Hesai Group, the global LiDAR technology leader, today announced its unaudited financial results for the three months and full year ended December 31, 2022. And Hesai has achieved record-high revenue in 2022, surpassing 8 publicly listed peers combined.
Hesai Group (Chinese: 禾赛科技, hereinafter referred to as Hesai), (NASDAQ: HSAI), the global leader in three-dimensional light detection and ranging (LiDAR) solutions, today announced its unaudited financial results for the three months and full year ended December 31, 2022.
* Q4 2022 Total LiDAR Shipments were 47,515 units representing an increase of 739.2% from 5,662 units in the corresponding period of 2021.
* Q4 2022 ADAS LiDAR Shipments were 43,351 units compared with 87 units in the corresponding period of 2021.
* Full Year 2022 Total LiDAR Shipments were 80,462 units representing an increase of 467.5% from 14,178 in 2021.
* Full Year 2022 ADAS LiDAR Shipments were 61,918 units.
Yifan (David) Li, Hesai's Co-Founder and CEO, stated, “We are pleased to announce a stellar set of figures in our first earnings report as a public company. In the fourth quarter of 2022 we reached 100,000 cumulative LiDAR units delivered and recorded 66.9% year-over-year revenue growth for 2022. We also more than doubled our quarterly LiDAR shipment volume sequentially to 47,515 in the fourth quarter.
In July 2022 we started volume shipment of our first ADAS LiDAR, the AT128, and shipped over 60,000 AT128s in the last six months of 2022 to Li Auto and other OEMs. In 2022 we won 10 ADAS OEM LiDAR nominations, including the largest EV maker in China, and separately the largest Chinese auto OEM. Our strong momentum continued in January 2023 when we added our 11th ADAS win signing Seres, a leading Chinese EV OEM. These OEM wins represent significant future potential orders for our LiDAR solutions.”
Louis T. Hsieh, Hesai’s Global CFO, added, “2022 was a breakout year for Hesai as we established global market LiDAR leadership in both ADAS and Autonomous Mobility (robotaxi and industrial robotics markets). We shipped a record 47,515 LiDARs units in the fourth quarter and over 80,000 for full year 2022. Net revenues exceeded CNY 410 million (USD 59.3 million) for the fourth quarter and over CNY 12 billion (USD 174.4 million) for the year.
Our LiDAR deliveries and net revenues for 2022 were higher than the cumulative LiDAR deliveries and revenues of all eight of our US publicly listed peers combined in 2022. In addition, we achieved 39.2% gross margin for full year 2022, the highest among our industry peers. Our superior financial performance demonstrated our clear market leadership in the rapidly growing ADAS and Autonomous Mobility LiDAR markets and we are confident in our growth momentum.”
In the fourth quarter, Hesai’s new ADAS LiDAR product continued to win new customers, including the largest EV maker in China, the largest Chinese auto OEM, and Rox, an electric technology company. These were followed by a new deal with Didi's autonomous driving business. In January 2023, Hesai won another ADAS nomination, Seres, a leading EV OEM in China. Additionally, in February 2023, the Company secured a LiDAR design win for AT128 with Li Auto on its new battery electric vehicle platform.
For the first quarter of 2023, the Company expects Net revenues to be between RMB390 million (US$56.5 million) and RMB410 million (US$59.4 million), representing a year-over-year increase of approximately 57.0% to 65.0%. The above outlook is based on the current market conditions and reflects the Company’s preliminary estimates of market and operating conditions, and customer demand, which are all subject to change.
Strong capabilities in R&D of specialized LiDAR chips and manufacturing stands as one of the key competitive advantages Hesai Technology possesses. Thus, Hesai Group continuously increases its R&D expense to improve the performance of next-generation LiDAR products' performance. Research and development expenses were CNY 555.2 million (USD 80.5 million) for the full year of 2022, representing an increase of 50.7% from CNY 368.4 million (USD 53.4 million) for prior year. And the increase was mainly due to increased payroll expenses and increased material and testing expenses incurred for new products.
In recent developments, Hesai officially unveiled the FT120, on November 8, 2022, a fully solid-state blind spot LiDAR sensor with no moving parts inside, designed for ADAS series production vehicles. FT120 is expected to be volume-produced and delivered in the second half of 2023.
On February 13, 2023, Hesai closed its initial public offering (the “IPO”) of 10.0 million American Depositary Shares (“ADSs”), each representing one Class B ordinary share of the Company, at an offering price of US$19.0 per ADS, for a total offering size of US$190.0 million.
* All translations from RMB to USD for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2022 were made at the exchange rate of RMB6.8972 to US$1.00, the noon buying rate in effect on December 30, 2022 in the H.10 statistical release of the Federal Reserve Board. Hesai started volume shipments of ADAS LiDAR in July 2022.