Marti (MRT) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Founder and Chief Executive Officer - Oguz Alper Oktem
• Co-Founder, President and Chief Operating Officer - Cankut Durgun

TAKEAWAYS

• Revenue -- $19,985,000, growing 140.7% year over year driven by the expansion of platform subscription packages and increased trip volumes.
• Gross Profit -- $15,299,000, representing a 222.8% increase reflecting improved unit economics and operating leverage.
• Gross Profit Margin -- 76.6%, expanding from 57.1% in the second quarter of 2025.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- $2.91 million, a $5.3 million improvement over the prior year and the company's first positive result.
• Net Loss -- $12,502,000, which includes a $8.3 million noncash loss on debt extinguishment from amending convertible notes.
• Total Trips -- 18.78 million, representing 73.2% growth across ride-hailing, delivery, and two-wheeled electric vehicle services.
• Unique Platform Consumers -- 2.36 million, an increase of 76.4% year over year.
• All-time Ride-Hailing Riders -- 4.4 million as of June 30, nearly doubling the 2.3 million recorded one year prior.
• Registered Ride-Hailing Drivers -- 544,000, reflecting a 66% increase compared to 327,000 in the prior year quarter.
• Average Daily Two-Wheeled EVs Deployed -- 20,900, declining from 24,100 in the prior year as part of a fleet optimization strategy.
• Fiscal Year 2026 Revenue Guidance -- $85 million, representing expected 117% year-over-year growth.
• Fiscal Year 2026 Adjusted EBITDA Guidance -- $7 million, raised from previous targets based on first-half performance.
• Predepreciation Contribution per Trip -- $0.84, an increase from $0.50 in the second quarter of 2025.
• Revenue per Trip -- $1.06, compared to $0.77 in the same period last year.
• Multi-service Consumer Usage -- Trips per consumer were 3.1 times higher and revenue per consumer was 2.7 times higher for multi-service consumers compared to single-service users.
• Driver Cross-Adoption -- 55% of motorcycle-hailing drivers and 22% of car-hailing drivers in Istanbul completed delivery trips during the quarter.
• Operating Footprint -- 30 cities, following the expansion into 10 new cities which cover approximately 85% of Türkiye's GDP.
• Personnel Expenses -- 7.6% of revenue, declining from 16.5% of revenue in the prior year quarter.
• Depreciation and Amortization -- 2.6% of revenue, down from 8.5% of revenue in the second quarter of 2025.
• Cash and Cash Equivalents -- $12.5 million as of June 30, 2026.
• Interest Expense -- $4.3 million, increasing 37.6% year over year due to financial liabilities.
• Ride-Hailing Growth Targets -- Management expects to reach 4.9 million all-time ride-hailing riders and 580,000 registered drivers by the end of the third quarter.
• Stock Buyback Program -- $2.5 million authorized for share repurchases, currently active through October 2026.

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RISKS

• Durgun stated that there will be a "ceiling to gross profitability" because the business has an "operational offline component" with "variable costs that exist in the physical world."
• Management noted in SEC filings that a military conflict involving Iran beginning in February 2026 contributed to "increased volatility in global energy and commodity prices" and "heightened geopolitical uncertainty in Turkiye."
• Durgun acknowledged that "Turkiye continued to experience inflationary conditions and depreciation of the Turkish lira against the U.S. dollar," which affects consumer demand, driver supply, and the company's cost base.

SUMMARY

Management reported the company's first quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, driven by a 140.7% increase in revenue and significant gross margin expansion. The results reflect the transition of the ride-hailing marketplace toward profitability as the company scales its operations to 30 cities across Türkiye. Marti expanded its total trip volume by 73.2% while maintaining stable engagement levels among its 2.36 million unique platform consumers. The company raised its full-year 2026 guidance for both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, citing strong momentum in non-Istanbul markets and the continued adoption of its multi-service mobility and delivery offerings. Management also highlighted strategic initiatives in artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicle partnerships as foundations for future growth.

