Why isn't Xiaoma Zhixing's commercialization being accepted yet?

Pony.ai-W (02026.HK) (PONY.US) has released its 2025 annual report as scheduled.

On the surface, this is a “positive” report card, with steadily increasing revenue, significantly reduced losses, and continued progress in commercialization. The autonomous driving ride-hailing business even shows signs of accelerating growth. However, in contrast to the fundamentals, the stock price declined after the report was released.

As of March 27, Pony.ai’s stock price closed at HKD 74.6, down nearly 18% from before the report was released, while the US stock fell 14.66% on the same day.

This is not simply a case of “results falling short of expectations,” but rather a recalibration of the market’s valuation logic for autonomous driving companies.

Commercialization is starting to “run”

First, let’s look at the core financial metrics. In 2025, Pony.ai achieved total revenue of $90.001 million, a year-on-year increase of 20%; gross margin improved to 15.7%, and the profitability structure has improved. However, what’s more noteworthy is the loss side. Under GAAP, the company reported a net loss of $76.758 million for the year, a 72.1% reduction year-on-year, significantly easing overall operational pressure. Although losses under non-GAAP have still widened, this is more due to ongoing increases in R&D and expansion investments, essentially representing a typical growth company path.

What truly differentiates is the change in business structure. The autonomous driving ride-hailing service has become the biggest highlight: annual revenue grew 128.6% year-on-year, passenger fare revenue increased nearly fourfold, and both order volume and user penetration improved simultaneously. This means that Pony.ai is no longer just “technology validation,” but is receiving sustained demand in the real market. Meanwhile, the trucking business continues to progress steadily, with significant increases in technology licensing and domain controller deliveries, and multiple business lines are starting to form synergies.

From a financial and business structure perspective, Pony.ai is transitioning from a “technology company” to an “operational technology company.”

The L4 business model is beginning to be validated

If financial data reflects trends, then operational metrics bear more “turning point significance.”

As of March 2026, Pony.ai’s autonomous taxi fleet has exceeded 1,400 vehicles, placing it in a leading global position and making it the only company currently to achieve fully unmanned charging operations in all four major first-tier cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

More importantly, there is a breakthrough in the profitability model. The company has achieved “profitability per vehicle across the entire city” in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Particularly in Shenzhen, the monthly order volume has rapidly expanded, with average daily revenue per vehicle reaching new highs. What does this mean? It means that the most critical question about L4 autonomous driving—“Can it make money?”—now has a real answer.

In the past, the industry mostly remained in the testing, subsidy, and demonstration phases, while Pony.ai is proving that under specific city and density conditions, autonomous driving possesses the possibility of an independent commercial closed-loop.

On this basis, the company has begun to accelerate its expansion. Domestically, new first-tier cities like Hangzhou and Changsha are continuously coming online; overseas, the layout is even more diversified, with simultaneous advancements in markets like Singapore and Croatia, aiming to cover over 20 cities globally by the end of 2026, with a fleet size exceeding 3,000 vehicles. It can be said that Pony.ai has transitioned from the “model validation” phase to the “model replication” phase.

What is the market worried about?

The business model is gradually taking shape, but the problem lies precisely here—the closer it gets to commercialization, the more cautious the market becomes. The weakening stock price is primarily due to several underlying reasons.

First, there is controversy over the quality of earnings. The significant reduction in losses under GAAP is partly due to changes in the fair value of trading financial assets, rather than being fully driven by improvements in core business; meanwhile, core operating losses under non-GAAP continue to widen.

This has led the market to diverge on whether the “profit inflection point has truly arrived.”

Second, the overall industry valuation is under pressure. Autonomous driving is still in a heavy investment cycle, making it difficult to achieve industry-wide profitability in the short term. In the context of global tech stock corrections and declining risk appetite, companies characterized by “high investment + long cycle” are more susceptible to repricing.

Third, liquidity and emotional factors are amplified. As a company that has been publicly listed for a short time, market pricing has yet to stabilize, and the divergence in expectations after the report is released is more easily amplified, leading to concentrated trading, thereby increasing volatility.

Finally, there is a game between the pace of expansion and profitability. Rapid fleet expansion and simultaneous progress domestically and internationally mean sustained capital expenditures. The market is beginning to focus on a real issue: will scale growth delay the realization of profitability?

If you only look at the short-term stock price, this report seems “not impressive enough”; but if you extend the timeline, its significance becomes even clearer. Pony.ai is accomplishing something more crucial—transforming autonomous driving from “being able to run” to “being able to make money.”

Fleet size, city coverage, and vehicle profitability—these three core indicators have achieved breakthroughs simultaneously, fundamentally interpreting the industry’s business logic. The short-term adjustment in the capital market seems more like a reassessment of the rhythm, rather than a denial of direction.

In the medium to long term, once the scale effect is gradually released and operational efficiency continues to optimize, the valuation logic for autonomous driving companies will also shift from “telling stories” to “looking at cash flow.” And this may be the true value of Pony.ai’s report.

(Author: Wang Zhiqiang HF013)

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