Waterdrop Inc. Announces Second Quarter 2026 Unaudited Financial Results and a Cash Dividend

BEIJING, Sept. 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Waterdrop Inc. ("Waterdrop", the "Company" or "we") (NYSE: WDH), a leading technology platform dedicated to insurance and healthcare services with a positive social impact, today announced its unaudited financial results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2026 and a cash dividend.

Financial and Operational Highlights for the Second Quarter of 2026

- Strong Core Business Growth: Net operating revenue for the second quarter rose to RMB1,448.2 million (US$213.4 million), representing a robust year-over-year increase of 72.8%. Insurance-related income for the quarter reached RMB1,333.2 million (US$196.5 million), up 80.5% from the same period in 2025.

- Improved Operating Performance: In the second quarter of 2026, operating profit was RMB111.3 million (US$16.4 million), marking a 39.2% quarter-over-quarter increase and a 14.3% year-over-year increase.

- Broader Reach of Medical Crowdfunding: As of June 30, 2026, approximately 499 million individuals had cumulatively donated an aggregate of RMB74.7 billion to 3.82 million patients through Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding.

- Continued Expansion in Patient Enrollment: As of June 30, 2026, the Company had facilitated the enrollment of 17,052 patients across 1,873 clinical trial programs through the E-Find Platform.

Mr. Peng Shen, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Waterdrop, commented, "We are pleased to report another quarter of accelerating growth and strengthening profitability. Our AI initiatives continued to translate into tangible operating leverage.

We delivered solid results in insurance business, with an 80.5% year-over-year growth and a 16.4% quarter-over-quarter growth in insurance-related income. Continued refinement of our AI models improved conversion efficiency, leading to a 32.3% sequential increase in the number of new customers acquired. Expanding access to insurance protection remains our core product strategy. During the quarter, we introduced 'Rongyi Bao,' the market's first long-term critical illness insurance product that requires no health disclosure and offers five-year guaranteed renewability. Together with our deepening insights into evolving user needs, these efforts translated into premium growth, with long-term premiums up 33.4% quarter-over-quarter.

AI is becoming the foundational layer powering how we sell and serve. Our AI deployment continued to enhance service efficiency and operational quality across our insurance business. In this quarter, premiums facilitated by our 'AI Medical Insurance Expert' rose by 25.6% sequentially. Our 'KEYI.AI' underwriting assistant has processed more than 13,000 inquiries to date. The number of users served by 'AI Super Pre-Sales Assistant' climbed by nearly 50% sequentially.

Our AI-powered risk controls for Medical Crowdfunding resulted in marked improvement this quarter. As part of our risk review system, a new asset verification cross-references documents, medical records, and user-generated content to assess the possibility of undisclosed assets, such as property and vehicles, or unreported sources of income, and flags potential inconsistencies across the information reviewed.

Within our digital clinical trial business, the E-Find Platform delivered notably strong performance, especially in the chronic disease area. In the second quarter, we partnered with 255 pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations and enrolled 1,540 patients. Revenue from digital clinical trial solutions was approximately RMB35.2 million, up 26.8% year-over-year.

Underscoring the commitment to shareholder returns, the board of directors of the Company (the "Board") has authorized the Company's sixth share repurchase program. Since the initial program launched in 2021, we had repurchased approximately 62.9 million ADSs for US$121.3 million as of August 31, 2026. We are also pleased to announce that, the Board has approved our sixth cash dividend of approximately US$10.8 million.

Waterdrop has always regarded technology as our core driver. With AI embedded across our platforms, we are well positioned to capture the growing demand in our existing businesses. Meanwhile, we continue to incubate new AI-driven business initiatives targeting global markets. We remain committed to delivering greater value for our shareholders in the years to come."

Financial Results for the Second Quarter of 2026

Operating revenue, net

Net operating revenue for the second quarter of 2026 reached RMB1,448.2 million (US$213.4 million), which represents an increase of 72.8% year-over-year from RMB838.0 million for the same period of 2025. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, net operating revenue increased by 16.6%.