• The company entered into a multiyear strategic partnership with Tensor to deploy autonomous vehicles on the Marti platform as an initial step toward building a nationwide autonomous mobility network.
• Management reported that Istanbul now accounts for less than 50% of total business volume, with steady-state projections suggesting the capital city will eventually represent one-third of the business.
• Marti is currently monetizing 7 of its 30 operational cities, and the updated 2026 revenue guidance does not assume any new city monetization.
• The company is applying AI across its tech stack for dynamic pricing, matching algorithms, and driver onboarding to improve operational efficiency without increasing team sizes.
• President Durgun noted that parcel delivery adoption is being used to build driver demand before the company begins the second phase of onboarding merchants for food and grocery delivery.
• CEO Oktem stated, "We're building Türkiye's Autonomous Vehicle Alliance to bring together autonomous vehicle technology and vehicle providers with Marti leveraging this platform, rider demand and operational infrastructure."
• Management decommissioned a portion of the two-wheeled electric vehicle fleet to improve capital efficiency, prioritizing high-utilization areas while scaling the broader ride-hailing marketplace.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• Adjusted EBITDA: A non-GAAP financial measure that excludes interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, as well as one-time non-cash items such as losses on debt extinguishment or share-based compensation.
• Ride-hailing: A digital marketplace service that matches passengers with drivers of cars, motorcycles, or taxis through a mobile application.
• Super App: A mobile application that provides a range of services, including transportation, delivery, and payments, within a single integrated platform.
• Tensor: A technology provider that has partnered with Marti to deploy autonomous vehicle solutions in the Turkish market.
• Türkiye Autonomous Vehicle Alliance: A strategic initiative led by Marti to coordinate technology providers, vehicle manufacturers, and infrastructure operators for autonomous mobility.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Marti Technologies Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Before we begin, I would like to mention that today's earnings release and earnings presentation are available on Marti's Investor Relations website at ir.marti.tech, where you will also find links to our SEC filings along with other information about Marti. Joining me on the call today are Oguz Alper Oktem, Marti's Founder and CEO; and Cankut Durgun, Marti's Co-Founder, President and COO.

Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that statements made on this call as well as in today's earnings release and accompanying earnings presentation contain forward-looking statements regarding our financial outlook, business plans, objectives, goals and strategies, and other future events and developments, including statements about the market. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risks and uncertainties include those described in our filings with the SEC, today's earnings release and the accompanying earnings presentation, and are based on current expectations and beliefs as of today, August 19, 2026.

In addition, our discussion today will include references to certain supplemental non-GAAP financial measures, which should be considered in addition to and not a substitute for our GAAP financial results. We use these non-GAAP measures in evaluating and managing Marti's business and believe they provide useful information for management and our investors. Beginning with the quarter ended June 30, 2026, we revised our calculation of adjusted EBITDA, and prior period amounts have been revised to conform with the current presentation. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to the corresponding GAAP measures, where appropriate, together with the description of this revision can be found in our earnings release and earnings presentation as well as our filings with the SEC.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Alper.

Oguz Oktem: Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Marti's second quarter 2026 earnings call. The second quarter marked an inflection point for the company. We continue to deliver strong growth while achieving positive adjusted EBITDA for the first time. These results reflect that scale is increasingly translating into profitability. From the beginning, our strategy has been straightforward, build the largest and most engaged mobility network in Türkiye and leverage the network to expand into adjacent services with attractive economics. Our second quarter results demonstrate continued progress in executing this strategy. During this quarter, we continued strengthening the foundation for long-term profitable growth.

Ride-hailing remains a strong growth engine across our 20-city footprint, which we have since expanded into 30 cities in Q3 with strong performance in both Istanbul and non-Istanbul markets. At the same time, delivery adoption continued to accelerate among both consumers and drivers, reinforcing our established ride-hailing network to efficiently expand into adjacent services. The result is higher engagement, better driver utilization and strong economics. Looking ahead, we are also advancing our autonomous mobility strategy in the country. We're building Türkiye's Autonomous Vehicle Alliance to bring together autonomous vehicle technology and vehicle providers with Marti leveraging this platform, rider demand and operational infrastructure.

As the first strategic step in this strategy, we entered into a multiyear partnership with Tensor to deploy autonomous vehicles on the Marti platform while engaging with additional technology and vehicle providers. Strong execution translates into strong financial results. Revenue increased 141% year-over-year to nearly $20 million, while gross profit more than tripled to over $15 million. Gross profit margin expanded to a record 77%, reflecting improved unit economics and operating leverage. Most importantly, adjusted EBITDA turned positive at $2.9 million and a $5.3 million improvement from the prior year quarter. This milestone demonstrates the operating leverage of our marketplace model and reflects the earnings power of our business as it continues to scale.

