In 2025, while many automakers were deeply entrenched in price wars, sacrificing margins for volume, GEELY AUTO (00175) charted a counter-cyclical path. By implementing its "One Geely" strategy, the company centralized resources, shared technology, streamlined sales channels, and enhanced synergy among its four major brands. One year later, its financial results—demonstrating robust revenue growth alongside even stronger profit growth—prove that success can be achieved without engaging in price competition.
The company's growth model has shown significant optimization. On March 18th, GEELY AUTO released its full-year 2025 results. Annual operating revenue reached RMB 345.2 billion, a 25% year-on-year increase, marking the first time revenue has surpassed the RMB 340 billion mark. Annual sales volume hit 3.025 million vehicles, up 39% year-on-year, with market share exceeding 10% for the first time. Core net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 14.41 billion, surging 36% year-on-year, indicating that profit growth significantly outpaced revenue growth. Reflecting the strong performance, the company proposed a final dividend of HKD 0.50 per share, a 52% increase compared to the previous year.
The results highlight synchronous improvements across multiple dimensions for GEELY AUTO, including business scale, profit quality, product mix, and cash flow. This demonstrates a genuine high-quality growth path that avoids both price wars and short-term volume chasing.
In terms of sales structure, new energy vehicle (NEV) sales in 2025 soared to 1.688 million units, a massive 90% increase year-on-year. The NEV penetration rate exceeded 55%, establishing it as the core growth engine. The traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) business remained solid, with the Geely China Star series selling 1.214 million units annually. This series maintained its position as the best-selling self-owned brand ICE vehicle for the ninth consecutive year, providing a steady "cash cow" to support the transition. This diversified strategy encompassing both ICE and NEVs helps the company navigate industry cycles and forms a core support for building a long-term technological moat.
Profitability and operational quality were equally outstanding. The fact that net profit growth exceeded revenue growth signifies that GEELY AUTO's growth drivers have shifted from pure scale expansion to optimization of the product mix, improved cost efficiency, and enhanced brand value. The gross profit margin rising to 16.7% further confirms the continuous elevation of the brand's power, contributing to an improved profit structure. As of the end of 2025, GEELY AUTO's cash reserves stood at RMB 68.2 billion, with a stable asset-liability ratio that remains at a relatively low level within the industry. Ample cash reserves and a robust liability structure underpin the company's financial resilience to withstand industry cycles.
The performance structure clearly indicates that GEELY AUTO has transitioned from pursuing sheer sales volume to a growth model driven collectively by profitability, efficiency, and structural optimization. This is key to its stability amidst intense market competition.
The steady improvement in performance is underpinned by the effective implementation and value release of the "One Geely" strategy throughout 2025. Faced with industry competition and pricing pressures, GEELY AUTO chose not to follow price cuts but instead enhanced operational efficiency through internal integration and coordinated management, using management dividends to counter market pressures. Despite growth in both sales and revenue, the company's full-year administrative expense ratio, R&D investment ratio, and sales expense ratio decreased by 17.1%, 13.5%, and 0.7% respectively. This contraction in expenses provided favorable support for profitability. Notably, this was not achieved through simple cost-cutting but via brand synergy, channel consolidation, centralized supply chain procurement, and shared R&D resources, leading to efficiency gains across the entire value chain and eliminating redundant resource consumption.
In R&D, total investment in 2025 reached RMB 21.8 billion, an increase of 8.3% year-on-year. While maintaining high investment intensity, efficiency was significantly improved. The Geely, Lynk & Co, Zeekr, and Geometry brands now share a common full-domain AI technology base, intelligent driving systems, and safety architecture. Technologies like the Qianli Haohan intelligent driving system and the Flyme Auto smart cockpit have been deployed across multiple brands at scale, ensuring technological leadership while avoiding duplicate development, making R&D investment more precise and efficient.
The asset structure was also optimized. Zeekr achieved profitability in the fourth quarter of 2025 and was formally consolidated into the group's financials. This means the premium brand has begun contributing profits to the listed company, directly boosting the overall net profit margin by 8.5%. This signifies that the "One Geely" strategy is translating into tangible outcomes: profit improvement, efficiency gains, and brand synergy, establishing a unique operational advantage for long-term development.
Building on enhanced efficiency, GEELY AUTO achieved a leap from scale leadership to value leadership in 2025, supported by breakthroughs in premium products and intelligent technology. The Zeekr brand's average selling price exceeded RMB 300,000, with the flagship Zeekr 9X model averaging over RMB 530,000. It led sales in the domestic large SUV segment priced above RMB 500,000 for two consecutive months, with annual sales surpassing 22,000 units, successfully breaking the price ceiling for Chinese brands. Lynk & Co sold 350,000 vehicles for the year, with its NEV mix rising to 65%, and its flagship models firmly positioned in the RMB 300,000 segment. The Galaxy series achieved sales of 1.236 million units, a 150% year-on-year increase, securing its position as the second-best-selling NEV brand in China. The increasing proportion of high-value models directly drives the upward improvement of the group's profit structure.
In terms of智能化 (intelligence), GEELY AUTO took the lead in launching the industry's first full-domain AI technology architecture in 2025 and unveiled its 2.0 iteration at CES 2026. It debuted the WAM (World Behavior Model) with self-reflection and evolution capabilities, creating a unified "vehicle brain" and advancing the revolutionary shift from simply loading AI features to building truly intelligent AI-powered cars. For intelligent driving, the Qianli Haohan G-AS system obtained EU UN R171 certification, becoming the first Chinese high-level autonomous driving solution approved for deployment in Europe, scheduled to debut there with the Zeekr 8X in 2026. For smart cockpits, installations of Flyme Auto surpassed 2.26 million units in 2025, maintaining the top industry position in user activity and interaction penetration.
The core technology continues to iterate rapidly and is being translated into product competitiveness and brand premium, propelling GEELY AUTO's transition from manufacturing-driven to truly technology-driven.
While enhancing quality and efficiency domestically, GEELY AUTO's global strategy is evolving from simple product exports to systematic overseas operations, with international markets becoming a significant growth engine. In 2025, the company's products entered nearly 100 countries and regions, with strong performance in core markets like Europe and ASEAN. Overseas sales reached 420,000 units, with NEV export growth far exceeding the industry average, marking an entry into a phase of high-quality global growth.
Looking ahead to 2026, GEELY AUTO has set an annual sales target of 3.45 million vehicles. The CEO of Geely Auto Group revealed that the public overseas sales target for 2026 is 640,000 units, with an internal stretch goal of 750,000 units. GEELY AUTO will leverage the launch of Zeekr's dual flagship models, Lynk & Co's product renewal for its 10th anniversary, and the continued expansion of the Galaxy lineup. Coupled with the European deployment of its intelligent driving technology and upgrades to overseas channels and production capacity, the company aims to support steady performance growth through multi-pronged synergies.
In conclusion, GEELY AUTO remains committed to user value, industry value, and social value, adhering to a long-term perspective and steadfastly pursuing a connotative, sustainable, high-quality development path. From internal integration to technological breakthroughs, from moving upmarket to global expansion, GEELY AUTO's 2025 financial report delivers a powerful message: success stems from a robust system, not internal competition; it is built on value, not low prices. During a critical phase of industry transformation, the company has achieved simultaneous growth in scale and效益 (benefits), delivering its best performance since listing and serving as a prime example of the Chinese automotive industry's shift from scale expansion to value growth. As the efficiency, technology, and brand dividends of the "One Geely" strategy continue to be realized, GEELY AUTO is solidifying its stance and writing a substantial chapter for the upward mobility of Chinese brands within the global automotive industry transformation.