive application of our proprietary AI technologies. Notably, we are steadily advancing our international expansion strategy and additional revenue for long-term sustainable growth and geographical diversification.
Turning to our core business, FYP from the long-term savings product category rose more than 45% year over year to RMB 2 billion, supported by heightened demand for wealth management and financial planning solutions in a sustained low interest rate environment in China. Further, against the backdrop of continued policy support for a multi-tiered health care protection system, including the introduction of the National Commercial Health Insurance Innovative Drug Catalog, we continue to expand our long-term health insurance offerings to address increasing needs.
FYP of the long-term health insurance category grew by 1.6x year over year to RMB 204 million. Our diversified distribution network and advanced AI solutions enabled us to broaden our customer reach and cultivate consumer relationships. The total customer base reached 13.1 million as of June 30, reflecting a net addition of approximately 0.8 million during the first half of 2026. The repurchase ratio for our long-term insurance products remained high at 33.3%, demonstrating the continued progress we’ve made in enhancing customer lifetime value through targeted upselling and cross-selling initiatives.
I would like to highlight several key operational achievements during the period. First, FYP for our 2A business increased by 44% year over year to RMB 116 million in the first half, underscoring the effectiveness of our AI capabilities in improving the productivity of both our in-house consultants and our IFA partners. Second, FYP from our short-term health and accident insurance grew 48% year over year to RMB 376 million in the first half, reflecting our relentless efforts in product innovation and growing the breadth of the portfolio.
Third, as of May 31, our 13th- and 25th-month persistency ratios for long-term life and health insurance remained at industry-leading levels of over 95%, reaffirming strong customer loyalty and the high quality of our post-sales servicing. Fourth, average ticket size of long-term savings products rose 10.4% year over year to RMB 140,500 in the first half, partly attributable to higher tickets of premium products in international markets. In the first half, we advanced our systematic three-pillar AI strategy centered on raising operational efficiency, elevating the user experience, and enabling platform-wide transformation across the organization.
We continue to embed an AI-first mindset by introducing purpose-built applications within individual business functions to automate routine tasks and streamline workflows. For customers, we upgraded our AI app with a multi-agent architecture that supports seamless end-to-end user journeys spanning product recommendations, insurance underwriting, and policy servicing. We also launched an AI-powered financial planning feature that generates personalized family financial plans tailored to each household’s specific protection needs and gaps.
On the advisor side, we equipped our agents with an AI-powered assistant that enhances productivity across key workflows, including intelligent lead screening, automated interaction summaries, AI-enabled outbound calls, tailored insurance proposals, and advanced customer analytics. We also integrated our AI capabilities with our extensive knowledge base to assist insurer partners and optimize products. Overall, these initiatives produced measurable cost efficiencies and productivity gains.
Our total operating expenses decreased to RMB 175 million in the first half, resulting in an improved expense-to-income ratio of 24.2%. Our international arm, Pony InsurTech, delivered another strong performance and remains a key pillar of our long-term growth strategy. In Vietnam, GlobalCare recorded an 11% year-over-year increase in policies issued through the first half, driving a year-over-year surge in gross written premiums and revenue growth of 45% and 24%, respectively.
The local IFA business also made notable progress, with the number of policies issued growing 48% year over year. In Singapore, we focused on serving high-value customers with increasingly sophisticated protection, wealth allocation, and long-term financial planning needs. We continue to broaden our portfolio of differentiated and customized products in partnership with leading insurers, strengthening Singapore’s role as an important regional platform for delivering integrated protection and wealth management solutions.
The expansion of Pony’s regional footprint serves as an important driver of revenue diversification and creates additional growth engines for Huize, supporting long-term shareholder value creation. Looking ahead, we’re well positioned to capture emerging opportunities across China’s evolving insurance landscape and the broader Pan-Asian market. Domestically, persistently low deposit rates are expected to further drive household allocation toward higher-yield savings and participating insurance products, while government initiatives to strengthen the multi-tiered protection system are expected to sustain demand for commercial insurance and support the industry’s long-term development. Beyond China, Pony is leveraging Huize’s proven business model and proven AI capabilities to deepen its presence across key Asian markets. These initiatives together are strengthening the resilience and diversification of our growth and laying a solid foundation for sustainable long-term value creation. And with that, I’ll open up the call to questions. Thank you very much, and over to you, operator.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question at this time, you will need to press star-11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Again, please press star-11 to ask a question. Our first question comes from the line of Ashi with Sidoti & Co. Your line is now open.
Ashi, Analyst at Sidoti & Co.
Thank you so much for taking my question. Can you talk a little bit about the AI investing that you are doing, and can you give us some tangible examples of the returns you are seeing from that investment, whether through lower customer acquisition costs or higher conversion, improved agent productivity or lower operating costs? Where do you see the most benefit from the AI investment that you’re doing? Thank you.
