Dongwu Securities released a research report stating that WeRide-W (00800), as a leader in Robotaxi technology, is poised to fully benefit from gradual policy liberalization, continuous breakthroughs in autonomous driving technology, and cost reductions across the industrial chain. Following the breakeven of its unit economic model, the company is expected to rapidly achieve profitability at scale. The firm forecasts WeRide's total operating revenue for 2025-2027 to be RMB 555 million, RMB 945 million, and RMB 1.987 billion, respectively. The current market capitalization corresponds to price-to-sales (P/S) ratios of 43.0x, 25.2x, and 12.0x for those years. Initiating coverage, Dongwu Securities assigns a "Buy" rating.
A leading L4 company, WeRide boasts a diversified product portfolio. Founded in 2017 by experts in computer vision and machine learning with backgrounds at Baidu and Microsoft, the company has expanded its business from Robotaxi to various L4 scenarios including Robobus, Robovan, and Robosweeper, while also developing its L2+ advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) business. In the third quarter of 2025, the company's total revenue reached RMB 171 million, a surge of 144% year-over-year. The core growth engine was its Robotaxi business, which generated approximately RMB 35.3 million in quarterly revenue, a dramatic increase of 761.0% year-over-year, raising its contribution to total revenue to 20.7%. The increasing proportion of Robotaxi revenue reflects smooth progress in the commercialization of its main business and demonstrates strong market expansion capabilities. The company's gross margin for Q3 2025 stood at 32.9%. As of September 30, 2025, cash and capital reserves totaled RMB 5.4 billion, providing a solid foundation for sustained R&D investment and scaled expansion, thereby underpinning long-term competitiveness.
WeRide demonstrates globally leading progress in L4 permit acquisition and possesses a clear commercialization roadmap. It is the only company globally to have secured autonomous driving permits in eight countries. Domestically, it has launched fully driverless commercial operations in Beijing and Guangzhou, enabling pick-up and drop-off anywhere within designated zones. In Guangzhou, each commercialized Robotaxi completes up to 25 trips per day during its 24-hour operational window, driven by competitive pricing. In July 2025, the company obtained a license for driverless demonstration applications in Shanghai's Pudong New Area, completing its strategic layout in first-tier cities. Internationally, with a focus on the Middle East, WeRide successively launched fully driverless commercial operations in Abu Dhabi in 2025, introduced Saudi Arabia's first Robotaxi pilot in Riyadh, commenced public operations in Dubai in December, and formally received Switzerland's first fully driverless permit.
Robotaxi is accelerating towards a commercial inflection point, with a clear path to profitability. Leveraging end-to-end architecture, multimodal large language models, and world models, Robotaxi companies are overcoming the limitations of traditional assisted driving. In terms of safety, the integration of multiple sensors and vehicle-road-cloud collaboration significantly enhances system reliability, potentially leading to a substantially lower accident rate compared to human drivers. On the cost front, the mass production of solid-state LiDAR is driving down hardware prices, with the bill of materials (BOM) cost already falling from over a million RMB to below RMB 300,000. The unit economic model continues to optimize, clarifying the profitability path. Market-wise, the scale of B2B shared mobility in China is steadily expanding, with Robotaxi poised to capture segments of the traditional and private transportation markets; an optimistic projection estimates the market size could reach RMB 200 billion by 2030. According to the bank's calculations, the theoretical addressable market for Robotaxi in developed/less-developed overseas regions in 2024 is 4.4x/3.4x that of the Chinese Robotaxi market. Considering the disparity in the number of shared mobility vehicles available for replacement, the market quality hierarchy is: developed regions > China > less-developed regions, suggesting that securing a strategic position in developed markets may be a core competitive battleground. Policy-wise, 51 Chinese cities have opened pilot programs, with many conducting fully driverless operations; Middle Eastern nations are driven by strategic, ambitious visions; Singapore is actively introducing and cautiously opening up to facilitate the compliant deployment of various autonomous vehicles; and other countries are continuously refining their autonomous driving policy frameworks, laying the regulatory groundwork for future development.
Risk warnings include intensifying industry competition, hardware price reductions falling short of expectations, the occurrence of major liability incidents during operations, and changes in policy and regulation.
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