0322 GMT - China's robotaxi sector is likely to see a major expansion wave in 2H this year and into 2026, say UOB Kay Hian's Julia Pan and Soong Ming San in a note. They expect improving technological maturity, stronger policy support and better fleet economics to boost the country's robotaxi fleet tenfold during this period. Commercialization is likely to accelerate as scale gains and costs reduce, they say. In particular, robotaxi players Baidu and Pony AI have been able to optimize their costs, bringing expenses down to just 33%-50% of overseas peers'. DiDi Global is also likely a beneficiary of the emerging autonomous driving trend, given it can leverage its ride-hailing user base for rapid robotaxi adoption once scaled deployment begins, the analysts say.(megan.cheah@wsj.com)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 14, 2025 23:22 ET (03:22 GMT)

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