When discussing the hottest sectors in global capital markets this year, the technology sector would undoubtedly be among the frontrunners. Take the tech-heavy NASDAQ index as an example - driven by the artificial intelligence boom and expectations of Federal Reserve rate cuts, the NASDAQ has repeatedly hit new all-time highs this year. Against the backdrop of technology stocks being highly sought after, the Hong Kong stock market is set to welcome another technology company with hardcore capabilities. On September 16, Hesai Group (02525, HSAI.US), the first global LiDAR company to return to Hong Kong for listing, officially commenced trading on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
As a global leader in LiDAR technology, HESAI-W's dominant position and scarcity have gained high recognition from top-tier international institutions and investors worldwide. The company's subscription was extremely popular, with the public offering portion being oversubscribed by 170 times, involving HK$66.9 billion in funds. Margin financing reached approximately HK$46.8 billion, representing nearly 120 times oversubscription based on the HK$388 million raised in the public offering portion. Meanwhile, Hesai Group attracted six cornerstone investors including Hillhouse Capital, WT Asset Management, and Taikang Life Insurance, comprehensively gathering international long-term capital and industrial investment forces. On its listing debut, the stock traded as high as HK$244.0 per share intraday, with a market capitalization exceeding HK$36 billion.
The enthusiastic participation of various capital sources in HESAI-W's Hong Kong return is fundamentally driven by the company's solid fundamentals and strong growth expectations. Based on the company's historical financial reports, Hesai Group not only holds a leading position in terms of scale but has also been the first to achieve profitability. More remarkably, beyond its traditional strength in automotive LiDAR, the company's forward-looking positioning in robotics LiDAR has begun entering an intensive harvest period, with the second growth curve showing initial potential and expected to continue contributing significant performance increments.
**New Journey of the Global LiDAR Leader**
Hesai Group was founded in 2014 and went public on NASDAQ in February 2023, bearing the halo of "China's first LiDAR stock." More than two years later, the company returning to Hong Kong can be described as more "comprehensive."
In terms of financial performance, Hesai Group achieved revenue of RMB 710 million in the second quarter of this year, representing a 53.9% year-over-year increase. This marks the company's fifth consecutive quarter of positive revenue growth. While maintaining consecutive high growth in scale, the company's profitability performance has significantly exceeded expectations, with Q2 net profit reaching RMB 44.1 million, a substantial improvement from the negative RMB 72.1 million in the same period last year.
Extending the timeline, Hesai Group's stellar performance was actually foreshadowed earlier. In 2024, the company achieved revenue of RMB 2.08 billion and became the world's first and only publicly listed LiDAR company to achieve full-year profitability. In the same year, the company's operating cash flow and net cash flow reached RMB 63 million and RMB 1.3 billion respectively, demonstrating visible self-sustaining capabilities.
Behind the impressive financial data is Hesai Group's rapidly expanding market influence in the LiDAR sector. In Q2 2025, total LiDAR deliveries surged 306.9% year-over-year to 352,100 units, with ADAS LiDAR deliveries reaching 303,600 units, up 275.8% year-over-year, and robotics LiDAR deliveries totaling 48,500 units, with an impressive growth rate of 743.6%. For the entire first half, total LiDAR deliveries reached 547,900 units, already surpassing the full-year 2024 volume.
From a global perspective, according to the "2025 Global Automotive LiDAR Market Report," Hesai Group held approximately 33% market share in the global automotive LiDAR market in 2024, ranking first globally. Notably, this marks the fourth consecutive year that the company has topped the rankings.
HESAI-W's competitive advantage is even more pronounced in the L4 autonomous driving LiDAR market. Based on revenue generated from related products in 2024, the company holds a commanding 61% global market share, maintaining its leading position in this segment for four consecutive years.
While amplifying its core business competitive advantages, Hesai Group has strategically invested in the robotics LiDAR sector with forward-looking vision, achieving remarkable phased results. Based on publicly available information, the company's cumulative robotics LiDAR sales volume ranks first globally, with over 2,000 customers spanning multiple countries worldwide.
