Autohome Q3 2026: New Retail Pushes Revenue 599% Past Estimates

Autohome's new retail business has grown large enough to make the analyst consensus essentially irrelevant. Revenue came in at $1.31 billion for the quarter, against an estimate of $188 million, a gap of 599%. A beat of that size reflects a business segment that has scaled to a size forecasters had not yet accounted for.

The online marketplace and others segment, which houses the new retail operation, contributed $547 million in revenue. Leads generation services added $526 million and media services $241 million. Those two legacy lines remain under pressure as weak vehicle sales in China have compressed automaker advertising budgets and reduced the number of paying dealers on the platform.

On the earnings side, the adjusted non-GAAP figure of $2.42 per ADS beat the $0.30 consensus by 703%. For context, the prior seven quarters had all come in within a few cents of estimates in either direction, so the Q3 jump stands out sharply. Revenue overall rose 191.7% year over year, while operating income came in at $95.68 million.

In early September Autohome launched Cheese Car Butler, a proprietary AI agent designed to move the platform from information matching toward what CEO Chi Liu described as trusted decision-making and reliable fulfillment. Average mobile daily active users rose more than 3% year over year in September, according to QuestMobile, suggesting the user base is holding even as the advertising environment stays difficult.

Capital returns remain a priority. The company declared a cash dividend of $1.58 per ADS, payable to ADS holders around March 22, 2027, bringing total 2026 declared dividends to roughly RMB 1.5 billion. A separate share repurchase program authorized up to $400 million in buybacks, and as of October 30, 2026, the company had bought back approximately 7.06 million ADSs for about $155.4 million. Management provided no quantitative guidance for future periods.