Based on our first half performance and current momentum, we increased our fiscal year 2026 guidance to $85 million in revenue and a positive $7 million in adjusted EBITDA. The increased outlook reflects accelerating demand across our expanding addressable markets throughout the country, higher gross margins and continued progress towards long-term profitable growth. We are the #1 mobility app in the country across both iOS and Android, the only operator offering both car and motorcycle-hailing services at scale, which we complement via our large two-wheeled electric vehicle fleet and our on-demand delivery services. Since launch, consumers have completed 195 million trips through our platform and 8.3 million unique platform consumers have used at least one of our services.

Our ride-hailing marketplace continues to expand rapidly. As of June 30, we had reached 4.4 million all-time ride-hailing riders and built a network of 544,000 registered drivers. These metrics highlight the strength of our multi-service platform, seamlessly combining mobility and delivery, and our ability to scale both supply and demand in a highly dynamic market. Marti has quickly emerged as Türkiye's leading urban mobility platform. Scale, brand recognition, and nationwide operations create meaningful competitive advantages as we continue expanding our services. Globally, mobility markets are typically led by local champions who benefit from deep operational expertise and strong brand trust. Türkiye is no exception, with four of the five leading mobility apps operated in the country by local companies.

Today, Marti operates in 30 cities representing approximately 85% of the country's GDP. This includes the 10 additional cities in which we launched our ride-hailing operations last week, further strengthening our nationwide footprint. This broad footprint enables us to launch new services efficiently, deepen consumer engagement, and serve a substantial portion of the Turkish mobility market through a single integrated platform. Türkiye continues to present a compelling long-term mobility opportunity. Urbanization, congestion, and increasing demand for technology-enabled transportation continue to support structural market growth, and Marti is well positioned to lead the way and capture that opportunity. Our operating metrics once again reflect the strength of our integrated multi-service platform model.

During the second quarter, trips increased 73% to 18.8 million, while unique platform consumers grew even faster, rising 76% year-over-year to 2.4 million. Importantly, trips per unique platform consumer stayed broadly stable despite rapid consumer growth. We view this as an encouraging indicator that our marketplace continues to scale efficiently. This combination of accelerating consumer growth and stable engagement provides a strong foundation for sustained revenue growth and expanding profitability. Our ride-hailing service continues to be the primary driver of overall platform growth and consumer acquisition. As of June 30, all-time unique ride-hailing riders grew 95% year-over-year, from 2.3 million to 4.4 million. All-time registered ride-hailing drivers grew 66% year-over-year, from 327,000 to 544,000.

We continue to exceed the operational targets we set for ourselves, driving growth in both consumer demand and driver supply across our network. Looking ahead, our next milestone is to reach 4.9 million all-time ride-hailing riders and 580,000 registered drivers by the end of the third quarter. As our ride-hailing marketplace continues to scale, we are also seeing encouraging momentum in the growth of our delivery services. In the second quarter, delivery adoption continued to rise among both consumers and drivers in Istanbul. Among all-time unique platform consumers with more than one trip, approximately 82% of motorcycle-hailing consumers and 31% of car-hailing consumers used these services after first engaging with another Marti service.

In addition, 73% of motorcycle-hailing consumers and 13% of car-hailing consumers subsequently adopted additional services within the Marti platform. Multi-service engagement also continues to drive stronger platform economics. During the second quarter of 2026, trips per consumer were 3.1x higher and revenue per consumer was 2.7x higher for multi-service consumers compared to single-service consumers. This reflects the growing utility and stickiness of our integrated multi-service platform. On the supply side, growing driver adoption continues to reinforce the strength of our integrated marketplace. Among drivers in Istanbul, 55% of motorcycle-hailing drivers and 22% of car-hailing drivers also completed delivery trips during the second quarter.

Similarly, multi-service drivers in Istanbul completed significantly more trips than single-service drivers, with trips per motorcycle driver 4x higher and trips per car driver 2x higher. Each new service added to our network strengthens utilization and drives deeper engagement. Beyond expanding the marketplace, we are increasingly deploying AI across our organization to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and increase output. Our focus is on enabling rapid iteration and faster time to market, while allowing well-defined tasks to be executed with minimal human supervision. Importantly, we are doing this without increasing team sizes. In practice, we are applying AI across our tech stack, operations, and marketplace.

