Cao Cao Travel (02643) Interim Report: Fundamentals continue to be consolidated, internationalization accelerates, and the potential of RoboX can be realized under a closed loop of all elements

Cao Cao Chuxing (02643), which has just revealed its 2026 interim results, is in the critical window of a second transition.

Judging from the operating results, the structural highlights of Cao Cao's travel are outstanding. In the first half of this year, the company's revenue reached 10.3 billion yuan, up 9% year on year; GTV reached 12.4 billion yuan, up 13.6% year on year; gross margin increased from 8.7% in the same period last year to 9.0%, further improving profitability.

What is even more iconic is that in the first half of this year, Cao Cao Chuxing officially launched a comprehensive AI transformation, released the RoboX strategy, and upgraded its positioning to “the world's leading physical AI mobile technology platform.” Behind this strategic shift is the company's accurate investigation and judgment on the accelerated transformation of the mobility industry's competitive focus to “system capability competition.”

Zhitong Finance believes that the value of Cao Cao Chuxing's mid-term report card, which carries the dual narratives of “present” and “future,” is not only about verifying the quality of current operations, but also provides an important window for understanding the company's long-term growth logic.

Fundamentals continue to be consolidated in the AI transformation process

Despite being in a strategic transformation stage, according to the interim report, the fundamentals of Cao Cao's travel are still being consolidated.

As of June 30, Cao Cao's travel service had covered 215 cities in China, and 20 new cities were added in the first half of the year. The continuous expansion of the service network has directly driven the simultaneous growth of both platform users and capacity. During the period, the average monthly active users of the platform were 44.6 million, up 17.1% year on year; the average monthly active drivers were 758,000, up 36.8% year on year. Simultaneous growth in supply and demand provided a solid order foundation for the steady expansion of the company's business scale.

Continued improvement in profitability is the more persuasive part of this interim report. In the first half of the year, Cao Cao's gross margin of travel was 9%, achieving a year-on-year increase. There are two clear paths behind this: first, marginal costs were reduced due to the expansion of business scale, and the increase in brand awareness effectively reduced customer acquisition costs on the user side; second, the transaction engine “Cao Cao Brain” continued to use AI technology optimization algorithms to simultaneously release efficiency at both ends of driver scheduling and user operation. It is also easy to see from this that the improvement in Cao Cao's profitability did not rely on a single cost reduction measure, but was based on a systematic improvement in operational efficiency.

In addition, the company owns more than 38,000 custom vehicles in 31 cities, making it the largest of its kind in the country. The TCO (total cost of ownership) of customized vehicles is reduced by about 36.4% compared to typical pure electric vehicles; it also relies on Geely Ecological 448 power exchange stations to achieve a 60-second high-speed power exchange, reducing maintenance time and costs by 25% and 54%, respectively. These structural advantages on the cost side also support the strengthening of profitability.

RoboX strategy implementation accelerates, international business expands incremental space

More long-term changes are happening at a strategic level at an accelerated pace.

In terms of AI layout, in the first half of the year, Cao Cao Chuxing established the AI Division and AI Innovation Center, and Turing Award winner Joseph Siffakis acted as the chief scientific advisor. As one of the first travel industry partners, Cao Cao Chuxing also joined Doubao's AI ecosystem. In June, it co-created an AI ride-hailing service with Doubao and conducted a grayscale pilot. From organizational construction to ecological collaboration, AI is becoming the core gripper for Cao Cao Travel to optimize the user experience and improve commercial efficiency.

In the RoboX business, the commercialization process is also accelerating. During the reporting period, Cao Cao Chuxing deployed 140 second-generation Robotaxis; China's first native Robotaxi, Eva Cab, was unveiled in April. The company is deeply involved in product definition and development, and the model is scheduled to be mass-produced in 2027.

In terms of internationalization, Cao Cao Chuxing will deploy a Robotaxi fleet in Hong Kong with Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates as the first key markets; in June, Cao Cao Chuxing also signed a strategic cooperation with local partner K2 in Abu Dhabi to jointly promote the Robotaxi project. Given that the core economy of RoboX is to replace manpower and improve vehicle utilization, and higher labor costs in overseas markets will amplify this characteristic, this means that Cao Cao Chuxing has a lot of room to expand in overseas markets.

Strategic upgrade enhances growth visibility

From an industry perspective, the autonomous driving mobility industry is moving from technical verification to a critical stage of large-scale implementation. Smart driving technology routes are gradually converging, and leading companies in the industry already have platform-based capabilities across scenarios. Cao Cao Travel chose to launch a full AI transformation at this time, which will further strengthen his existing capabilities.

Judging from competitive barriers, the core advantage of Cao Cao's travel is that it has all-factor closed-loop capabilities. The 38,000 customized vehicle fleet provided large-scale hardware platforms. Geely Ecological's deep collaboration opened up the technical link from manufacturing to smart driving, and 11 years of travel operation experience have accumulated scene data and scheduling capabilities. The superposition of the three also means that Cao Cao's travel RoboX layout is based on the systematic release of existing capabilities.

Also, judging from the plan, Cao Cao's strategic travel path is already very clear. The company plans to deploy a total of 100,000 Robotaxis by 2030. Currently, it is in the second stage of the “three-step” strategy, which is to complete the transition from driving safety personnel to unmanned operation, and explore hybrid operation of manned and unmanned vehicles; after the timing becomes more mature, the company will start large-scale operations around the world by developing Robotaxi models natively.

Finally, looking back at Cao Cao Chuxing's interim report, the company's basic plan is in a healthy channel where scale expansion and profit improvement are progressing simultaneously, and the accelerated formation of the AI and Robox strategic curves has opened up more imaginative growth space for it. While the market's perception of Cao Cao's travel was still limited to travel service providers, the new outline of its “physical AI mobile technology platform” was actually beginning to take shape. For investors, the significance of this interim report is that Cao Cao Chuxing is already in the next step of early changes in the card slot industry, and the company's value revaluation is at the cutting edge.