The company's ability to "lead" the robotics LiDAR track is closely related to its strong product cycle. Taking the JT series for lawn mowing robots launched earlier this year as an example, cumulative deliveries exceeded 100,000 units by the end of June, making it the fastest LiDAR product in the global robotics sector to achieve this key milestone.
With Hesai Group's successful Hong Kong listing, the fundraising has injected new capital momentum into the company. Combined with Hong Kong's advantages as an important international financial center and its unique bridge role connecting mainland and overseas markets, the enhanced growth prospects for the company are expected to become increasingly optimistic.
**Convergence of Multiple Growth Drivers with Broad Development Prospects**
From the new starting point of dual listing in Hong Kong and the US, Hesai Group's global expansion is expected to continue deepening. Currently, among the world's top 10 highest-revenue international automakers on the Fortune Global 500 list, seven automakers or their joint venture partners have established mass production partnerships with the company. Additionally, eight of the world's top ten Robotaxi companies have chosen Hesai Group as their LiDAR supplier.
Based on industry development trends, the company's global influence is expected to expand further. In the automotive sector, benefiting from the democratization of smart driving becoming increasingly prevalent on the demand side, user demand for intelligent driving capabilities continues to drive penetration rate growth. Simultaneously, on the supply side, price reductions are making LiDAR an increasingly cost-effective choice for smart driving sensors. Driven by both supply and demand factors, automotive LiDAR will maintain high-speed growth trends. According to calculations by analysts, the global automotive LiDAR market is expected to reach RMB 50 billion by 2030.
Within this context, HESAI-W, as the industry leader, continues to iterate and innovate in performance breakthroughs and cost reduction, having developed a comprehensive high-performance LiDAR product matrix. For example, ETX is the world's highest line-count, longest-range automotive-grade ultra-long-distance LiDAR specifically designed for L3 and L4 autonomous driving. The company's FTX product offers the world's widest field of view among solid-state automotive-grade blind-spot LiDAR systems. In the L2 assisted driving segment, the ATX product has become the "standard configuration king" for popular vehicle models with its outstanding performance in high capability, compact size, and all-weather reliability.
With first-mover advantages, technological superiority, and a comprehensive product matrix, Hesai Group is well-positioned to maintain its "leading" position in the rapidly expanding automotive LiDAR industry.
The company's growth prospects in the imaginative robotics LiDAR sector are equally significant. Currently, industrial scenarios, consumer service applications, and humanoid robots are experiencing substantial shipment growth. For consumer robots, industrial robots, and evolving humanoid robots, vision systems represent the core component of perception capabilities. According to analyst calculations, the robotics LiDAR market is expected to surge to tens of billions of RMB by 2030.
Facing the approaching robot era, Hesai Group has entered the field with a pioneering attitude. In lawn mowing robots, the company will provide 300,000 JT series LiDAR units to Keting Technology over the next year. In quadruped and humanoid robots, the company reached deep cooperation agreements with Vbot Dynamics, China's first consumer-grade embodied intelligence company, and Star Era, a Tsinghua-affiliated embodied intelligence startup, last month. In mobile and commercial robots, the company has established deep partnerships with multiple industry leaders. For instance, company products have been deployed at scale in Neolix autonomous vehicles, supporting deployments in over 30 cities globally and 9 overseas countries, with nearly 1,000 units delivered and over 1.3 million kilometers of safe driving.
**Conclusion**
At the current juncture, whether in US markets or Chinese capital markets, investment enthusiasm for "hard technology" has reached unprecedented heights. Fundamentally, this is because the global macroeconomic and industrial landscape is undergoing profound transformation. Hard technology is not only viewed as the core engine driving future economic growth but also key to achieving technological strategic autonomy for nations.
Against this backdrop, Hesai Group, whose traditional core business growth potential remains far from fully realized, is simultaneously leveraging robotics LiDAR to construct a strong second growth curve. It's no wonder that the company's Hong Kong listing return has attracted high attention from various capital sources.
Looking ahead, as the company's multiple growth drivers gradually materialize, the stock price performance of HESAI-W in Hong Kong is highly anticipated to be optimistic.