As the lidar, which was once "despised" by Musk, took to the road intensively in the past two years, the industrialization process has accelerated.

Zhixun Finance APP noticed that Yole Intelligence, a market research institution under Yole Group, recently released the "2024 Global Car Lidar Market Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). The "Report" shows that in 2023, the global car lidar market reached a scale of $538 million, a surge of 79% year-on-year. Among them, the performance of passenger car lidar (ADAS) market is particularly outstanding, with a growth rate of up to 145% from 2022 to 2023.

The surge in the scale of passenger car lidar market is closely related to the increasing number of domestic and foreign car companies joining the lidar craze. According to Yole Intelligence statistics, the installation volume of passenger car lidar in 2023 was 762,000 units, more than three times that of 2022.

In this competition for car companies' lidars, Hesai (HSAI.US) as the global leader in car lidars, is leading the way in many key indicators in the industry. The "Report" shows that Hesai took four global firsts in the car lidar market, including the first global market share of car lidar, the first global market share and installation volume of ADAS, and the first global market share of autonomous driving lidar. At the same time, Hesai has also become the only Chinese company to win the "multiple global firsts" for three consecutive years in this field.

According to the "Report", driven by the strong demand of ADAS and L4 autonomous driving markets, Hesai continues to rank first in the global car lidar total revenue ranking with a market share as high as 37%.

Looking further into the passenger car lidar market, with multiple innovative production-oriented projects and years of deep accumulation of profound technological advantages, Hesai achieved the first place in both market share and installation volume in 2023. Data show that in 2023, Hesai's market share in this segment reached 26%, steadily rising from 23% in the same period of the previous year, indicating that Hesai's products are increasingly favored and trusted by OEM customers.

In Hesai's traditional advantage area, the L4 autonomous driving lidar market, Hesai still dominates with a market share of 74%. It is understood that at present, Hesai maintains a close cooperative relationship with almost all the head players in the global autonomous driving field. Nine out of the 10 L4 autonomous driving companies in the world use Hesai's lidars, making its market advantage very prominent.

Taking a comprehensive view of the "Report", Hesai, with multiple championship honors, is undoubtedly the most noteworthy company in the car lidar market. At the same time, looking at the industry prospect and Hesai's own situation, the commercial potential of Hesai may not have been fully released at this stage, and the company's growth prospects are also worth market optimism.

First of all, in terms of the industry, in May of this year, sales of new energy vehicles priced above RMB 150,000 reached about 509,000 units, with a penetration rate of lidar of 20.5%, already achieving the "leap" ahead of time. With the rapid increase of the penetration rate, lidar is expected to usher in greater development opportunities.

Looking back at the company itself, in the global front-loading production market, Hesai has obtained nearly 70 fixed-point models from 18 OEMs, including a global mass-produced model of an international top automotive brand, which provides important support for the company's subsequent performance release. From a financial point of view, different from most of its peers who are "burning money" for market exchange, Hesai is the only lidar enterprise with positive operating cash flow in 2023, and the company is expected to achieve profitability in the fourth quarter of this year. The steady "positive blood-making ability" also means that the company is expected to take the lead in breaking through in the fierce lidar market and achieve high-quality development in the true sense.