Kingsoft Cloud Holdings Limited (KC) Earnings
Kingsoft Cloud Holdings Limited is expected to report next earnings on August 19, 2026 (in NaN days), with a consensus EPS estimate of $-0.08. KC has beaten EPS estimates in 6 of its last 12 reported quarters (average surprise +43.5% over the last four).
| Report date | EPS est | EPS actual | Surprise | Revenue | Rev. surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 27, 2026 | $-0.11 | $-0.10 | +12.6% | $392M | +5.1% |
| Mar 25, 2026 | $-0.09 | $-0.05 | +41.4% | $395M | +1.1% |
| Nov 19, 2025 | $-0.10 | $0.02 | +120.0% | $346M | -12.4% |
| Aug 20, 2025 | $-0.16 | $-0.16 | +0.0% | $328M | -5.1% |
| May 28, 2025 | $-0.09 | $-0.10 | -11.1% | $271M | -16.8% |
| Mar 19, 2025 | $-0.11 | $-0.04 | +63.6% | $306M | +21.3% |
| Nov 20, 2024 | $-0.15 | $-0.14 | +6.7% | $269M | -0.0% |
| Aug 20, 2024 | $-0.16 | $-0.17 | -6.3% | $260M | +2.2% |
| May 22, 2024 | $-0.12 | $-0.13 | -8.3% | $246M | +2.5% |
| Mar 20, 2024 | $-0.12 | $-0.14 | -16.7% | $243M | +1.7% |
| Nov 21, 2023 | $-0.17 | $-0.36 | -111.8% | $222M | -6.4% |
| Aug 22, 2023 | $-0.20 | $-0.19 | +5.0% | $253M | -3.4% |
Source: company filings + earnings calendar. For informational purposes only — not investment advice.
Earnings call summary
Q1 FY2026 · May 27, 2026
AI summary of management’s prepared remarks and analyst Q&A. For informational purposes only — not investment advice.
Management highlights
- Strategic Direction * Kingsoft Cloud maintains a high-quality sustainable development strategy focused on AI-driven cloud innovation, as AI evolves from chat-oriented use cases to action-oriented agent applications, driving surging demand for inference and training. * The company is investing to expand AI cloud infrastructure and platform capabilities while deepening penetration across industry-specific use cases to capture AI's transformative market opportunity. - Business Development * Public Cloud: Grew strongly beyond the Xiaomi-Kingsoft ecosystem, with revenue from the top 5 non-ecosystem customers up 66% year-over-year. Served leading customers across autonomous driving, AI for science, logistics technology, internet, fintech, gaming, and video streaming, creating a more balanced diversified customer structure that improves resource utilization and profitability. Token service revenue grew 53x from January to April 2026. * Enterprise Cloud & Industry Solutions: Launched a state-owned enterprise-focused compliant cloud platform in Shenzhen; built a provincial-level public information platform in Hubei using an integrated provincial-municipal-county architecture. Partnered with leading domestic chipmakers to develop a full-stack domestically produced intelligent computing service system for high-security use cases. Won a large-scale data governance project and a medical consortium platform project with a top Chinese hospital, setting an industry benchmark for digital healthcare transformation. Deployed a green energy fleet operations platform for clean energy customers and expanded into solid waste management digital solutions. - Product & Technology Upgrades * Expanded the Starflow AI platform ecosystem, adding new speech recognition/synthesis APIs and expanding image/video generation models, with improved user management. * Launched Agent Engine to enable efficient agent development/deployment, with one-click 5-minute deployment for mainstream agent applications to lower adoption barriers. * Improved KS3 Cache Accelerator to deliver stable millisecond-level low latency for AI training/inference, balancing performance and cost. * Completed a full-stack closed-loop private AI deployment solution on the Galaxy Stack platform, adding core AI and security modules to meet rising private AI deployment demand across industries. - Ecosystem Cooperation * The company will raise the annual cap for continuing connected transactions with Xiaomi and Kingsoft to RMB 14.2 billion total for the 2025-2027 three-year framework, to support growing business opportunities from Xiaomi's expansion in smart ecosystem and AI.
Guidance
- Management remains optimistic about the long-term structural growth of AI cloud demand, expecting continued strong demand across multiple industries including internet, autonomous driving, robotics, and general AI. - Gross margin is expected to recover to normal levels in coming quarters after the Q1 2026 decline driven by upfront customer costs and AI expansion-related server expenses. - Full-year 2026 total capital expenditure is guided to a range of RMB 15 billion to RMB 20 billion, with supply chain capacity as the primary limiting factor for infrastructure expansion this year. - Token/inference business growth remains highly optimistic, though management expects more operational data over the next 1-2 quarters before providing clearer public guidance on long-term revenue scale.