- Insurance-related income includes insurance brokerage income and technical service income. Insurance brokerage income represents brokerage commissions earned from insurance companies. Technical service income is derived from providing analytics and intelligent recommendation service, risk assessment technical service and marketing services to insurance companies, insurance brokers, and insurance agencies. Reinforced by cumulative big data, we provide risk assessment technical services through an algorithm-driven verification system assessing risk by analyzing user profiles and medical histories, tagging risk levels for hierarchical management that help insurers refine their risk analysis capabilities since 2025. We leverage multi-dimensional consumer insights to deliver analytics and intelligent recommendation services, enabling policyholders to be matched with more suitable products and improving sales efficiency. Our insurance-related income amounted to RMB1,333.2 million (US$196.5 million) in the second quarter of 2026, representing an increase of 80.5% year-over-year from RMB738.6 million for the second quarter of 2025, driven mainly by enhanced risk assessment service capabilities and increased first-year premiums ("FYP") generated through our platform. Our technical service income amounted to RMB488.0 million (US$71.9 million) in the second quarter of 2026, compared with RMB160.9 million for the same quarter of 2025. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, insurance-related income increased by 16.4%, mainly due to the increase in insurance brokerage income.

- Crowdfunding service fees represent the service income earned when patients successfully withdraw the proceeds from their crowdfunding campaigns. Our role is to operate the Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding platform to provide crowdfunding-related services through the internet, enabling patients with significant medical bills to seek help from caring hearts through technology (the "medical crowdfunding services"). Our medical crowdfunding services generally consist of providing technical and internet support, managing, reviewing and supervising the crowdfunding campaigns, providing comprehensive risk management and anti-fraud measures, and facilitating the collection and transfer of the funds. For the second quarter of 2026, we generated RMB63.6 million (US$9.4 million) in service fees, representing a decrease of 5.7% from RMB67.4 million for the second quarter of 2025. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, crowdfunding service fees increased by 4.7%.

- Digital clinical trial solution income represents the service income earned from our customers mainly including biopharmaceutical companies and leading biotechnology companies. We match qualified and suitable patients for enrollment in clinical trials for our customers and generate digital clinical trial solution revenue for successful matches and we typically charge our customers a fixed unit price per successful match. For the second quarter of 2026, our digital clinical trial solution income amounted to RMB35.2 million (US$5.2 million), representing an increase of 26.8% from RMB27.7 million in the same period of 2025. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, digital clinical trial solution income increased by 45.1%.

Operating costs and expenses

Operating costs and expenses increased by 80.5% year-over-year to RMB1,336.9 million (US$197.0 million) for the second quarter of 2026. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, operating costs and expenses increased by 15.0%.

- Operating costs increased by 29.0% year-over-year to RMB537.3 million (US$79.2 million) for the second quarter of 2026, as compared with RMB416.5 million for the second quarter of 2025, which was primarily driven by (i) an increase of RMB63.8 million in costs of referral and service fees, (ii) an increase of RMB21.4 million in short message service (SMS) costs for new user onboarding and authentication processes, (iii) an increase of RMB11.2 million in personnel costs, and (iv) an increase of RMB8.2 million in the costs for the digital clinical trial solution consultants team. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, operating costs increased by 10.4% from RMB486.8 million, primarily due to (i) an increase of RMB34.9 million in costs of referral and service fees, (ii) an increase of RMB11.2 million in personnel costs, and (iii) an increase of RMB8.3 million in the costs for the digital clinical trial solution consultants team, partially offset by (iv) a decrease of RMB12.7 million in the costs for SMS due to the decrease of volume of SMS sent during the quarter.

- Sales and marketing expenses increased by 220.7% year-over-year to RMB637.5 million (US$94.0 million) for the second quarter of 2026, as compared with RMB198.8 million for the same quarter of 2025. The increase was primarily due to (i) an increase of RMB415.0 million in marketing expenses for third-party traffic channels, and (ii) an increase of RMB21.8 million in marketing-related professional technical service fees. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, sales and marketing expenses increased by 17.8% from RMB541.1 million, primarily due to (i) an increase of RMB79.