This includes dynamic pricing to improve marketplace efficiency and an AI-based matching algorithm to improve match quality and trip completion rates. We are also applying AI in customer service to improve response times and in driver onboarding and verification to streamline processes and reduce operational costs. On the growth side, we are using AI to enable more efficient and personalized customer engagement and more effective performance marketing, helping us optimize marketing spend. We are also leveraging AI for creative content production, allowing us to accelerate experimentation and increase our marketing output more efficiently.

As autonomous vehicle technology continues to develop and the supply of autonomous vehicle solutions expands, the opportunity increasingly lies in connecting these providers with consumers and providing the infrastructure required to operate at scale. Marti is uniquely positioned to do this in Türkiye, combining three key advantages: our leading mobility super app and consumer demand, our established infrastructure and operational capabilities, and our ability to engage with regulators and public-sector stakeholders. As an initial step, we entered into a multi-year strategic partnership with Tensor to deploy autonomous vehicles on the Marti platform. We are also engaging with additional autonomous vehicle technology and vehicle providers as we work to build the Türkiye Autonomous Vehicle Alliance.

With that, I will turn the call over to my partner, Cankut, to discuss our financial results in greater detail.

Cankut Durgun: Thank you, Alper. Our second quarter results reflect the scalability of Marti's business model. Trips increased 73% year-over-year, while unique platform consumers grew even faster, increasing 76%. Engagement remains strong with trips per unique platform consumer broadly stable at 7.9 despite the rapid expansion of our consumer base. Growth was driven primarily by increasing ride-hailing usage across our existing cities alongside encouraging momentum in cross-service adoption across the platform. We also exceeded our operational targets, ending the quarter with 4.4 million all-time unique ride-hailing riders and 544,000 registered drivers.

As part of our fleet optimization strategy, we continue to decommission our existing two-wheeled electric vehicle fleet, reducing the number of average daily two-wheeled electric vehicles deployed from 24,100 in the second quarter of 2025 to 20,900 in the second quarter of 2026. This reflects our ongoing focus on capital efficiency and resource allocation. On the financial side, revenue more than doubled year-over-year, while costs grew at a slower rate, resulting in substantial gross margin expansion and allowing us to deliver positive adjusted EBITDA for the first time. I'm now going to go into the details of our revenue and cost of revenue figures.

Q2 revenue increased 141% year-over-year to nearly $20 million, continuing the strong momentum we have seen throughout the year. This growth was primarily driven by the continued success of our platform subscription package monetization together with increasing trips and unique platform consumers. Importantly, cost of revenues increased only 32% despite significantly higher business volumes. At the same time, cost efficiency improved significantly across several major cost categories. Personnel expenses declined from 16.5% to 7.6% of revenue, depreciation and amortization from 8.5% to 2.6%, and operating lease expenses from 4.2% to 1.3%.

These efficiencies, particularly the reduction in personnel and depreciation and amortization costs as a percentage of revenue contributed to the decline in cost of revenues from 43% to 23% of revenue. Following a 400% year-over-year increase in gross profit in the first quarter, it grew a further 223% year-over-year in the second quarter. At the same time, cost of revenues continued to decline as a percentage of revenue, driving gross profit margin expansion from 57% to 77%. This operating leverage is also evident in our first half performance. During the first 6 months of the year, revenue increased 147% year-over-year, while cost of revenues increased just 22%, resulting in gross profit growth of 279%.

These results reflect the scalability of our platform and our ability to convert incremental revenue into profitability as the platform grows. The benefits of this operating leverage are clearly reflected in our profitability. Gross profit margin expanded to a record 77% in the second quarter, which reflects the scalability of our marketplace model and the strength of our unit economics. On a GAAP basis, net loss was $12.5 million, reflecting a onetime noncash loss on debt extinguishment of $8.3 million recognized in connection with the amendment of our convertible notes. In the absence of the onetime noncash loss on debt extinguishment, net loss was $4.2 million in comparison to $9.2 million in the prior year quarter.

