Pony.ai, a US- and Hong Kong-listed autonomous driving company, released its unaudited financial results for the first quarter of 2026 on May 26.

The report showed that Pony.ai recorded total revenue of RMB 236 million (USD 34.7 million) in the first quarter. Revenue rose 145% year-on-year (YoY) and 17.6% quarter-on-quarter. Gross profit reached RMB 38.36 million (USD 5.6 million), up 140.1% YoY, mainly driven by the expansion of its robotaxi business and the scaling of its intelligent solutions business, formerly known as the licensing and applications business.

First-quarter revenue from the robotaxi business reached RMB 59.12 million (USD 8.7 million), up 395.4% YoY and 28.7% quarter-on-quarter. That single-quarter figure exceeded half of the RMB 116 million (USD 17.1 million) in robotaxi revenue recorded for all of 2025. Passenger fare revenue rose 456.5% YoY, becoming the company’s main growth driver. As of May 2026, the registered user base for robotaxi in China was more than three times the level recorded in the same period in 2025.

Based on its first-quarter performance, Pony.ai raised its 2026 target for the robotaxi business. It now expects full-year robotaxi revenue to reach more than 3.5 times the 2025 level, up from its previous target of three times. It also raised its fleet size target from 3,000 vehicles to more than 3,500, with coverage across more than 20 cities in China and overseas.

Pony.ai also continued to improve its operating efficiency. Its first-quarter operating loss was largely flat YoY and narrowed 21% quarter-on-quarter. As of March 31, Pony.ai held RMB 9.902 billion (USD 1.5 billion), or about USD 1.4 billion, in cash equivalents and short- and long-term investments, giving it reserves to support its long-term scaling strategy.

Pony.ai founder and CEO James Peng said the company made continued progress in China and overseas in the first quarter, supported by its fleet scale, technology and operating capabilities, and user experience. He said the company’s dual-engine strategy and joint deployment model would support continued large-scale robotaxi services and broader autonomous driving development.

Since the start of 2026, Pony.ai’s autonomous mobility services business has posted monthly growth across key commercialization metrics, including fleet size, user numbers, and paid order volume, despite seasonal fluctuations in travel demand. The first quarter is traditionally a slower period for the travel market, particularly around the Lunar New Year.

According to the financial report, that growth continued into the second quarter. In May, weekly average paid order volume for robotaxis increased 119% from January, while average daily paid orders during the Labor Day holiday rose 544% from the same period in 2025.

User demand remained solid even though post-discount robotaxi pricing was higher than entry-level ride-hailing services, especially during peak hours. This suggests that some users are willing to pay more for the product’s experience and perceived value. While expanding its fleet, Pony.ai has continued to improve operating efficiency and user experience, while reducing daily operating costs by optimizing charging efficiency and dispatching algorithms.

Pony.ai also appears to have addressed a key investor question: whether its per-vehicle economic model can work. According to data disclosed by the company, its Gen-7 robotaxi achieved positive per-vehicle operating profit in Guangzhou in the same month it was deployed for commercial operations at scale. In the first quarter, robotaxi operations in Shenzhen also repeatedly reached new highs. Based on the full-month average in February, Shenzhen also achieved positive per-vehicle operating profit.

The figures suggest that Pony.ai is among the robotaxi companies moving toward city-level positive unit economics. The development supports the company’s business model and has attracted partners in China and overseas to participate in joint robotaxi fleet development and deployment, according to Pony.ai. This model has improved the capital efficiency of the company’s fleet expansion and helped build a more diversified revenue structure.

The release of its first-quarter results indicates that Pony.ai is accelerating the commercialization of Level 4 autonomous driving, as the technology moves into larger-scale commercial operations.

As unit economics in benchmark Chinese cities turn positive, Pony.ai’s robotaxi business model could attract more partners.

In China, Pony.ai has continued to expand its operating footprint. In the first quarter, its robotaxi service entered the core urban areas of Guangzhou, including Haizhu district, extending coverage to high-traffic areas such as Canton Tower and the Pazhou headquarters cluster. Overseas, Pony.ai began deploying autonomous taxis in Croatia with local partners in the first quarter, which the company described as the launch of Europe’s first commercial autonomous taxi service. Pony.ai is also advancing fully driverless deployment in Dubai. To date, Pony.ai has deployed autonomous taxis in nine countries and has begun offering public services in four overseas markets: Croatia, Qatar, Singapore, and South Korea.

