GAC Group (02238) First half of 2026: Revenue grew steadily, doubling overseas to become the first growth curve

The automotive industry is growing strongly endogenously, doubling revenue from overseas markets, creating the first growth curve, and laying out a multi-pole growth track for AI+ industry investment. GAC Group (02238) is reconstructing fundamental values.

The Zhitong Finance App learned that on August 28, GAC Group released its 2026 semi-annual financial report, achieving total revenue of 46.5 billion yuan, up 9.13% year on year, of which overseas revenue was 14.013 billion yuan, up 109.27% year on year, accounting for 30.13% of revenue. Overseas markets became the core growth engine.

In fact, in the first half of the year, the company anchored the “Panyu Operation”, focusing on multi-dimensional initiatives such as product value wars, product attacks, and overseas expansion. It achieved remarkable results, achieved significant growth in the three key indicators of new energy, independent brands, and overseas markets, creating a new growth curve.

The automobile industry has entered a knockout stage in the stock era. While stabilizing its basic market, the GAC Group is also exploring various growth points, including strategic investment in humanoid robots and AI application layouts such as RoboTaxi, which have gradually switched to commercial operation. As of June 2026, the company had cash equivalents of 33.386 billion yuan, an increase of 9.546 billion yuan over the end of 2025, and abundant cash flow guarantees the full advancement of multiple growth strategies.

Three core drivers to create the first growth curve

The Zhitong Finance App learned that in the first half of 2026, the total sales volume of the automobile industry was 1.517 million units, down 4.1% year on year. Of these, sales of new energy vehicles were 7.446 million units, an increase of only 7.3% year on year, compared to 40.3% in the same period last year. Against the backdrop of slowing industry growth and increasing internal price pressure, the GAC Group's total sales volume was 773,300 vehicles, bucking the year-on-year trend. New energy, independent brands, and overseas markets were all three core drivers of this growth.

Data source: Company financial report

In the field of new energy, the company sold 262,200 new energy vehicles in the first half of the year, up 68.8% year on year, and the share of sales increased to 33.65%. Together with energy-saving vehicles, which accounted for 62.82% of sales, an increase of 14 percentage points over the previous year.

In the field of independent brands, sales were driven by the wave of new energy generation. Sales volume during the period was 346,000 units, a sharp increase of 35.69% over the previous year, and the share of sales increased to 44.75%. Among them, GAC Aian achieved sales of 181,600 vehicles, an increase of 67.08% over the same period last year. The year-on-year growth rate remained above 60% in March-June, and C-end retail accounted for more than 80%. In addition, GAC Trumpchi sold 164,400 vehicles during the same period, an increase of 12.36% over the same period last year. Qijing Auto's first smart pure electric hunting coupe GT7, which was jointly built by GAC and Huawei Qiankun, was mass-produced and launched at the end of June. It is expected that the second half of the year will contribute to sales growth.

In overseas markets, the company fully implemented the “overseas traction and global adaptation” mechanism, accelerated global model development, and reshaped the overseas product system. During this period, its own brands exported 121,500 vehicles, an increase of 132% over the previous year, leading the way. The scale was close to the total volume for the whole of 2025, accounting for 15.72% of GAC's overall sales volume. Among them, in the Southeast Asian market, GAC terminal sales doubled to about 23,000 units, and terminal sales in the American market were about 25,000 units, a sharp increase of 75% over the previous year.

In fact, new energy and independent brands are mainly based on model construction, gaining a competitive advantage in stock and incremental market games to seize a larger market share, while the overseas market is the core incremental market, maximizing the product advantages of new energy and independent brands, and has become the number one growth curve built by the company.

In the first half of the year, GAC Group expanded 32 new overseas markets. The global business has covered 110 countries and regions, and 746 overseas sales and service outlets. The company has set an overseas sales target of 250,000 vehicles for its own brands in 2026. In the second half of the year, it will speed up global model project development, efficiently promote the implementation of the “Thousand Networks Plan” for overseas channels, and establish a full-chain overseas operation system from manufacturing, energy supply, product delivery to travel services. The goal is to enter 120 countries and regions around the world by 2030, with annual overseas sales exceeding 1 million vehicles.

“Market+technology” builds strong product strength, and the total R&D investment exceeds 67 billion yuan

The three core drivers of the GAC Group can maintain high growth. The fundamental logic is that products win. Under fierce competition, simple price competition fails. Instead, cost-effective models determine success or failure. The “products and needs” of car companies with global self-research capabilities resonate, ushering in a window to seize the best market.

The company insists on using technology and continues to invest in R&D to reshape its product capabilities. In the first half of the year, it invested 4.834 billion yuan in independent R&D, an increase of 27.58% over the previous year, accounting for 10.4% of R&D investment. The cumulative investment has already exceeded 67 billion yuan, and has initially completed the leap from a single-point technological breakthrough to a systematic technology system. During this period, the company added more than 1,200 new patent applications, and as of June 2026, the cumulative number of patent applications has exceeded 25,000.