Most importantly, adjusted EBITDA improved by $5.3 million year-over-year, turning positive at $2.9 million compared to negative $2.4 million in the prior year quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA margin also improved significantly from negative 28% in the second quarter of 2025 to positive 15% in the second quarter of this year, an improvement of 43 percentage points in a single year. Reaching positive adjusted EBITDA marks an important milestone for Marti and reflects that our marketplace can generate profitable growth while continuing to invest in our long-term growth initiatives. Following our strong first half performance, we increased our fiscal year 2026 guidance to reflect the continued strength of the business.

We now expect fiscal year 2026 revenue of $85 million, representing 117% year-over-year growth. Our revenue of $35.4 million in the first 6 months of 2026 already represents 42% of our updated full year revenue guidance. By comparison, in the first half of 2025, we had $14.3 million of revenue, which represented 37% of our 2025 full year revenue. We also increased our fiscal year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance to positive $7 million. Our second quarter adjusted EBITDA of positive $2.9 million represents meaningful progress toward our increased full year adjusted EBITDA guidance. This milestone reflects the scalability of our marketplace model and the long-term earnings power of our platform.

Taken all together, these results reflect the continued execution of our strategy, including the scaling of ride-hailing across our now 30-city footprint, reaching 85% of the country's GDP, the growing adoption of our delivery services, disciplined cost management, and the building of our AI-driven product capabilities to support a much larger operational platform. Based on our strong first half performance and current operating momentum, we're well positioned to achieve our increased full year guidance, while continuing to invest in expanding our platform and product capabilities to support long-term profitable growth. We thank you for your participating today and would like to open the floor to any questions you might have.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question is coming from Theodore O'Neill of Litchfield Hills Research.

Theodore O'Neill: Congratulations on the quarter. Cankut, last quarter, you talked about gross profit margin having a ceiling of 78%. And I'm wondering if that's still the ceiling you're looking at? And if you feel that this kind of gross profit margin might attract competitors?

Cankut Durgun: Thanks for your question, Theo. So last quarter, our gross profit margin was 72%. And I don't recall naming a ceiling as specific as the 78% figure, but we do believe that, of course, there will be a ceiling to gross profitability, right? This is a business with an operational offline component. And therefore, there are certain variable costs that exist in the physical world that do not necessarily exist for digital-only companies. And therefore, there will be a ceiling to our gross margins.

I think the increase from the first quarter to the second quarter shows that we have yet to reach that ceiling, but something probably in the ballpark of what we've achieved now, something in the sort of 80% range is, we believe, sustainable. In the event that competition entered the market, yes, that is something that we will address at that time. Whether that will have an impact on the gross profit margins, we'll see sort of at that moment in time. But for the foreseeable future, we do believe that the figures in the current ballpark of 80% are sustainable.

Operator: The next question is coming from Rohit Kulkarni of ROTH Capital Partners.

Rohit Kulkarni: Just helping us reconcile how you're thinking about the second half, both revenue ramp as well as EBITDA. Raising the guidance on both levels, but perhaps talk through your thinking on how much of growth in revenues is coming from existing cities versus new cities? What gives you confidence on raising the revenue guidance? And then ditto for EBITDA as well with regards to margins and operating leverage, perhaps talk about gross margin versus operating leverage, how you're thinking about that in the second half?

Cankut Durgun: Yes. So on the revenue guidance, the primary reason why we increased the revenue guidance for the year is because we were seeing much faster growth in the volume of trips taking place on our platform than what we had initially anticipated. So that was the main reason for the increase in the revenue guidance. As a result, as long as that volume growth continues, as took place in the first half, we do foresee reaching our $85 million revenue target for the year. There is no new city expansion or no new city monetization assumptions baked into the revenue forecast that we have for the year.

As long as the sort of volume of trips growth continues, then we do anticipate reaching that revenue forecast. From the adjusted EBITDA front, if you look at the gross profit profile of the company, right, and you assume that, that stays in the sort of 80% range, then that will leave us with significant room to not only sort of achieve the $7 million adjusted EBITDA forecast that we put, but perhaps to also make some investments in the fixed cost structure of the company as well.

We've sort of retained a fairly healthy margin, I would say, in light of the sort of the revenue growth of the company as well as the gross profit margins in the $7 million EBITDA forecast that we've shared for the year. The other way to look at that, Rohit, is that just this quarter, right, just this quarter, we finished with $2.9 million of EBITDA. And therefore, even if there were absolutely no continued growth in the business and no improvement on a quarterly basis in the EBITDA profile of the business, then across the next 2 quarters, that would suggest roughly $6 million of additional EBITDA.

