AI developer SenseTime’s HK IPO starts on Dec. 7th

Beijing (Gasgoo)- China’s AI developer SenseTime is expecting its public offering on December 7th on the Hong Kong Exchange, with a maximum of HKD6 billion to be raised.

Photo credit: SenseTime

According to the public announcement, the listing consists of 1.5 billion shares, with 90% international placement and 10% public offering within Hong Kong. The issue price ranges from HKD3.85 to HKD3.99 per share. The subscription ends on December 10th, with its listing scheduled for December 17th.

The company’s prospectus showed that during the years of 2018, 2019, 2020, SenseTime reported annual revenue of RMB1.853 billion, RMB3.026 billion, and RMB3.446 billion, respectively.

For the first half of 2021, the company managed a RMB1.652 billion revenue. The company’s four business sectors, namely smart business, smart city, smart life, and SenseAuto, accounted for a respective 39.2%, 47.6%, 8.9%, and 4.3% of its total revenue during the period.

Photo credit: SenseTime

The revenue generated by the company’s smart business sector saw a 41% year-on-year increase in 2019 and a 23% increase in 2020. Its other mainstay business, the smart city sector, witnessed an outstanding 139% year-on-year growth in 2019, which narrowed to only 7% in 2020.

Moreover, the prospectus showed that SenseTime managed to mention the most popular concept, the “Metaverse”, 47 times and claimed that its SenseMARS had become one of the largest Metaverse enabled platforms in Asia.

However, the SenseMARS platform is affiliated with the company’s smart life segment, which only contributed 8.9% of SenseTime’s entire revenue in the first two quarters of 2021, with a decreasing growth year on year.

Moreover, the company has also mentioned that due to the relatively “freshness” of the AI industry, the company will require massive investments in the future, with no guarantee of sustaining its profit. 

The company's net losses amounted to RMB3.433 billion in 2018, RMB4.968 billion in 2019, RMB12.258 billion in 2020, and finally RMB 3.713 billion in the first half of 2021.