Following the listing of Wenyuan Zhixing in the United States, on the evening of November 27th Beijing time, Chinese autonomous driving solution company Xiaoma Zhixing was also listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange with the stock code "PONY", priced at $13 per ADS.
Before going public, Xiaoma Zhixing postponed its pricing once, with a price range of $11-13 for the market, and planned to issue 15 million ADS (each ADS is equivalent to one common stock).
Generally, companies that are about to go public postpone pricing, partly because the price is not recognized by the capital market, but from the final result, Xiaoma Zhixing is not included in this situation, "a secondary market investor told 21st Century Business Herald reporters.
In fact, Xiaoma Zhixing expanded its IPO scale during this issuance process, ultimately issuing a total of 20 million shares. Among them, BAIC Group and Singapore transportation operator Kangfudegao participated as cornerstone investors in the IPO of Xiaoma Zhixing; At the same time, Xiaoma Zhixing also conducted a strategic targeted issuance of approximately $150 million, with multiple investors including GAC Capital, a wholly-owned subsidiary of GAC Group, participating.
Based on a pricing of $13 per share, Xiaoma Zhixing's financing amount reached $299 million. If the "green shoe mechanism" is implemented, that is, if the underwriters of Xiaoma Zhixing exercise their over allotment rights, the issuance scale will be expanded to 23 million shares, and the total fundraising scale of Xiaoma Zhixing's IPO will ultimately be up to about 452 million US dollars (3.29 billion yuan).
This is the largest autonomous driving IPO in the US stock market so far this year.
Prior to its official listing, Xiaoma Zhixing had raised a total of 7 rounds of financing, totaling $1.3 billion, with investors including Sequoia China, IDG Capital, Wuyuan Capital, Toyota Motor, FAW Group, and others.
As the second company to sprint for an IPO in the US stock market this year, Xiaoma Zhixing's IPO journey has been relatively rapid.
In April, Xiaoma Zhixing received a notice of overseas issuance and listing filing from the International Cooperation Department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission; In October, the IPO prospectus was submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it was officially listed at the end of November. And Wenyuan Zhixing, which went public a month ago, took nearly a year.
After listing on the US stock market on November 27th, Xiaoma Zhixing opened up 12%, but on its first day of issuance, the closing price was $12.00/ADS, falling below the issue price and dropping more than 7%. As of press time, the total market value of Xiaoma Zhixing is 4.2 billion US dollars. To make a comparison, the current market value of Wenyuan Zhixing is 4.7 billion US dollars.
Net loss narrowed in the first half of the year
At present, Xiaoma Zhixing's main businesses are three, namely Robotaxi (autonomous taxi), Robotruck (autonomous freight), and technology authorization and application services.
Among the three businesses, Robotaxi has the earliest layout, which was launched by Xiaoma Zhixing at the end of 2018. In this business, Xiaoma Zhixing can provide autonomous driving solutions to OEMs or multinational companies to generate revenue, and can also provide Robotaxi services to users and charge fees through self operated (or third-party platform) platforms. At present, the Xiaoma Zhixing Robotaxi fleet has more than 250 vehicles and has started commercial charging for fully autonomous driving services in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.
Robotruck business is a service officially launched by Xiaoma Zhixing in March 2021. In this business, Xiaoma Zhixing mainly implements through the form of ecology, that is, building an ecosystem with the host factory and logistics platform. Xiaoma Zhixing provides autonomous driving technology for the host factory upwards and deploys vehicles for different logistics platforms downwards. Currently, Xiaoma Zhixing has obtained autonomous driving road test licenses in Beijing and Guangzhou, and operates a fleet of over 190 autonomous driving trucks.
The third type of business revolves around intelligent driving of passenger cars. Internally known as POV business, this business began with Xiaoma Zhixing's investment in the front-end mass production field in 2020. It mainly provides high-performance and cost-effective intelligent driving software and hardware solutions for OEMs, including Xiaoma Zhitu intelligent driving software solution, domain controller "Fangzai", and data toolchain "Cangqiong".
These three businesses have all been commercialized, but Xiaoma Zhixing is still in a loss making state.
