Earnings Labs

Cheetah Mobile Inc. (CMCM)

Q3 2025 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 26, 2025

$5.50

+2.71%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Cheetah Mobile Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Helen, Investor Relations for Cheetah Mobile. Please go ahead, Helen.

Jing Zhu

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Welcome to Cheetah Mobile's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. With us today are our company's Chairman and CEO, Mr. Fu Sheng; and our company's Director and CFO, Mr. Thomas Ren. Following management's prepared remarks, we will conduct a Q&A section. Please note the management's script will be presented by an AI agent. Before we begin, I refer you to the safe harbor statement in our earnings release, which also applies to our conference call today. Management will make forward-looking statements. At this time, I will now turn the conference call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Fu Sheng. Fu Sheng, please go ahead.

Sheng Fu

Analyst

Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining Cheetah Mobile's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. I'm Fu Sheng, the CEO of Cheetah Mobile. I'm very happy to report that our turnaround efforts are paying off. We hit quarterly breakeven ahead of expectations. In Q3, we made an operating profit -- first time in 6 years. We believe we are well positioned to approach breakeven for the full year 2025. At the same time, our growth stayed strong in Q3, building on the momentum from the first half of the year. Q3 revenue rose 50% year-over-year, driven by both our Internet business and our AI and other businesses. Our AI and other segment grew even fast, up 151% year-over-year and 6% quarter-over-quarter and now presenting 50% of total revenues. So far, 2025 has been a solid year for Cheetah. Revenue in the first 9 months rose around 48%. We became profitable in Q3 and took important steps in our two AI focus areas, AI robots and AI tools. We believe this progress shows our investors were right to trust our vision and work. I want to thank our shareholders for their support. I know many of you invested in Cheetah because you believed in our ability to deliver a comeback. We are working hard every day to make that happen. I remain fully committed to leading the company forward and our results this year show that the turnaround is real. Looking ahead, we will focus on driving growth by building new growth engines through our AI initiatives, AI robots and AI tools. Today, I will talk about our vision and progress in these areas. Thomas will follow with more on how we are building a lean cost structure to support long-term profitability. Both AI robots and AI tools have enormous market…

Operator

Operator

Sorry for the interruption, everybody. This is the conference operator. Looks like we've lost the main speaker connection. I will place hold music in the call, and we will get them connected again. Please standby. Thank you for holding, everyone. This is the operator. I've reconnected the main speaker line. Please proceed with your call.

Jing Zhu

Analyst

Hello, everybody, this is Helen from Cheetah Mobile. I think there are some tech issues then our call disconnected. I will just replay our CEO's prepared remarks. Very sorry for the inconvenience.

Sheng Fu

Analyst

Good day, everyone. And of this growth, first, strong demand for our voice-enabled wheel robots in China. In Q3, for the second quarter in a row, revenue from these robots doubled year-over-year. They now make up around 5% of our total revenues, supported by both repeat orders and new wins. As of September 30, 2025, the contract backlog for these robots in China was up 32% from the previous quarter. Since then, the backlog has doubled again, reflecting sustained demand. These trends make us comfortable for a continued strong [ UA ] growth in our revenue from these robots in the fourth quarter. Why is demand rising? First, more customers are open to using robots. And today, wheel robots are the most reliable and cost-effective option for large-scale deployment. But more importantly, product experience is getting better. AgentOS, our voice system powered by AI agents, gives our robots a smarter brain to understand and respond more naturally to people. That improved experience allows us to charge a premium even in a competitive market, but most of our revenue growth came from higher shipment volume. We believe AgentOS not only enhances user experience but also strengthens our leadership in voice-enabled robots. Our voice-enabled wheel robot, which integrated with Google's Gemini 2.5 Flash was recently featured by Google Cloud at its AI Asia Conference. We believe this is a strong sign of endorsement. We are continuously upgrading our AI agent capability and applying it to our products. Looking forward, we think these robots can do even better overseas as we combine third-party genAI and multimodal models with our strength in voice AI and autonomous mobility to drive real-world applications. Second, our robotic arm business is growing steadily supported by three key industry trends. Number one, in manufacturing, collaborative robotic arms are becoming…

Thomas Jintao Ren

Analyst

Thank you, Fu Sheng. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. Unless otherwise stated, all financial figures are presented in RMB. In the third quarter of 2025, we are pleased to reach an important milestone. We reported our first quarterly operating profit in the past 6 years. This achievement reflects the disciplined execution of our teams and the continued improvement in our operational efficiency. Operating profit was RMB 4 million in the quarter. On a non-GAAP basis, operating profit reached RMB 15 million compared with an operating loss of RMB 60 million in the same period last year and an operating loss of RMB 2 million in the previous quarter. Let me walk you through the key financial results in the quarter. Total revenue reached RMB 287 million, up 50% year-over-year, driven by 151% growth in our AI and other segment. This segment accounted for 50% of total revenue compared with 30% in the same period last year. Our Internet business remained stable with revenue increasing 6% year-over-year in Q3. Gross profit increased by 64% year-over-year and gross margin improved to 75%, up from 68% in the year-ago quarter. Operating profit improved to RMB 4 million compared with an operating loss of RMB 72 million a year ago. On a non-GAAP basis, operating profit was RMB 15 million compared with an operating loss of RMB 60 million last year. By segment, our Internet business delivered approximately RMB 21 million in adjusted operating profit in this quarter, up 55% year-over-year. Adjusted operating loss for our AI and other segment narrowed by 82% year-over-year and 53% quarter-over-quarter to [ RMB 15 million ] in this quarter. On the balance sheet side. Our financial position remains strong. As of the 30th of September 2025, the company has cash and cash equivalents…

Jing Zhu

Analyst

Operator, please open the call for...

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question today comes from Thomas Chong from Jefferies.

Thomas Chong

Analyst

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Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Vicky Wei at Citi.

Yi Jing Wei

Analyst

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Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from [ Lydia Lin ] at Morgan Stanley.

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Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from [ Zhang Heng ] with Everbright Securities.

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Operator

Operator

Our next question today comes from [ Alicia Soh ] with JPMorgan.

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Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Zeping Zhao with ICBC International.

Zeping Zhao

Analyst · ICBC International.

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Operator

Operator

Our next question today comes from Joanna Ma with CMBI.

Joanna Ma

Analyst

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Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from [ Jing Wan ] with CICC.

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Operator

Our next question comes from [indiscernible] from [ CYN ] Securities.

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Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from [ Yongping Diao ] with Guotai Haitong.

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Operator

Operator

And our final question today comes from [indiscernible] Securities.

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Jing Zhu

Analyst

Okay. Operator, please check if we have any further questions. If not, we will end the call.

Operator

Operator

Yes, ma'am. We have no further questions in queue at this time. [Operator Instructions] I'm showing no questions, ma'am. You may proceed with any closing remarks.

Jing Zhu

Analyst

Okay. And then we can end the call. Thank you so much for joining our earnings conference call today. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, and thanks, everyone, for connecting to today's call. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.