Huize Trades Quarterly Updates for Long-Term Focus; Q3 Metrics Mixed

SHENZHEN, China – December 22, 2025 – Huize Holding Limited (NASDAQ: HUIZ), a prominent insurance technology platform in Asia, announced a significant strategic pivot today, shifting from quarterly financial disclosures to a semi-annual and annual reporting schedule. The company simultaneously released select operating metrics for the third quarter of 2025, revealing a landscape of robust premium growth juxtaposed with a slowdown in new customer acquisition.

The move, approved by its Board of Directors, is framed as a strategic decision to allow management to “devote greater focus to the execution of its long-term strategic initiatives” in an increasingly competitive and technologically advancing industry. While the shift is permissible for a NASDAQ-listed Foreign Private Issuer (FPI), it marks a departure from the quarterly cadence that U.S. investors have come to expect, raising questions about the balance between long-term vision and near-term transparency.

A Strategic Trade-Off

Huize's decision to reduce its reporting frequency is not without precedent in global markets. Regulators in the European Union and the United Kingdom have previously moved to allow semi-annual reporting to encourage a more long-term corporate perspective. As an FPI, Huize is operating within existing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guidelines, which are less stringent than those for domestic issuers. However, the move introduces potential challenges for investors.

Financial analysts often caution that less frequent disclosures can increase information asymmetry, making it more difficult for investors to assess a company's performance and perceived risk. This can be particularly impactful for companies with lower trading volumes. Huize's stock has historically experienced low liquidity, a situation that could be exacerbated by fewer data points throughout the year. The lack of extensive analyst coverage on the company further concentrates the market's reliance on official company disclosures.

The company has committed to providing clear and timely information in compliance with all regulatory requirements and expects to release its results for the second half of 2025 in March 2026. The core of its argument is that this new cadence will better serve long-term shareholder value by freeing up management from the pressures of short-term quarterly performance cycles. This allows for more dedicated focus on complex, multi-quarter strategic projects involving AI and data analytics, which are central to its business model.

Decoding the Final Quarterly Glimpse

To bridge the transition, Huize provided a final snapshot of its quarterly performance, and the numbers paint a complex picture of its operational health. The company reported a significant surge in First Year Premiums (FYP), which reached 1,929.5 million RMB in the third quarter of 2025, a dramatic increase from 1,354.4 million RMB in the same period of 2024. Similarly, Gross Written Premiums (GWP) grew to 2,767.3 million RMB, up from 2,060.7 million RMB year-over-year.

This strong premium growth suggests Huize is successfully capturing higher-value business and deepening its relationships with its existing customer base. This is further evidenced by its impressive persistency ratios—a key metric for long-term health in the insurance industry. For the nine months ended September 30, 2025, the company's 13-month and 25-month persistency ratios stood at a robust 97.8% and 97.7%, respectively, indicating exceptionally high customer retention.

However, the data also reveals a notable slowdown in new customer acquisition for the quarter. Huize acquired 343,000 new customers in Q3 2025, a decrease from the 439,000 acquired in Q3 2024. While the nine-month figures still show year-over-year growth in new customers (1.1 million in 2025 vs. 898,000 in 2024), the quarterly decline suggests a potential shift in strategy towards maximizing value from its existing 11.7 million accumulated users rather than pursuing aggressive, and potentially costly, new user growth.

Navigating a Fiercely Competitive Landscape

Huize's strategic adjustments are occurring within the context of a rapidly expanding and fiercely competitive Chinese insurtech market, which is projected to grow from $80.39 billion in 2025 to over $153.5 billion by 2030. Competition is intense, with giants like Ant Group's Ant Insurance and Ping An Insurance leveraging massive scale and deep technological investment.

For instance, Ant Insurance processed 7.25 million health claims in 2024, with its AI tools handling 96% of analysis requests. Similarly, traditional behemoth Ping An utilized AI to handle 1.84 billion service cases in 2024, representing 80% of its total service volume. These figures highlight the immense pressure on all players, including Huize, to innovate continuously.

Huize's emphasis on AI and data-driven solutions is crucial for its survival and growth, but such investments are costly. Ant Group, for example, saw its quarterly profits drop 31% in 2025 due to high AI deployment costs. Huize's move to a semi-annual reporting schedule could be interpreted as a way to shield its long-term AI and technology development from the short-term margin pressures often scrutinized in quarterly earnings calls.

A Shifting Regulatory Environment

The backdrop for Huize's strategic shift is an increasingly stringent regulatory environment both in China and for Chinese firms listed in the U.S. In 2023, China established the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) to unify supervision of the financial industry. More recently, the NFRA has introduced rules mandating premium payment before policy issuance and enhancing consumer protection, all aimed at increasing market discipline.

Simultaneously, U.S. regulators are taking a closer look at Foreign Private Issuers. The SEC issued a concept release in June 2025 to review the FPI definition, which could potentially subject more non-U.S. companies to stricter domestic reporting standards in the future. Furthermore, NASDAQ has proposed heightened listing standards for China-based companies, reflecting a trend toward greater scrutiny.

For investors, this means evaluating Huize requires navigating a complex web of factors: a strategic pivot toward long-term focus, mixed operating signals, intense market competition, and a dynamic regulatory landscape. The company's ability to execute its long-term vision, now with less frequent public check-ins, will be the ultimate test of this new strategy.