And therefore, on an aggregate full year basis, you're pretty much already at the $7 million figure.

Rohit Kulkarni: Okay. And I guess with regards to kind of the volume growth, can you talk about what's driving the volume growth? Is it more frequency of existing riders, more riders coming to the platform, existing cities like Istanbul or outside of Istanbul? Perhaps just kind of color the shape of the growth and what's driving the volume?

Cankut Durgun: The new cities are a very important growth driver. So that's part of the reason why we launched 10 new cities a few weeks ago now, and we launched those in tandem because we are seeing much faster growth outside of Istanbul than what we had originally baked in. Right now, Istanbul as a share of our business is already down to below 50%. And at steady state, we assume that Istanbul is going to be about 1/3 of the business. And the new city performance shows that, that's a very reasonable assumption for the company. The growth is coming primarily outside of Istanbul at this stage.

While Istanbul also continues to grow, the other cities are growing at a faster clip.

Rohit Kulkarni: Okay. Fantastic. I guess one last question. Any latest updates on the regulatory developments as far as ridesharing or even last-minute delivery with the Türkiye government?

Cankut Durgun: So the last-minute delivery, the parcel delivery service, it is fully regulated in Türkiye right now. As to the ride-hailing service, so just like our administration regulated the micromobility sector in the past, recently, they actually announced -- so led by our Ministry of Industry and Technology and signed in a presidential circular, we also announced our AI action plan at the state level. And this AI action plan, for example, I counted and it actually includes 12 references to autonomous vehicles, ranging from the need to have autonomous vehicles technology developed within the borders of our country to incentivizing the existing very strong vehicle manufacturing. Türkiye is one of the largest exporters of cars to the European Union.

It has a very strong manufacturing base, so incentivizing those. And our Ministry of Industry and Technology, therefore, is working on a plan to enable, not at scale deployments of autonomous vehicles, but pilot deployments of autonomous vehicles over the next year or so. And similar discussions continue to take place in the ride-hailing space. And with regards to timing, we believe that our state knows best and that they will regulate the sector at the right moment in time.

Operator: The next question is coming from Jack Halpert of Cantor Fitzgerald.

John Halpert: I've got 2, please. So on the Tensor partnership, I know you kind of just talked a little bit about the regulation side on AVs. But kind of what is the realistic time line for actual deployment here? It seems like maybe just pilots in the near to medium term. And then kind of as it scales, should investors expect any sort of CapEx or JV funding commitments from Marti as a part of this? Or is it purely just sort of an aggregation demand side role? And then secondly, just on the delivery side of things. Obviously, it looks like your delivery penetration for motorcycle drivers increased sequentially. How big of an opportunity can parcel delivery be here?

And like what does the monetization story look like?

Cankut Durgun: In response to your first question, Jack, so the Tensor deployment, it's going to -- first, we have to prove that the technology works and is safe in Türkiye, right? So before scaling and before any larger financing commitments, for example, the JV commitments potentially that you mentioned, we have to prove that the technology works and does so safely. And that is our immediate goal. The first step in achieving that goal is recognizing that the autonomous vehicle sector is in a slightly different state than it was maybe 2 years ago. So 2 years ago, the limiting constraint for the growth of the sector was actually demand, right?

There was some sort of supply -- there was sufficient supply to sort of conduct initial pilots, but the demand potentially related to how sort of fashionable it was, potentially related to how many proof points there were around the safety data and therefore, the regulatory receptiveness to this, the sector was demand constrained. Now the reverse is the case, right? Now it's actually supply constrained, right? Because the ride-hailing market didn't have any supply constraint in its initial growth, because drivers with cars and eventually drivers without cars who could get car financing, like that already existed.

Whereas now in the autonomous vehicle space, that's not the case, perhaps with the exception of Tesla that has an existing sort of installed car base, the CapEx and the requirement of building actual physical sort of autonomous vehicle is the constraint. And therefore, autonomous vehicle technology providers as well, while they are increasing in number and that layer of the stack, we do believe is eventually going to roughly commoditize, at the current stage, they are prioritizing deployments based on how large the markets are and not only how large they are in the short term, but more importantly, how large those deployments will be in the long term.

