Our reporter Sun Wenqing
On March 12th, Beijing time, NASDAQ listed LiDAR manufacturer Hesai Technology disclosed its unaudited financial reports for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023. Data shows that in 2023, the total delivery volume of Hesai Technology's LiDAR was 222100 units, a year-on-year increase of 176.1%. Among them, in the fourth quarter of last year, the delivery volume of the company's LiDAR in a single quarter exceeded the total delivery volume for the whole year of 2022. Based on this, in 2023, Hesai Technology achieved a revenue of 1.88 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 56.1%.
Lidar is currently mainly used in new energy vehicles, and in the past year, new energy vehicle companies have generally adopted price reductions to boost sales, thereby transmitting cost pressures to manufacturers such as Lidar, who are generally in a predicament of "losing more as they sell". As a manufacturer with a high market share in the global LiDAR market, although Hesai Technology has achieved positive cash flow in 2023, its net loss still increased by nearly 60% year-on-year to 476 million yuan.
As price competition among new energy vehicle companies intensifies, how will Hesai Technology continue to achieve positive cash flow? The person in charge of Hesai Technology stated in an interview with Securities Daily that the company will continue to achieve positive cash flow based on an effective strategy of creating a virtuous cycle of cost and scale. In addition, the company's management mentioned in the latest performance briefing that it is expected to achieve breakeven in the fourth quarter of 2024 and throughout 2025.
Products sell well but continue to suffer losses
Specifically, in the past year, Hesai Technology's ADAS business (advanced assisted driving) has maintained rapid growth, especially in the fourth quarter of 2023, the company delivered 87736 LiDARs, a year-on-year increase of over 80%, with a cumulative delivery volume exceeding 300000 units, becoming the first car LiDAR company in the industry to achieve this milestone. Thanks to this, the company generated a revenue of 560 million yuan in the fourth quarter of 2023, a year-on-year increase of 37.1%.
Looking at the entire year, Li Yifan, co-founder and CEO of Hesai Technology, commented, "2023 is a record breaking year for Hesai. The company achieved outstanding financial and operational performance throughout the year, including strong revenue growth, significantly increased shipment volume, and stable comprehensive gross profit margin, all of which exceeded previous expectations."
As of the end of 2023, Hesai Technology has obtained over 60 laser radar production targets from 16 host manufacturers and Tier-1 customers. According to industry research firm GAC Automotive Research Institute, in 2023, Hesai Technology ranked first in the industry with a market share of 37.3%.
Behind this, from 2023 to present, with the continuous decline in prices of several newly released popular new energy vehicle models equipped with LiDAR, according to Huatai Securities, the individual cost of LiDAR has dropped from tens of thousands of yuan to around 4000 yuan. In the next three to five years, driven by chipization, scaling, and automation, the price of LiDAR is expected to drop to below 2000 yuan.
At the same time, in order to compete for automotive customers and continuously iterate technology, LiDAR manufacturers have to pay more marketing and research and development costs. In 2023, the sales and marketing expenses of Hesai Technology amounted to 148.8 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 42.0%. The R&D expenses increased by 42.4% to 7905 million yuan, and the company's general and administrative expenses also continued to increase.
However, due to the unclear scale demand of LiDAR in other application markets, Hesai Technology's net loss for the whole year of 2023 reached 476 million yuan, an increase of 58.2% year-on-year, and the adjusted net loss reached 241 million yuan.
To sprint towards the goal of breaking even
It is worth mentioning that the rapid cost reduction of LiDAR also helps to increase its penetration rate. Huatai Securities believes that with the promotion of urban NOA (Navigation Assisted Driving) solutions and the rapid cost reduction of stacked LiDAR, the demand for LiDAR (especially forward looking long-range radar) is rapidly increasing.
According to Hesai Technology's expectation of achieving breakeven in the fourth quarter of 2024 and the full year of 2025, how the company will leverage its existing market share advantage to achieve rapid performance growth, thereby enhancing profitability and providing financial reserves for market expansion and technological progress will become the key to development.
Currently, it cannot be ignored that domestic LiDAR suppliers have emerged one after another around market demand, including LiDAR manufacturers such as Sagitar Juchuang and Tudatong, as well as traditional large factories such as DJI are also expanding their presence. Among them, Sagitar Juchuang has been listed as the "first stock of LiDAR on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange". According to its public sales data for 2023, the company's sales of in vehicle LiDAR used in the ADAS field exceeded 240000 units, a year-on-year increase of 55.41%, and the growth rate has significantly accelerated. Many new energy vehicle companies have also begun to consider using multi fusion sensing solutions including LiDAR, 4D millimeter wave radar, and cameras.
In the short term, Hesai Technology will still focus on continuously enhancing cooperation with automotive companies. According to Hesai Technology, the company has established a laser radar mass production cooperation with one of the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturers headquartered in China, covering multiple new car models, which will be launched gradually in 2024. In addition, in terms of international ADAS business, the company's cooperation negotiations have expanded to 9 host factories in North America, Europe, and Asia (outside of China).
"At the milestone of the comprehensive launch of NOA this year, Hesai and Sagitar Juchuang, which currently rank among the top in market share, are all striving for market share in the host factory market. This will be their biggest goal to meet sustained growth demand, while other manufacturers can only rely on targeted breakthroughs." The deputy general manager of a technology manufacturer in Beijing told Securities Daily, "Hesai Technology is currently the closest car mounted LiDAR manufacturer to profitability. Other companies that do not have competitive advantages in cost and technology can only seek market opportunities based on new technology routes."