CCG — H1 2026 Financial Report Analysis

Revenue down a third, loss wider, and the full-year outlook cut in half

Cheche Group, a Beijing-based platform that places car-insurance policies with Chinese insurers and earns a fee on each one, reported first-half 2026 net revenues of RMB885.0 million (US$130.4 million), down 34.4% from RMB1,348.7 million a year earlier. Management attributes the drop to a deliberate "restructuring of our business portfolio" away from lower-margin business. The trade-off showed up in the margin: gross margin (revenue left after paying the direct costs of placing policies) rose to 6.5% from 4.9%. But a RMB35.1 million charge for receivables it may not collect pushed the net loss to RMB44.1 million from RMB25.6 million. The company also cut its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to RMB1.5–1.8 billion from RMB3.0–3.2 billion. In April it had guided to adjusted net income "multiplying several folds"; it now expects an adjusted net loss of RMB42.7–47.4 million.

All figures are in Chinese yuan (RMB), the currency of the company's financial statements. US-dollar amounts are the company's own convenience translations at RMB6.7851 per US$1. Cheche's Class A ordinary shares trade directly on Nasdaq; they are not ADSs. Per-share figures reflect a 35-for-1 share consolidation that took effect on July 20, 2026.

At a glance

• Revenue fell 34.4% to RMB885.0 million. That is far steeper than the roughly 10% fall in insurance premiums the company helped place, which we estimate from its own disclosures (see below). Cheche is earning less per yuan of premium as well as placing less of it.
• Gross margin rose to 6.5% from 4.9%. The business that remains keeps more of each fee. Even so, gross profit fell 12.6% to RMB57.5 million, because the revenue base shrank so much.
• The full-year adjusted outlook went from profit to a loss of RMB42.7–47.4 million. Cheche lost RMB37.7 million on that basis in the first half, so the new guidance assumes a second-half adjusted loss of only about RMB5–10 million.

Results at a glance

NEV means new-energy vehicles: battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars. "Written premiums" is the total insurance premium on policies Cheche placed. Most of that money goes to the insurer; Cheche's revenue is the service fee it earns on top.

Where the revenue went

Almost all of Cheche's revenue comes from one line. Insurance transaction service income, the fees insurers pay Cheche for placing policies, fell 34.8% to RMB873.7 million from RMB1,340.4 million. Its small software business (SaaS and technical services, where insurers and agents pay to use Cheche's systems) grew to RMB7.1 million from RMB6.3 million. That growth is too small to offset the decline.

The company stopped reporting total written premiums as a key metric this half. Its own percentages still let a reader estimate the figure:

• NEV premiums of about RMB3.2 billion were 31.0% of the total, which puts total premiums at roughly RMB10.3 billion.
• In the first half of 2025, total premiums were about RMB11.5 billion. That is full-year 2025's RMB27.0 billion minus the second half's RMB15.5 billion.

On those numbers, premiums placed fell about 10% while revenue fell 34%. Two disclosed effects probably account for most of the gap. First, Cheche said in its full-year 2025 release that NEV premiums "carry a lower insurance service fee rate," and NEV policies are now a larger share of the mix. Second, the cost line shows what it gave up. The cost of referral partners (commissions passed on to the agents and channels that bring in customers) fell 37.3% to RMB772.8 million. That cost took 87.3% of revenue, down from 91.4%. Our read is that the business Cheche dropped was mostly pass-through volume, where nearly the whole fee went straight back out to a referral partner. Losing it cut revenue sharply but cost little gross profit.

What the headline numbers hide

• The bigger loss is mostly one charge. General and administrative expenses rose 55.4% to RMB57.9 million. The MD&A says this was "primarily due to the recognition of RMB35.1 million... specific allowance of credit losses for long-aged and high-risk receivables." In plain terms, the company set money aside for fees owed to it that it now doubts it will collect. The receivables note shows the allowance rising from RMB4.2 million to RMB38.3 million, an addition of RMB34.1 million, against no addition a year earlier. Without the RMB35.1 million charge, the operating loss would have been about RMB15.4 million, narrower than last year's RMB27.0 million. That is our own arithmetic, not a figure the company reports.
• The adjusted figure does not exclude that charge. Cheche's adjusted net loss excludes share-based pay (compensation paid in stock), amortization of acquired intangibles, and fair-value changes on warrants and an amount owed to a related party. It does not exclude the credit-loss charge. That is why the adjusted loss widened more than the GAAP loss: share-based pay fell to RMB2.9 million from RMB13.0 million, so this half there was less to add back.
• Cash flow looks better than the loss because the business is shrinking. Operating cash outflow was only RMB2.3 million against a RMB44.1 million net loss. That came from unwinding working capital, not from earnings. Collections cut accounts receivable by RMB445.7 million, and Cheche paid down RMB411.9 million of accounts payable. This happens once as a business shrinks. It will not repeat at the same scale.
• Receivables are falling with revenue, but the doubtful share has risen. Gross receivables fell to RMB704.3 million from RMB1,150.0 million at year-end. The share covered by the allowance rose from about 0.4% to about 5.4%.
• Below-the-line items helped. Foreign-exchange gains were RMB6.6 million, up from RMB0.9 million, and government grants were RMB2.8 million, up from RMB1.3 million. Together they cut about RMB9.5 million from the pre-tax loss. Neither comes from the core business.
• Cash is thin relative to debt and costs. Cash and cash equivalents were RMB131.7 million, plus RMB41.8 million of restricted cash. Short-term bank borrowings rose to RMB98.2 million from RMB80.5 million. Management says its cash and an unused RMB20.0 million credit line from Bank of Beijing cover the next 12 months. The accumulated deficit, all losses since founding, reached RMB2.24 billion.

Takeaway: Higher margins came at the cost of a business half the size. Revenue is down a third, full-year revenue guidance has been halved, and the April promise of rising adjusted profit has become a RMB42.7–47.4 million adjusted loss. The margin gain is real but small in yuan. What matters now is whether a much smaller core can cover its own costs. The RMB35.1 million bad-debt charge also shows that some fees booked in past periods were less solid than they looked.

Outlook

Revised full-year 2026 guidance from management:

Second-half 2026 implications:

• Revenue: With RMB885.0 million already booked, the new range implies RMB615–915 million in the second half, against RMB1,661.2 million in the second half of 2025. That would be a decline of roughly 45% to 63%.
• NEV premiums: The company says it cut this guidance "to reflect the change of NEV sales in the domestic market." The NEV business was supposed to be the growth engine. Its premiums grew 23.7% in the first half, well below the 66.7%–90.5% full-year growth the April guidance implied.
• Adjusted loss: The guidance assumes a second-half adjusted loss of about RMB5.0–9.7 million, much smaller than the first half's RMB37.7 million. That depends heavily on no repeat of the credit-loss charge.

Management describes Cheche's future as an "AI-driven insurance infrastructure provider." It points to products launched in the first half: the Cheche Score NEV pricing tool, the ABAO underwriting agent, and the five-agent ABAO Agent Family announced September 1. None of these is yet visible as a separate revenue line. Software and technical service income was RMB7.1 million, under 1% of revenue.

On September 9 the company signed a non-binding term sheet to invest in Long Way Fortune, a residential solar-plus-storage business operating in Australia and Singapore. The deal would start as a 20% stake with a path to 51%, paid in stock, at an implied equity value of US$490 million for the target. That is outside car insurance, and paying in stock would dilute existing shareholders. For the second half, we would watch three things: whether revenue lands inside the new range, whether receivables need more write-downs, and whether the solar deal proceeds and on what terms.