On October 29, Geely Automobile Holdings Limited (0175.HK, "Geely Auto") published its third-quarter 2026 results. In the third quarter the company's revenue reached RMB 99.0 billion, up 10% year on year, while core net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 5.21 billion, up 32% - both quarterly records for the period. Sales in the first nine months exceeded 2.235 million units, with total revenue of RMB 272.6 billion and core net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 14.9 billion, a broad improvement in operating performance. Despite external variables such as competition and raw-material volatility, the company achieved high-quality growth with volume, price and profit all rising. In the fourth quarter, Geely Auto will continue to be guided by the "One Geely" strategy, accelerating its push on globalisation, premiumisation and intelligence, and fully releasing the growth momentum of its ambition to lead in all-domain AI intelligent vehicles. Operating quality and profitability improved steadily in the first nine months of 2026, leading the industry's shift to high-quality development. Sales in the first nine months exceeded 2.235 million units, a record, growing against an industry that fell 6%. Overall passenger-car market share rose to 11.1% and new-energy passenger-car share to 11.4%, as the new-energy transition deepened and the diversified strategy delivered clearer results. Premiumisation and globalisation advanced together, lifting nine-month revenue to a record RMB 272.6 billion, up 13%, while third-quarter revenue rose 10% to RMB 99.0 billion, underlining the resilience of revenue growth. Concentrated volume growth in premium and overseas segments lifted profitability steadily. Third-quarter core net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 5.21 billion, up 32%, and the nine-month figure was RMB 14.9 billion, up 41% to a record - a pattern in which revenue grows faster than sales and core profit faster than revenue, the hallmark of high-quality development. Gross margin rose to 18.0% over nine months and core net margin to 5.5%, while per-vehicle profitability continued to improve: core net profit per vehicle rose 37% year on year to RMB 6,664. The "One Geely" strategy has improved resource integration, highlighting the results of quality improvement and cost reduction. In the first nine months the selling-expense ratio fell 0.1 percentage points to 5.6%, still improving against a backdrop of rapid overseas expansion; the administrative-expense ratio fell 0.1 percentage points to 1.6%, reflecting lean management and AI-driven efficiency; and the R&D ratio fell 0.7 percentage points to 5.5%. Even with that efficiency gain, R&D spending was broadly flat year on year, continuing to build technical barriers in AI and electrification. In the third quarter, as the industry shifted from scale expansion to quality leadership, brands consolidated in quick succession while organisational efficiency and supply-chain coordination deepened. The Zeekr brand continued to move upmarket, with nine-month sales of 288,000 units, doubling both sales and revenue year on year and steadily increasing its share of group revenue, which has effectively widened the company's revenue and profit potential. On the product side, the 2027 Zeekr 7X and 2027 Zeekr 009 Grand will be refreshed within the year, and exports of the Zeekr 9X, 8X and 009 will be expanded to consolidate share in the premium segment. Lynk & Co anchors the upper-mid market and continues to broaden, with nine-month sales of 196,000 units, new-energy share above 70% for a new high and export sales up 151% year on year. The Lynk & Co 900L will also make its official debut in the fourth quarter. The Galaxy brand widened its line-up, with nine-month sales of 877,000 units as it moved from a single model to multiple models, producing marked structural growth. The Geely Xingyuan reached its one-millionth unit two years after launch and remains the best-selling passenger vehicle in China across all categories; the Galaxy E5 and Starship 7 form a second growth pillar; the Galaxy TT passed 10,000 deliveries within 30 days of launch; and the Galaxy Battleship 700 took 10,000 firm orders in 12 minutes. Geely China Star sold 874,000 units in the first nine months and is steadily moving to an all-HEV line-up. Overseas momentum was strong, with nine-month sales up 169% year on year to 798,000 units, 61% of them new energy. Monthly sales have exceeded 100,000 for four consecutive months from June to September, laying the groundwork for a 1 million-unit export target. The Xingyao 6, Battleship 700 and Lynk & Co 07 GT are among the models set to enter overseas markets. Geely Auto is also pushing localisation and an "industrial symbiosis" model of going global, having built local manufacturing networks across five regions: ASEAN, Europe, South America, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In the third quarter it acquired part of Ford's Spanish plant, Volvo became Lynk & Co's exclusive distributor in Europe, and the first locally built model rolled off the line at Renault-Geely's Brazilian company. Openness and sharing are how the company is responding to global trade friction and policy shifts at home and abroad. Under its "123456" strategy, Geely Auto will focus on five key markets and deepen its global industrial footprint, planning an integrated overseas system within two to three years and a market structure of 600,000 units in pan-Europe, 500,000 in ASEAN, 400,000 in Latin America and Africa, 300,000 in Eastern Europe and 200,000 in the Middle East and Asia. Europe is the core strategic market, with a retail network expected to reach 1,000 outlets by the end of the year, and the joint-venture plant with Ford due to start production in the second half of next year, further expanding European capacity and localisation. AI agents are becoming a new entry point for the vehicle as a whole, and competition is shifting from individual technologies to complete systems. Geely was first in the industry to propose an "all-domain AI for intelligent vehicles" technology system, building a "1+2+N" platform architecture and using the WAM world behaviour model to integrate driving assistance, the cockpit and the chassis. In the third quarter, Geely brought new technology to production in electric drive, batteries, smart charging and off-road architectures. In September it introduced an industry-leading megawatt charging solution with a peak of 2.25MW per connector. On energy replenishment, Geely is building an integrated ecosystem spanning people, vehicles, chargers, the cloud, the grid and storage, with plans for 6,000 smart charging stations and more than 20,000 connectors by the end of 2026. By the end of 2027 it aims to have more than 22,000 charging stations and over 100,000 connectors, including more than 15,000 Geely stations and over 50,000 connectors, achieving coverage in every county. Geely and NIO have also formed a comprehensive strategic partnership, opening up and sharing charging and battery-swap resources and coordinating industrially to improve network coverage and operating efficiency. Geely Auto continues to accelerate the deployment of AI, putting intelligent technology into production at scale. The Qianli Haohan driver-assistance system has more than a million users, 3.14 billion kilometres travelled, a 93.9% activation rate and over 12.18 million avoided incidents. The Flyme Auto cockpit has been installed in more than 1.326 million vehicles and has over 3.59 million users worldwide. In the fourth quarter, Qianli Haohan G-ASD will receive a comprehensive upgrade with urban roaming NOA, end-to-end AEB and natural-voice vehicle control. (Text by Autohome, Zhou Yi)