Ron Tam, Co-CFO
Thank you, Ashi, and thanks for joining for the first time. Appreciate your presence. With respect to the AI investments and the key value creation that we are trying to achieve, I think we did go over quite in some detail just now in the opening remarks, but just to summarize the key goals that we’re trying to achieve here: obviously, the first phase of AI adoption is to turn our organization into more of an AI-native structure, and typically that would mean automating workflows and optimizing the workflows and deploying AI agents across the value chain.
That typically means lower operating costs and improved operational efficiency. So that’s the first phase of value creation, and I think we have demonstrated that in the operating expenses ratio; we have achieved initial success in that regard. The second phase that we’re now pushing is demonstrated in the front end, which you have alluded to, in terms of lower customer acquisition cost. That is demonstrated by the increasing amount of self-directed policy purchases that’s being addressed by AI consultations in our mobile app.
That’s also leading to improved conversion rate and higher agent productivity, because with the same number of agents we are actually producing more premium growth from the same headcount. So that’s the phase two of growth and value creation that we’re driving right now.
Ashi, Analyst at Sidoti & Co.
And as you grow your revenue in international markets, can you talk about the profitability in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Vietnam individually? Which markets are already profitable today, and what does the path to consolidated margin expansion look like as international becomes a bigger part of the revenue mix?
Ron Tam, Co-CFO
Sure, thanks for the question. In terms of the international markets, we have to say that in the key market of Hong Kong, for example, we are already profitable since last year, and that’s been contributing to our bottom-line results. Our Singapore business just started since the fourth quarter of last year, still ramping up, but we’re expecting to also drive profitability from that region this year in the full year. In Vietnam, we are almost there in terms of profitability.
Vietnam is still in a high-growth phase, as you can imagine, albeit it is still not EBITDA positive, but the loss there is actually quite minimal given the low absolute number of the business compared to the broader group. So overall, international markets are profitable. Combined with the China business, which is also profitable, the main reason for a relatively low net profit margin is due to the fact that we continually invest our cash flow into AI—close to US$10 million pretty much last year, and this year looking around the same number in terms of operating expenses in R&D and also on CapEx.
So I think that would answer your question.
Ashi, Analyst at Sidoti & Co.
Yeah, no, that’s really helpful. Thank you so much. And lastly, can you just discuss a little bit about your capital allocation strategy, and will you be needing to raise any cash in the next 12 to 18 months?
Ron Tam, Co-CFO
Great. In terms of capital allocation, I think we just touched on all that just now. AI is front and center in terms of the organic investment in the group’s organic business. In terms of international markets, we think that right now we are happy with what we have, so further new markets are not likely in the next 12 to 24 months, and we just want to scale the existing businesses to a more healthy level. And, you know, I think—what’s the part of the question?
I missed the last question.
Ashi, Analyst at Sidoti & Co.
Yeah. Will you be needing to raise more capital?
Ron Tam, Co-CFO
Oh, we are unlikely to be raising capital at this stage because we still have decent cash on the balance sheet. Until we identify some major transformative M&A opportunities, it’s quite unlikely that we’ll be tapping the markets, given the relatively low valuation right now of the company.
Ashi, Analyst at Sidoti & Co.
All right, thank you so much. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Amy Chen with Citi. Your line is now open. Please check your mute button.
Amy Chen, Analyst at Citi
Hi. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, and congrats on another resilient quarter. My question is regarding mainland China’s visitor business in Hong Kong. After the news flows regarding Decree 837 and the latest media reporting citing that local tax authorities are charging 20% tax on par product dividends, I’m wondering if Huize has observed any changes in terms of customer demand on the ground, both in terms of overseas business as well as domestic business.
Thank you.
Ron Tam, Co-CFO
Thank you, Amy. So just to clarify your question on the impact from the recent No. 3 documents and news articles on the MCV business. The quick answer to that is, based on what we are seeing in the month of July and month-to-date in August, we see that the overall market sentiment and momentum, particularly in Hong Kong, for example, is still robust. From our own numbers as well as from our channel checks in the market, we do think that there will be some degree of impact on certain customers’ mindsets with respect to the 837 decree and the media article that you mentioned.
The context of the article is actually nothing new; it’s something that has been long written in the relevant regulations in China. So it’s a matter of future potential enforcement of the relevant tax clauses in that document. We do believe that the underlying customer demand or the logic behind overseas or offshore insurance purchases still remains intact, given the attractiveness of the underlying asset allocation for international products provided by insurers in Hong Kong and Singapore, for example, which gives a diversified global strategy for consumers.
The prevailing differential in the interest rate environment should also continue to underpin strong demand for offshore products.
OPERATOR
Thank you. I am showing no further questions in the Q&A queue at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Kenny Lo for any closing comments.
Kenny Lo, Investor Relations Director
Thank you, operator. On behalf of the Huize Holding management team, we thank everyone for joining our earnings conference call. If you need further information, please feel free to contact us through our email address. This concludes the call. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company’s SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants’ and analysts’ statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
Recent Comments