According to the prospectus, the revenue of Xiaoma Zhixing from 2022 to 2023 and the first half of 2024 were 68.386 million US dollars, 71.899 million US dollars, and 24.72 million US dollars, respectively; The net losses were $148 million, $125 million, and $51.775 million, respectively.
In the past two and a half years, the company has accumulated a revenue of 165 million US dollars, but a cumulative net loss of 324 million US dollars (approximately 2.35 billion yuan) during the same period.
From 2022 to the first half of 2024, Xiaoma Zhixing's losses have been narrowing year by year, with a significant year-on-year decrease of 25.6% in net losses in the first half of this year.
The track is not yet waiting for the 'profitable spring'
In the overall cost, research and development investment is the main expenditure cost. From 2022 to the first nine months of this year, their R&D investments were $154 million, $123 million, and $92.34 million, respectively. Other sales, general, and administrative expenses were $49.18 million, $37.42 million, and $24.03 million, respectively, during the same period.
Whether it is the overall cost or the cost expenditures of each part, Xiaoma Zhixing is strictly controlling costs while expanding its business.
Although efforts have been made to narrow losses, the gross profit margin of Xiaoma Zhixing in the past three years has not been satisfactory. From 2022 to the first half of 2024, the gross profit margins were 46.9%, 23.5%, and 10.5%, respectively, a decline of over 80%.
The decline in gross profit margin is related to the transformation of the business structure of Xiaoma Zhixing. In the past three years, Xiaoma Zhixing's main source of income has shifted from its unmanned taxi business to its unmanned truck business.
Among them, the proportion of technology licensing business revenue with high gross profit decreased from 54.2% in 2022 to 22.3% in the first half of 2024, while Robotruck business increased from 32.7% to 73.0%, becoming the absolute focus of revenue.
Xiaoma Zhixing explained that the growth of unmanned truck business is mainly due to the increase in transportation service fees charged by Cyantron Logistics.
Qinghuo Logistics is a physical company established by Xiaoma Zhixing and China's largest freight logistics company, Sinotrans Co., Ltd., in 2022, mainly engaged in the commercial landing of autonomous driving trucks. In the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period in 2023, Cyantron expanded its geographical coverage by adding 45 robot trucks for a total of 250 vehicles. At the same time, the mileage traveled by Cyantron's autonomous truck fleet increased from over 12 million kilometers in the first nine months of 2023 to over 17 million kilometers in the same period of 2024.
The increase in vehicles and operating mileage has led to an increase in transportation service fees, contributing the majority of revenue to Xiaoma Zhixing.
In the process of commercial operation, autonomous truck fleets provide hub to hub long-distance freight services across China, with a cumulative freight mileage of over 767 million kilometers. Xiaoma Zhixing also collaborates with truck manufacturer SANY to jointly develop L4 unmanned trucks.
The current situation of Xiaoma Zhixing is a microcosm of most autonomous driving companies.
Before large-scale commercialization, lack of money remains the norm in the current autonomous driving industry. According to incomplete statistics from 21st Century Business Herald, since 2024, a total of 14 Chinese autonomous driving related companies have been listed on major exchanges or are advancing the listing process. Among them, 7 have been successfully listed, and most of the 7 listed companies are in a loss making state.
This year is also considered a turning point for the autonomous driving industry, as the actual progress has given the industry hope for commercialization. But in order to expand its scale and improve losses, the autonomous driving business also faces many uncertainties.
There are three domestic autonomous driving companies that have submitted for listing on the US stock market this year - Momenta, Wenyuan Zhixing, and Xiaoma Zhixing. Except for Momenta, both of these companies have achieved US stock listings. And these US listed companies will face data regulation issues between China and the United States. Previously, after going public, Tucson split its business between China and the United States due to data security and other reasons.
At present, while Wenyuan Zhixing and Xiaoma Zhixing have successfully gone public, the autonomous driving industry has also undergone a new round of "liquidation". The autonomous driving truck company Qiantuo Technology has gone bankrupt and liquidated due to financing difficulties, and the autonomous driving passenger car companies such as Wumo Zhixing and Zongmu Technology have also been exposed for suspending salary payments or laying off employees to save themselves due to financial problems.
The autonomous driving industry has entered a period of elimination and reshuffling.