The GAC Group focuses on investing in independent brand research and development, with IPD process transformation as the core, forming the industry's first “market+technology” two-wheel drive product development model, deeply integrating user needs into the entire business process, and constructing an end-to-end development process of “insight - demand development - delivery”. At the same time, the company has a leading exclusive platform for new energy vehicles, and has self-developed technologies in various fields such as power systems, intelligent connectivity and intelligent driving to create the most competitive models in the industry.

In April of this year, GAC concentrated on releasing the latest technological achievements, including the new Xingyuan Power, Starship body, Galaxy Smart Cabin, and Xingling Architecture 4.0, covering core areas such as power systems, body safety, smart cockpits, and electronic and electrical architectures, and the technical achievements have all been fully launched. For example, the latest technology from Xingyuan Power has already been mass-produced and launched with models such as the E8 PHEV and M8 PHEV L that Trumpchi aspires to; Starship body technology has also been mass-produced and loaded with models such as the Haobo S600.

It is worth mentioning that through its energy ecological layout, the company has built a vertically integrated new energy industry chain of “lithium mine+basic lithium battery raw material production+battery production+energy storage and charging and exchange service+battery leasing+battery recycling and cascade utilization” through companies such as GAC Energy and Impai Battery to accelerate the transformation of new energy sources and enhance model competitiveness. At the same time, the energy ecological layout also helps reduce supply chain and service costs.

In the second half of the year, many major models such as the Trumpchi Yue 7, Aian Ray7, and Qijing GX7 will be launched, continuing to enrich the product matrix. In the first half of the year, the company introduced the Trumpchi M6, Trumpchi E9, and Aian i60 models, and invested in R&D to continuously refine its product capabilities. With a huge sales and service network, including more than 2,400 domestic 4S stores and 746 overseas sales outlets, the company deeply touched consumers and seized global market share.

Exploring multiple growth points, future valuation space can be expected

The automobile business is the basic market. On the one hand, the GAC Group stimulates growth within the basic market through multi-dimensional measures, and on the other hand, it is also actively exploring new growth points to drive revenue growth in multiple dimensions. In the first half of the year, many of the company's advanced AI forward-looking application tracks have gradually switched to commercial operation. The core includes high-potential racetracks such as humanoid robots, flying cars, and Robotaxi.

Among them, at the humanoid robot circuit, Huilun Technology's main product, GoMate Mini, began normalized commercial operation, deployed nearly 50 units in 7 major scenarios, and received orders of nearly 10 million yuan; at the flying car circuit, Gaoyu Technology's Huangpu factory was put into operation in the first half of the year, and the first flying car GOVY AirCab went offline, and the product has received nearly 2,000 intended orders; at the Robotaxi circuit, the Robotaxi R2 built by Guangzhou Automobile and Didi was delivered at the beginning of the year and obtained road testing qualifications in Beijing and Guangzhou. Ruqi Chuxing operates more than 550 Robotaxis and plans to build a fleet of 10,000 vehicles within 5 years through an open cooperation model and enter 100 cities across the country.

Furthermore, through its industrial capital, the company expanded from the main automotive circuit to future high-tech industries such as artificial intelligence, physical intelligence, aerospace, and new materials, and “main business+industrial investment” went hand in hand. In the first half of the year, the company invested in 32 projects, covering various fields such as unmanned logistics, semiconductor power devices, and commercial rockets, including companies such as Neolithic and Galaxy Power. Previously, it had invested in more than 140 companies, and a total of 49 companies entered the capital market. This year, 20 participating companies including Changxin Technology and Momenta have gone public.

In the medium to long term, the three major racetracks of humanoid robots, flying cars, and Robotaxi will gradually be mass-produced and commercialized, creating a second growth curve outside the basic market; industrial investment will enter a “payback period,” and the intensive listing of participating high-tech companies will provide fair value returns and increase profits. Take Changxin Technology, which went public in July this year. GAC already participated in the investment in 2021. The current market value is as high as 3.98 trillion yuan, and the book profit is tens of times higher.

Overall, the GAC Group has accelerated fundamental transformation. Growth factors such as new energy, independent brands, and overseas markets drive endogenous growth in the main automobile industry. The overseas market has become the number one growth curve, while high-intensity R&D investment continues to strengthen product strength. In addition, many new models will be launched in the first half of the year, and “independent brand+overseas” will drive sales growth. The company explores new growth points, and AI multi-field track+industry investment will gradually unleash performance.

Based on long-term optimism about the company, shareholder Hong Zejun continuously increased his holdings on July 2 and 14. The latest number of shares held was about 425 million shares, with a shareholding ratio of 15.11%. On the day the results were announced, the GAC Group's Hong Kong stock volume surged 7.91%. However, the current PB value is only 0.2 times, while the NEV sector's PB value is 2 times. The company's current value is clearly undervalued.