The US$531 million haul will help build plants at home and abroad, company says, in line with stated plans to quadruple production this year Hesai Group, the world's largest maker of automotive lidar sensors, plans to double down on production capacity amid a bullish global outlook for intelligent cars after raising HK$4.2 billion (US$531 million) in a Hong Kong share offering.
Chief financial officer Andrew Fan said after the Shanghai-based company's trading debut on Tuesday that the quality and affordability of Hesai's light detection and ranging sensors - which employ laser beams to measure distances to objects - would effectively extend its reach to all carmakers amid rapid development of autonomous vehicles.
"Our lidar sensors, priced at about US$200 a unit, are no longer expensive for automotive companies as they assemble cars across all price ranges," he said. "Most of the [listing] proceeds will be used to enhance our products' competitiveness and build our new facilities in China and abroad."
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The CFO made the remarks after Hesai's H shares jumped 10 per cent to HK$234 on the first day of trading, representing a premium of 1 per cent to the closing price of US$29.80 on the Nasdaq on Monday.
Hesai floated 19.55 million shares, including 2.55 million shares through the full exercise of the offer size adjustment option, at HK$212.80 apiece from its dual listing in Hong Kong. The fundraising is the largest homecoming listing by a US-traded Chinese company in four years.
"Hesai's bullishness about demand for its products reflects the trend of the global automotive industry, where key players are striving to build smarter cars to save labour costs in the future," said Zhou Ling, a hedge fund manager with Shanghai Shiva Investment. "Top makers of car components that are instrumental in driving the transition of the industry into electrification and automation will emerge to be winners in terms of earnings and growth pace."
In April, Hesai CEO David Li Yifan said that the company would increase its manufacturing capacity fourfold this year to 2 million units from about 502,000 units a year earlier.
It will supply short-range lidar sensors to Motional's electric robotaxi based on Hyundai's Ioniq 5, Hesai said on September 4. On Monday, the lidar sensor maker said it received orders worth US$40 million from an unidentified robotaxi firm in the US.
In March, Hesai said its products would be used in the next-generation cars of a "leading European" assembler over the next decade, which Reuters reported was Mercedes-Benz. It was the first time that a major European carmaker had picked a Chinese lidar supplier.
Hesai signed a land lease for a factory in Southeast Asia early this year, with construction set to start later this year and production in late 2026.
Amid US-China trade tensions, Fan said Hesai's overseas expansion "will, to some extent, help ease some of the external pressures we are facing".
Two out of three new cars, or 15 million units, sold on the mainland this year would have level 2 or higher autonomous-driving -capability, according to Zhang Yongwei, general secretary of China EV100, a non-governmental organisation that counts most of the nation's top EV executives as members.
On Monday, Voyah, an electric-car unit of state-owned carmaker Dongfeng Motor, launched its updated Dream multipurpose vehicle (MPV), featuring Huawei Technologies' advanced Qiankun ADS self-driving system. The car starts at 359,900 yuan (US$50,584).
"China's high-end EV brands have redefined premium vehicles with the fast development of electric-vehicle and intelligent technologies," Voyah CEO Lu Fang said at a press conference in Shanghai. "Technological innovations have to be conducted to meet consumer needs in more scenarios."
The company said on Tuesday that it had already garnered more than 10,000 orders for the MPV within the first 18 hours of its presale period.
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