And in this supply-constrained market, our objective is to launch as many vehicles as possible as soon as possible, but we also do recognize that our partners, whether it's Tensor, whether it's the other discussions that we continue to have, right, our goal is to build an autonomous vehicle alliance for Türkiye, where we provide the demand, we provide the operations and repair and maintenance capabilities, and we work with multiple autonomous vehicle providers, not just Tensor.

Our goal is to bring them live as soon as possible, but of course, in light of what each supplier that we work with can produce in terms of time line as well as in light of the regulatory requirements for building a successful pilot, because the goal is not the number of vehicles in the pilot, for example, the goal is actually how well you show that the pilot works, so that you can scale as fast as possible following that. With regards to your question on the delivery side, the deliveries market in parcel delivery, we believe, is about 10% to 20% of the total scale of the delivery market.

So right now, it's important to emphasize like our parcel delivery, it does not include merchants listed in our app, right? So what we do is, we show you a screen where you input where you are, you input where you want the delivery to go into in terms of eventual destination. And then one of our motorcycle or car drivers comes and pick that product up and then takes it to its destination. While it could theoretically be used for the delivery of groceries or restaurants from foods, that use case only really scales and begins to scale when you have merchant integrations. And that's not something that we currently have.

That is something that we plan to add once we have built the demand for the delivery service that we are currently doing. And then we go back to the merchant side and then start onboarding merchants. We're still in Phase 1. The immediate next step for deliveries is, and the parcel delivery specifically is expanding outside of Istanbul. Right now, that's still a sort of Istanbul-based business, but I do believe that we have sufficient proof points within the city of Istanbul to seriously consider expanding that service to other cities in a similar fashion to how we expanded ride-hailing, right?

So in ride-hailing, we went from one city launch to eventually four cities, including Ankara, Antalya and Izmir, and then subsequently added additional cities before adding our eventual last 10. That's the same playbook that we're going to apply in the parcel delivery space.

Oguz Oktem: Our company is in a unique spot because we've done micromobility at scale before. And AV ride-hailing or ride-sharing is actually an extension of micromobility business. Still electric vehicles on the field operated by a bunch of operators at scale. It's a CapEx-heavy business and scaling has a lot to do with the supply side of it. And there's one big lesson we learned from our micromobility is you have to enter at the right time. with the right product, at the right scale.

Generally, early adoption forces you to buy vehicles that are sub-quality, less than you want, vehicles that don't serve you very well, vehicles that are not perfectly adapted to the environment you're operating, and you end up buying an earlier version, which is going to be very hard to replace because you will need more CapEx at that time until the right vehicle, and then scale at the right time is the right thing to do.

Had we known this about mobility in the past, we probably would have done differently with a little bit more for better fleets out at scale and both those, because lifetime of those newer vehicles were better vehicles are longer, operation of those vehicles are cheaper and just it is better consumer experience. So as a result, I think our scale has a lot to do with a bunch of factors like regulation, timing, supply, et cetera, but it also has a lot to do with being able to find the perfect car or almost perfect car for the environment, which is cheaper labor costs and higher equipment costs.

We need a vehicle that's a little bit cheaper than what operates around the world to be able to make the unit economics more profitable. Right now in the market, I see a vehicle set for us to scale rapidly. But when the opportunity presents itself, I think we'll be the first ones to know that it is the right thing to do.

Operator: The next question is coming from Dick Ryan of Oak Ridge Financial.

Richard Ryan: Cankut, just on a couple of financial clarifications, if you will. The gross margin with stronger activity in the spring and summer months, will you be able to carry that? I know you talked about a sustainable gross margin going forward. But is there any seasonal component when we get into kind of the December and the March quarters?

Cankut Durgun: There is a seasonal component, but it's not very large. So this isn't the micromobility business where you have 50% declines or so in the winter months relative to the summer months. The ride-hailing business, especially at this stage, we continue to see growth in the winter months. We see less growth than we do in the summer months. But at this stage of the business, we continue to see growth. And as long as we continue to see growth, we do anticipate the gross margins continuing to reflect that.

Richard Ryan: Okay. And on the revenue guidance, if you just split the difference for the second half of the year, it's roughly $25 million per quarter. Will that skew more towards Q3 than Q4?

