Asia’s largest AI company handed out a better-than-expected report card for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021
SenseTime Group Limited (0020:HK) (Chinese: 商汤科技) recorded a revenue of CNY 4.7 billion (USD 737.5 million) and a net loss of CNY 17.177 billion in its first financial report released after listing.
According to the financial report filed on March 25, SenseTime reported a gross profit of CNY 3.278 billion in 2021, up 34.8% year on year. The gross profit margin in 2021 is 69.7%.
The company also reported an adjusted operating loss of CNY 1.418 billion last year, registering a year-on-year decrease of 30.2%.
In terms of research and development, SenseTime documented CNY 8 billion or more over the past four years. In 2021 alone, it added 1,500 employees to bring the total of R&D personnel to 4,200, and its R&D expenditure totaled CNY 3.06 billion, accounting for 65.1% of the revenue after deducting share-based salary expenses.
"2021 is the most important year for our development since the establishment, with accelerated business growth and major breakthroughs in R&D,” said Li Xu, co-founder and CEO of SenseTime.
The four vertical business segments all witnessed a huge leap in 2021. The Smart City sector booked a revenue of CNY 2.14 billion, up 56.5% year on year; and the revenue for Smart Business sector was CNY 1.96 billion, up 31.8%. The AI software company also logged a revenue of CNY 420 million and CNY 180 million for Smart Life and Smart Auto sectors, respectively.
The company will further open its capabilities of SenseCore, its AI infrastructure, to the market in 2022, with the aim to provide AI-as-a-service intelligent computing services and accelerate the digital transformation of the whole industry.
“We will continue to promote the inclusive development of artificial intelligence, empower more industries, and benefit the whole society,” Xu added.
SenseTime, along with Cloudwalk, Yitu and Megvii, is collectively called China's four “AI dragons.” As of press time, its stock price closed at HKD 6.18 per share with a market cap of HKD 207.08 billion.