Hesai Releases 2023 Q1 Financial Results

Hesai Technology (Nasdaq: HSAI), a global leader in lidar solutions, announced its unaudited financial data for the first quarter of 2023, reaching record-high quarterly revenue of $62.6 million, a year-over-year increase of 73.0%. The total lidar shipments during this period were 34,834 units, a year-over-year increase of 402.9%. ADAS lidar shipments were 28,195 units, achieving exponential year-over-year growth. Hesai also reached a gross margin of 37.8% in Q1 2023, a quarter-over-quarter increase of 7.8%. More importantly, Hesai achieved positive Non-GAAP net income and operating cash flow. As of the end of Q1, the company's cash reserves reached $457.2 million, laying a solid foundation for stable development.

Winning New Contracts, Leading the Global Lidar Market

According to the financial results, Hesai's net revenue in the first quarter was $62.6 million, with 34,834 lidar units delivered, achieving rapid growth for six consecutive years since 2017. In the first quarter, Hesai's net revenue and total lidar shipments surpassed 6 publicly listed peers combined once again, that includes Luminar, Ouster, Innoviz, Aeva, Cepton, and AEye. Since inception, Hesai has delivered 135,000 lidars, firmly leading the global lidar market.

This quarter, Hesai has signed the largest Robotaxi lidar contract in history. According to an independent third-party report, Hesai is the primary lidar provider with nearly 60% of L4 global market share. This quarter, Hesai has won new ADAS contracts, including new models from Li Auto's pure battery electric vehicle (BEV) platform, new models from Jidu, and various models from SERES. As of today, Hesai is collaborating with 11 leading OEMs in the industry on multi-year ADAS contracts, including China's largest new energy vehicle manufacturer and leading auto companies. Among them, 6 OEMs will start mass production and delivery before the end of 2023.

Yifan (David) Li, Co-Founder, and CEO of Hesai, said: "We are pleased to deliver the strongest quarterly financial performance in our history, with record net revenues along with non-GAAP profitability and positive operating cash flow. This quarter, we not only released our groundbreaking, ultra-thin in-cabin lidar ET25, but also entered into new partnerships, broadened existing relationships with OEM customers on multi-year ADAS contracts and signed our largest Robotaxi lidar contract in the company’s history. 2023 will be a transformational year as we see increased interest from and collaboration with leading North American and European OEMs. We will continue leveraging our strong in-house manufacturing capabilities and proprietary ASIC platform to build high-quality, affordable lidars that bring a higher level of safety to the future of intelligent driving systems."

Profitable Growth Lays Solid Foundation for Long-term Development

In this quarter, Hesai turned profitable with Non-GAAP net income and positive operating cash flow, becoming the first profitable lidar company after its IPO. At the same time, the gross profit margin in the first quarter was 37.8%, an increase of 7.8% compared to the fourth quarter of last year. As of March 31, 2023, Hesai has a cash reserve of $457.2 million, providing strong support for Hesai's products and R&D, increasing Hesai's competitiveness in the global market.

Louis T. Hsieh, Hesai’s Global CFO, said, “Our quarterly performance demonstrates our continued rapid growth trajectory, with net revenues of $62.6 million, an increase of 73.0% year-over-year and an increase of 5.1% quarter-over-quarter, a new record high. Our industry-leading gross margin also grew to 37.8%, up 780 basis points quarter-over-quarter. With our unrelenting efforts to improve revenue scalability and cost efficiency, we turned profitable this quarter by recording non-GAAP net income and positive operating cash flow. Lidar deliveries for the quarter soared by five times year-over-year to over 34,800 units, bringing our cumulative shipments to over 135,000 units. Also, we continue to outpace the competition, easily delivering higher quarterly revenues and lidar shipments than our six other US-listed lidar peers combined. We anticipate accelerating demand for our Autonomous Mobility and ADAS products tracking approximately 40% higher quarter-over-quarter in unit volume for the second quarter of 2023, which would be a record-high quarterly lidar volume for Hesai. This strong order momentum firmly demonstrates our global leadership position in the ADAS and Autonomous Mobility lidar markets."

Continuous Product Iterations that Leads the Industry's Technological Transformation

Hesai released its breakthrough in-cabin lidar at the Shanghai Auto Show - ET25. This product is specially designed to be installed behind the windshield. It is only 25 mm tall with only 12 W of power consumption, and a noise level of less than 25 dB. Its has extended ranging capability and ultra-high resolution. The lidar is aesthetically pleasing while not affecting vehicle aeoradynamics. Furthermore, Hesai has collaborated with global automotive glass leader Fuyao Group to create a specially designed windshield that improves infrared laser transmittance up to three times. This solution addresses the challenge of signal attenuation in windshields, ensuring excellent lidar performance, and enabling the mass production of such in-cabin design.

Accelerating Global Business Expansion

With excellent product strength and mass production capacity, Hesai's global markets has gained strong momentum. With its global business expansion, Hesai products have won the trust of many North American and European OEMs, presenting an opportunity for explosive growth in the global market. Moreover, Hesai has recently opened office in Europe's "car capital", Stuttgart, Germany. With this strategic move, Hesai aims to further tap into the European markets, accelerating its business growth and reinforcing its position as a key player in the global lidar industry.

In the future, Hesai will continue to improve its R&D and technological innovation capabilities, providing global users with more diversified products and better services, and continuing to empower the global ADAS and Automous Mobility lidar market.