Cankut Durgun: No. As long as the business continues to grow, which it will continue to grow in the fourth quarter, the pace of growth will be lower in the fourth quarter than it is in the third quarter, if history is a guide. However, as long as it continues to grow, that means that we have more trips. And when you have more trips, that should roughly translate into more revenue.

Richard Ryan: Great. And it's good to see the contributions from the other cities kind of diversifying away from Istanbul's contribution. What is the level of monetization now of the 20 cities that you expanded into? And when will the 10 new cities start being monetized? Is that 2027?

Cankut Durgun: 2027 at the earliest. The way we think about monetization is that in the Istanbul launch, for example, we began monetizing in that city more than 2 years after the initial launch. It probably will take less time for new cities in the current case, because we have the experience. And with experience, you can sort of -- on a relative basis, you can grow faster in your new city launches than you did in your initial city. But we're in no hurry to monetize the new cities. With regards to your first question, we're currently monetizing 7 of the 30 cities that we operate in.

Richard Ryan: Okay. One last one. Any early comments on what your anticipations or your aspirational goals are for 2027?

Oguz Oktem: Grow baby grow. That's the thing.

Cankut Durgun: Alper is the aspirational one. So I'll defer to him on this question.

Oguz Oktem: Look, I say this analogy all the time, but we are selling water in the desert in the sense that tech-enabled mobility, especially urban mobility is highly demanded in Istanbul and other large Turkish cities because of the congestion, the traffic, just the hardships around moving within a city. So we are providing a very valuable service, and we see the demand, we see the adoption, we see users essentially loving us as a brand and just complementing our service. So our goal is to get the ride-hailing service, the bread and butter of the business now, to as many people as possible, as fast as possible across the country.

So 2026 is going to be -- 2027 is going to be all about higher usage, higher drivers, higher number of users and just more revenue.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question is coming from Fawne Jiang of The Benchmark Company.

Yanfang Jiang: Two on my side. First, on the take rate. I think you mentioned that you're currently monetizing 7 out of your 30 cities. Just wonder what's the effective take rate for the existing 7 cities you are monetizing? And how should we think about the trajectory of the take rate when these cities continue to mature on the growth side?

Cankut Durgun: Thanks for your question, Fawne. So our take rate remains to be in the mid-teens, and that's at the sort of total scale of the operations, right? So that's at the country level, that take rate. We don't break out the take rate into what it is in the cities that we monetize and those that we don't. But the 7 cities, of course, they are the larger cities, of course. They are the first cities that we launched and the earlier cities that we launched are the ones that we monetize first.

Yanfang Jiang: Understood. Second question is really more about your investment and capital allocation. You mentioned that you are confident to achieve full year EBITDA, upgraded EBITDA target. At the same time, you also leave room to reinvest. So I guess what are the key areas you are going to incrementally invest in the second half? On top of that, you have quite a few, I think, actions going on. You reset your CB, buying back your shares, continue to invest in the business. How should we think about your capital allocation strategy?

Cankut Durgun: Let me start with the buyback. So as you referred to, we do have up to a $2.5 million buyback program in place, and that has been active for quite a time now. And we have, in the past, extended the duration of our buyback programs. The current one, I think, is scheduled to expire sometime in October of this year. And we do anticipate -- as long as the share price remains at a level that we continue to believe is undervalued, we do anticipate continuing to buy back our shares. That said, this is a capital allocation issue, right? And we are still very much a growth stage company.

The market size that we talk about, for example, we talk about sort of the eventual ride-hailing market being a $3 billion to $4 billion revenue opportunity in Türkiye. Together with our increased revenue guidance, we're still at sub-$100 million, right, $85 million of revenue forecast for this year.

And therefore, the majority of the investments that we will be making will be to increase the growth, as Alper said, grow baby grow, increase the growth of our ride-hailing business, whether that's new city launches, whether that's accelerating the pace of rider and driver acquisition in these cities through various marketing channels, whether that's revitalizing sort of our existing riders and drivers who have used the service, but maybe use it at a smaller scale when liquidity was less, and therefore, the experience on potentially both sides of the marketplace was less attractive than it is now, reengaging those riders and drivers. That's the priority that we have ahead of ourselves right now.

Yanfang Jiang: That's clear. Congrats on a good quarter.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of today's question-and-answer session. We would like to thank you all for your participation and your interest in Marti Technologies. You may disconnect your lines at this time or log off the webcast and enjoy the rest of your day.

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