A "Unimpressive" Financial Report Hides Geely's Strongest Trump Card

“Selling cars doesn't make money" — this industry joke ultimately came true as a prophecy.

The price war has lasted three years, and industry profit margins have fallen from 7.8% ten years ago to 1.5%. "Quantity and profit cannot be had together" changed from a phenomenon into industry consensus.

 

 

But Geely overturned this consensus with a set of data — in the first half of this year, automotive sales reached 1.42 million units, a slight year-on-year increase of 1%; revenue was 173.6 billion yuan, a surge of 15% year-on-year; core net profit attributable to the parent company reached 9.68 billion yuan, a surge of 46% year-on-year; core net profit attributable to the parent company per vehicle was 6,806 yuan, an increase of 45% year-on-year.

 

 

Sales up 1%, profit up 46%.This isn't piled up by "selling more cars, thin margins on high volume", but every car is earning more money. If you look at it over a longer time, this is Geely's sixth consecutive year of positive revenue growth. In a cycle turning from "incremental competition" to "stock elimination", these five words "Volume, Price, and Profit All Rising" are the most hardcore footnote of this semi-annual report.

 

One Geely, Clenched Fist

 

The data is there, anyone can calculate the accounts. But what is more worth asking is — Geely, on what basis?

The answer is hidden in a strategy launched two years ago. In September 2024, Geely released the "Taizhou Declaration", proposing five major measures of "Strategic Focus, Strategic Integration", declaring a move from the expansion era of "raising many children to fight well" to the focus era of "returning to one Geely".

 

 

At that time, Geely answered the two questions most focused by the market: Why and How?

The answer to the former is very direct: change the past situation of scattered brands fighting separately, concentrating resources into a fist; the path for the latter is also very clear: Zeekr, Lynk & Co., Galaxy, and China Star, the four major brands, are under one corporate structure, with the Central Research Institute, supply chain, and manufacturing system all connected. In August this year, a General Sales Company was established, with four brand sales companies under it, further coordinating marketing resources. From R&D, manufacturing, procurement, to sales, "One Geely" completed the last piece of the puzzle.

The effect of integration was also directly written into the income statement — administrative expense ratio dropped to 1.7% in the first half of the year, R&D expense ratio dropped to 5.2%, money was spent less, efficiency was higher.

 

 

The four brands also have their respective duties. Zeekr carries the profit, selling 178,000 units in the first half of this year, accounting for only 12.5% of total sales, but contributing 31.7% of revenue — this is the power of premiumization; average transaction price 350,000, already exceeding BBA.

Galaxy pursues volume, selling nearly 520,000 units in the first half of the year, breaking into the top three globally in new energy. Running volume in the mainstream market, spreading costs, is Geely's basic foundation.

China Star defends internal combustion, selling over 580,000 units in the first half of the year, securing the first place in Chinese brand internal combustion car sales for the 10th consecutive year. Industry internal combustion cars dropped 31.9%, China Star only dropped 8.8%, holding the internal combustion camp with product power.

Lynk & Co. focuses on differentiation, over 144,000 units in the first half of the year, new energy penetration rate reached 65%, labels of "trendy, sports, individual" are stuck tighter, doing what they are good at in niche markets. "No fighting, no internal friction" — this is not one brand fighting, but four pillars holding up Geely's profit chassis simultaneously.

 

Second Curve, Expedition Overseas

 

After stabilizing the domestic market, Geely turned its eyes to further places.

 

 

While the domestic auto market is still fighting in price wars, Geely cars are already loaded onto ocean freighters. In the first half of the year, Geely's overseas export sales reached 474,200 units, a 158% year-on-year increase, exceeding the total export volume of the entire year of 2025. In June and July, overseas monthly sales exceeded 100,000 units consecutively.

Horizontal comparison is more intuitive — Geely has the highest export growth rate among mainstream Chinese automakers, total export volume and new energy export volume both ranked in the top three among Chinese automakers. The proportion of exports to total sales was pulled from about 13% last year's same period to 33%.

 

 

But more valuable than sales volume is the structure of exports — in the first half of this year, Geely's new energy vehicle exports reached 277,200 units, a surge of 585% year-on-year, accounting for 58.5% of total exports. That is to say, in the cars Geely sells overseas, over half are new energy — not moving domestic fuel cars that can't be sold overseas to clear inventory, but pushing the most advanced products to the global market.

