The transformation took effect and the stock market picked up, and the seashell-W (02423) profit margin rose to 14.6%: a double increase in second-hand and new housing, and a change in volume control for home improvement leasing
Zhitong Finance App learned that on August 21, Seashell-W (02423) announced results for the second quarter of 2026. Shell achieved net revenue of 24.5 billion yuan and adjusted operating profit of 3.59 billion yuan in the second quarter. The adjusted operating profit margin reached 14.6%, an increase of 8.5 percentage points over the previous year. The number of second-hand housing transactions on the Shell platform increased 25% year on year. The company's overall GTV reached 933.8 billion yuan, an increase of 6.3% year over year, achieving the first increase in a year. The company's strategic changes combined with a recovery in the stock market, and Shell handed over the best financial report in three years.
Peng Yongdong, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Shell, said, “In the second quarter of 2026, we saw that the company's operating base was further stabilized, and organizational changes began to deepen into daily operations. We are taking consumer needs and frontline practical issues as a starting point to further improve collaboration between professional service providers, platforms and AI: professional service providers assume judgment and responsibility, the platform provides collaboration and performance guarantees, and AI promotes the accumulation of professional experience into verifiable and reusable organizational capabilities. Facing the next phase, we will continue to pursue qualitative scale growth to lay the foundation for the company's long-term sustainable development.”
Xu Tao, executive director and chief financial officer of Shell, said, “The company's profitability was further improved, and the contributing profit margins of all major businesses increased year-on-year and month-on-month, driving a 6.7 percentage point increase in gross margin to 28.6% year over year; the adjusted operating margin and adjusted net interest rate reached 14.6% and 13.0% respectively, both of which hit a three-year high.”
While profits improved, Shell continued to maintain steady cash management and repayment efficiency. Shell's net operating cash inflow for the second quarter was 6.6 billion yuan. By the end of the second quarter, the general cash balance excluding customer provisions was about 67.3 billion yuan; the number of accounts receivable turnover days for new homes was about 39 days, a decrease of about 12 days over the previous year.
Second-hand housing orders increased 25%, and Shell's earnings report became a beacon of market recovery in the stock era
As the real estate market enters an era of stock, regulatory policies in many places continue to unleash housing consumption potential, and the activity of second-hand housing transactions has increased. In the second quarter, the number of second-hand housing transactions on the Shell platform increased 25% year on year, driving GTV stock up 8% year on year and revenue reached 7 billion yuan; the company's overall GTV reached 933.8 billion yuan, an increase of 6.3% year on year.
During the reporting period, Shell did not exchange the number of stores for growth, but rather driven growth by improving the output efficiency of a single store. Further shift the business focus to improving the efficiency of existing stores to help store owners identify business problems and deepen cross-store cooperation. In the second quarter, the number of Belian stores was basically stable year on year, while the average number of second-hand housing transactions per store increased 26% year over year, driving the overall volume of second-hand housing transactions by 30% year on year. The profit margin contributed by the Shell stock housing business in the second quarter was 46.1%, up 6.1 percentage points from the previous year.
The new housing business GTV grew 1.2% year-on-year in the second quarter and increased 77.1% month-on-month, surpassing the market. Revenue increased 3.8% year over year to RMB 8.9 billion.
The most important change in the Shell real estate transaction business this quarter is that while the scale of transactions has recovered, the efficiency of the platform network, the economy of various business units, and cash inflows have improved markedly. The improvement in trading business combined with the continuous optimization of the company's business structure, unit efficiency, and resource allocation over the past year, greatly helped increase Shell's overall profit.
150 days of transformation, “consumer-centered” innovation initiatives to restart growth channels
Since the “consumer-centered” strategic change was proposed at the end of March, a series of Shell reform initiatives have continued to be implemented.
Shell is redesigning professional roles, collaboration processes, and service tools around key issues such as “how to clarify consumer needs, how to compare choices, and how to determine price and transaction pace.” Examples include innovative service mechanisms such as real estate managers, community open days, sincere sales, and online service assistants; embracing new media to provide decision-making content references; excellent service provider skills to accumulate experience; AI assistants for agents; and ways to reduce agent burdens.
For example, Community Open Day, Chainjia has already piloted projects in Shanghai and Beijing, so that owners can see real demand, price feedback, and housing competitiveness more quickly. In the Beijing pilot, the Community Open Day brought more attention and sped up the process of promoting transactions between businesses and customers. At present, the Community Open Day has been launched in 67 residential areas in Beijing. The average number of house viewings in the pilot community has increased 2.6 times in a single day. Buyers participating in the Community Open Day have a contract transaction rate of about twice that of those who did not participate within 7 days.
On the buyer's side, Shell is using “AI+ artificial” online service assistants in some scenarios to provide buyers with exclusive housekeeper services to help them sort out and clarify their home purchase needs before choosing a home, and then match customer needs more clearly to more suitable agents. In Beijing, the service has served nearly 100,000 visitors since it was piloted in March of this year. After in-depth communication with the online service assistant, it was transferred to the broker's customer, and the transaction efficiency was increased 6 times.
A number of housing decision support capacity building capabilities are beginning to show results, and the value of the platform is being further extended from organizing transactions to supporting user decisions. This change is also opening up new room for growth in the trading business.
Active speed control for home improvement and leasing in exchange for high-quality growth
Since the last stage, Shell's home improvement business and housing rental business have placed quality growth as a priority.
In the home improvement and home furnishing business, Shell actively adjusts its business model, reduces investment in low-quality customer acquisition channels, focuses on the core market, and uses delivery quality as the foundation for long-term development. The general manager of the city led a team to randomly inspect the home improvement site, promptly rectify and review the problems found, and put quality management ahead of the construction process; seashells further enriched the price range and product configuration of the complete package, and flexibly arranged value showrooms around the contract center, making the home improvement plan more intuitive and easy to compare. In the second quarter, the revenue of the home improvement and home furnishing business reached 3.2 billion yuan, contributing a profit margin of 39.6%, an increase of 7.5 percentage points over the previous year, reaching the highest level in history.
The housing rental business takes standardized and safe rental services as the core of capacity building. During the reporting period, Shell issued the first residential safety enterprise standard in the rental industry, integrating safety management throughout the entire process of admission inspection, delivery review, and in-lease inspection. The “worry-free rental” model has been iterated to a lighter and lower risk net product model. Net products already account for more than 50% of managed listings.
By the end of the second quarter, Shell managed more than 790,000 units, an increase of about 34% over the previous year. In the second quarter, revenue from the housing rental service business reached 4.8 billion yuan, contributing a profit margin of 15.3%, an increase of 6.9 percentage points over the previous year; at the same time, the landlord renewal rate reached about 74%, an increase of about 4 percentage points over the previous year. While the scale of services continues to grow, product structure, profitability, and owner stickiness have all improved.