Pony.ai’s robotaxi fleet had surpassed 1,700 vehicles as of May 24, 2026. Meanwhile, its new Toyota bZ4X robotaxi has begun fully driverless testing and will be deployed in several first-tier Chinese cities within the year.

At the recent Auto China, Pony.ai announced that the total vehicle cost of its 2027 fully driverless robotaxi, including the vehicle, autonomous driving kit, and battery, would fall below RMB 230,000, (USD 33,853.9) lower than the price of the lowest-trim China-made Tesla Model 3. Continued declines in robotaxi costs could make expansion into more Chinese cities more economically viable. Pony.ai also plans to launch an overseas version based on this model and move toward deployments of more than 1,000 vehicles in overseas markets by adapting to local access requirements, compliance rules, infrastructure, and user needs.

The cost reduction reflects the maturity of China’s vehicle supply chain and Pony.ai’s refinements to autonomous driving software and hardware. Drawing on safety performance and user feedback accumulated through scaled operations in first-tier cities, Pony.ai has continued to optimize costs through forward development, while improving its Level 4 software and hardware system and mass-production process.

In addition, the joint deployment model that Pony.ai advanced with partners including OnTime Mobility and Verne in the first quarter has begun generating revenue, supplementing taxi fare revenue and making capital use in fleet deployment more efficient.

Pony.ai co-founder and CTO Lou Tiancheng said world models and a multilayered safety framework are the foundation for long-term commercialization.

In his view, Level 4 fully driverless systems must reach a safety level significantly higher than that of human drivers to support large-scale deployment. This cannot be achieved solely by imitating human driving behavior or accumulating Level 2 driving assistance data. As self-driving capabilities improve, relying only on manual evaluation is also no longer sufficient to support model iteration. Future optimization will increasingly depend on artificial intelligence-driven evaluation and self-iteration mechanisms.

In April, Pony.ai completed the iteration of PonyWorld 2.0, its world model, moving its R&D approach from reinforcement learning toward “self-improving” and bringing its autonomous driving technology into a new AI-driven stage. Pony.ai has also built safety safeguards across algorithms, vehicles, and operations. At the algorithm level, reinforcement learning and world models help vehicles handle complex scenarios. At the vehicle level, system-wide redundancy enables fail-operational capability, allowing vehicles to continue operating safely or pull over when appropriate in the event of software or hardware failure. At the operating level, a dedicated safety team embeds safety mechanisms throughout the full operating process, supported by remote assistance and ground teams that can respond to unexpected situations.

Pony.ai’s other business lines are also growing. Its robotruck business generated RMB 70.33 million (USD 10.4 million) in first-quarter revenue, up 31% YoY. In April, Pony.ai announced a full-scenario freight strategy covering trunk logistics and urban delivery. Its fourth-generation all-electric heavy-duty truck will enter large-scale production in the second half of this year, and Pony.ai said it has become the first company in China to conduct driverless autonomous heavy-duty truck platooning for freight transport on the Beijing-Tianjin route.

Its first fully automotive-grade, fully redundant autonomous light-duty truck also debuted at this year’s Auto China show. Using the same technology stack, operating system, and automotive-grade kit as its robotaxis, the vehicle can reduce per-kilometer urban delivery freight costs by 40–50% compared with human-driven delivery, according to the company.

The intelligent solutions business generated RMB 107 million (USD 15.7 million) in first-quarter revenue, up 246.5% YoY. Shipments of autonomous driving domain controllers in the first quarter grew to more than six times the level recorded in the same period in 2025, mainly benefiting from demand in low-speed autonomous delivery, autonomous cleaning, logistics, and humanoid robots.

Pony.ai CFO Leo Wang said that, at this stage, the company is more focused on topline performance, which could drive a rerating of its value.

This article was adapted based on a feature originally written by Stone Jin and published on IPO Zaozhidao. KrASIA is authorized to translate, adapt, and publish its contents.

Note: RMB figures are converted to USD at rates of RMB 6.79 = USD 1 based on estimates as of May 28, 2026, unless otherwise stated. USD conversions are presented for ease of reference and may not fully match prevailing exchange rates.