Segment performance
Kingsoft Cloud reported total Q1 2026 revenue of RMB 2.704 billion, up 37.2% year-over-year. 1. Public Cloud: Q1 revenue reached RMB 1.996 billion, up 47.5% year-over-year, accounting for 73.8% of total revenue. Within Public Cloud, AI Cloud (including token/inference services) achieved revenue of RMB 998 million, up 90.1% year-over-year, contributing 50.1% of Public Cloud revenue (over half for the first time). Revenue from Xiaomi and Kingsoft ecosystem across all segments reached RMB 838 million, up 68.9% year-over-year, making up 31% of total company revenue. 2. Enterprise Cloud: Q1 revenue was RMB 707 million, up 14.7% year-over-year, accounting for 26.2% of total revenue. Profitability metrics: Adjusted gross profit was RMB 351 million, up 7% year-over-year, with adjusted gross margin of 13%. Adjusted EBITDA was RMB 748 million, up 134.7% year-over-year, with adjusted EBITDA margin of 27.6%, up 11.4 percentage points year-over-year. Total Q1 2026 capital expenditure (including financed and leased assets) reached RMB 2.985 billion, up 38% year-over-year.
Risks & headwinds
- Upstream component, server, and raw material prices are experiencing an upward trend that is expected to continue into Q2 2026 and beyond, creating cost pressure for the business. - AI cloud (especially token/inference) is in a rapid early expansion phase, with high near-term demand uncertainty and limited visibility on long-term penetration and profitability stability at this stage. - Supply chain constraints are currently limiting the company's ability to meet existing backlogged demand, which could restrain near-term revenue growth if supply issues persist. - The token/inference business is still evolving, with operational and algorithmic optimization ongoing, so current margin levels are not yet finalized.
Analyst Q&A
Q: The analyst asks for the current revenue scale, margin level, and future outlook for Starflow token services, which grew 53x from January to April 2026. They also ask if average public cloud pricing rose in Q1/Q2 2026 amid upstream cost increases, and by how much. /
A: The token business started from a small base at the end of 2025, but has already attracted large demand from top industry customers. Management is optimistic about long-term growth but will wait 1-2 quarters for clearer operational trends before disclosing detailed guidance. Token business margins are higher than traditional cloud computing, with ongoing improvement from algorithm and operational optimization, so management expects margins to remain high long-term. For pricing, upstream costs have already risen in Q1 and the upward trend will continue into Q2, and customers accept this trend. Passing through cost pressure is achievable and will not negatively impact margins.
Q: The analyst asks what factors caused Q1 gross margin decline, whether price increase benefits have been factored in, and how Kingsoft Cloud views its competitive advantages amid increasing cross-partner resource sharing between large model firms, carriers, and other cloud players. /
A: Q1 gross margin decline was driven by the mix of enterprise cloud revenue and upfront costs for future revenue-generating customer projects, and margin is expected to recover to normal levels in coming quarters. Management observes that former competitors are now increasingly partnering in the current AI era, which reflects both complementary capabilities across different types of firms and the large supply-demand gap in computing power. Kingsoft Cloud focuses on cooperation to fill capability gaps rather than pure competition, working with other providers to jointly meet end customer demand.
Q: The analyst asks about the demand outlook for Q2/H2 2026, the mix of training vs inference demand across customer types, and whether contract terms have shortened amid rising upstream costs. /
A: Demand is extremely strong with a large backlog currently limited only by supply chain constraints. All major sectors see simultaneous strong growth: autonomous driving and robotics have the strongest training and data processing demand, while internet and large model companies have the strongest inference demand for coding and agent use cases. Contract terms have shifted from fixed standard periods to more flexible arrangements that maximize Kingsoft Cloud's profitability amid changing cost conditions.
Q: The analyst asks how Xiaomi's MIMO large model launch impacted demand for Kingsoft Cloud resources, how utilization of the new Xiaomi transaction cap will trend, and what full-year 2026 CapEx guidance is after RMB 3 billion in Q1 spending. /
A: Both training and inference demand from Xiaomi are growing rapidly: most MIMO training runs on Kingsoft Cloud, and inference demand has surged sharply after the V2 model launch as underlying resources are reallocated, with management optimistic about future growth that ultimately depends on Xiaomi's business performance. Full-year 2026 CapEx is currently estimated at RMB 15-20 billion, with supply chain capacity as the main limiting factor for expansion this year.