At the same time, Geely's approach is also upgrading: from "whole vehicle export" to "system overseas". In the first half of the year, overseas manufacturing plants put into operation reached 12, overseas capacity exceeded 650,000 units, expected to exceed 840,000 units by year-end. Geely Auto Board Chairman An Conghui disclosed longer-term layouts at the performance meeting: Volvo Europe factory will undertake Geely system's luxury car production; Proton Malaysia factory is undergoing technical transformation, planned for upgrade to 500,000 unit-level Southeast Asia manufacturing base; Ford joint venture Spain factory capacity is also 500,000 units. From "selling cars out" to "building factories out", Geely is completing the leap from product overseas to industrial overseas.

 

 

And based on the first half-year growth rate, Geely has raised the full-year overseas sales target from 640,000 units to 920,000 units, and shouted the slogan of sprinting to 1 million units, long-term goal is overseas contributing two-thirds of total sales.

From 13% to 33%, then to two-thirds, a clear upward curve outlines Geely's overseas market growth trajectory, and also marks a key node of a Chinese automaker leaping to a global company.

 

Smart Track, Heavy Bet on AI 

 

One seeks efficiency inwards, one seeks increment outwards —

Integration is tightening resources, going overseas is opening the market. But this merely solves the problem of getting to the table, wanting to win the game, you still need to place a bigger bet.

 

 

Open Geely's R&D ledger: R&D investment 9.06 billion yuan in the first half of the year, year-on-year growth 8%, R&D expense ratio actually dropped 0.3 percentage points. Money was spent more efficiently, but R&D investment absolute value is still rising — this money, most of it thrown to one direction: AI.

In January 2026, Geely announced on US CES that full-domain AI technology system evolved to 2.0 era. Core breakthrough is based on self-developed WAM World Behavior Model, achieving cross-domain fusion of AI technology in various domains of the whole vehicle, allowing automotive intelligence to first possess a continuous evolving "worldview" and "judgment capability".

 

 

Based on WAM model, Geely built a so-called "1+2+N" multi-agent collaboration framework, core logic is not complex: one brain unified scheduling, Super Eva and Qianli Haohan G-ASD respectively responsible for "thinking" and "moving", then extended to all vehicle function modules. Simply put, you say a sentence casually, behind there might be several intelligent modules working together — understand intent, plan path, control vehicle, adjust cockpit, all in one go.

On the ground, Qianli Haohan G-ASD already covers Zeekr, Lynk & Co. brand 16 car models, equipped vehicles over 300,000 units. In 2026, Geely plans to push highway L3 and urban L4 functions under legal permission, and realize Robotaxi commercial operation.

 

 

Different from the industry's common "Product Intelligence" — adding a pile of functions to the car, Geely embedded AI into the full chain from design, R&D, manufacturing to after-sales. i-HEV Intelligent Engine Hybrid, AI Digital Chassis, 16-in-1 Intelligent Electric Drive launched in the first half, behind them all have shadows of AI large models. At the same time, further chess game has been played: Geely has deepened cooperation with NVIDIA, also plans to establish 2030 Laboratory, layout power semiconductors, embodied intelligence, large models and other frontier fields.

If "One Geely" is the chassis, going overseas is the accelerator, then full-domain AI is the steering wheel — it determines where this company will finally drive to. And Geely official stance on this matter is: Accelerating towards "Full-domain AI Intelligent Vehicle Leader".

 

Ending:

 

 

"This is an eye-catching financial report, but not yet at the level of dazzling." At the performance press conference, Geely Auto Board Vice Chairman and Executive Director Gui Shengyue gave four judgments: Above Expectations, Eye-catching, Not Dazzling, Can Sustain Long Term with Huge Room for Improvement.

And behind this exactly corresponds to the three-fold logic of Geely's semi-annual report: Above Expectations, it is efficiency release brought by integration; Eye-catching, it is growth space opened by going overseas; And Not Dazzling but Huge Room for Improvement, it is sober cognition of this AI marathon — trump card has been shown, but the final outcome is far from coming.

For the industry, the greatest value of Geely's semi-annual report is not providing another "case of making money", but providing a "sample of how to live well in a stock elimination cycle" — not relying on price wars, not relying on stacking configurations, relying on strategic determination, system capability and forward-looking layout. This is Geely's answer, and also its deepest moat.