Hesai Gr (NASDAQ:HSAI) reported first-quarter financial results on Tuesday. The transcript from the company’s first-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Access the full call at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/v322eo5z/
Summary
Hesai Gr announced a strategic partnership with Mercedes Benz for Level 3 autonomy, marking a significant milestone in their LiDAR technology leadership.
The company unveiled its new AI algorithm integrated spatial intelligence device, Cosmo, which aims to expand beyond LiDAR into physical AI, with early customer traction and potential for high margins.
Financially, Hesai Gr reported a 30% year-over-year revenue increase to RMB681 million in Q1 2026, with a strong outlook for the rest of the year, projecting further revenue growth and sustained profitability.
Full Transcript
Operator
Hello ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Hesai Group first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. Please note that today’s conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to our first speaker today, Guanting Shi, the company’s Head of Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Guanting Shi (Head of Capital Markets)
Thank you Operator hello everyone. Thank you for joining Hesai Group’s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Our earnings release is now available on our IR website at investor.hesaitech.com as well as via Newswire services. Today you will hear from our CEO Dr. David Lee who will provide an overview of our recent Updates. Next, our CFO, Mr. Andrew Pham will address our financial results before we open the call for questions. Before we continue, I refer you to the Safe harbor statement in our earnings press release which applies to this call as we will make forward looking statements. Please also note that the company will discuss non GAAP measures today which are more thoroughly explained and reconciled to the most comparable measures reported under GAAP in our earnings release and SEC filings. With that, I’m pleased to turn over the call to our CEO, Dr. David Lee. David, please go ahead.
David Lee
Thank you Yuenting and thank you everyone. Today we are incredibly honored and excited to announce that Hesai serves as strategic LIDAR partner and confirmed supplier for Mercedes Benz models enabling level three autonomy. We see this as a major milestone, not only a strong validation of our technology leadership, but also a clear signal that LiDAR is moving to core infrastructure in the global evolution of intelligent driving. More importantly, I am thrilled to announce that HESAI has officially entered a new era of growth and possibility. 2026 marks a transformative chapter for us as we initiate a strategic paradigm shift evolving from spatial perception to spatial intelligence. Beyond our LiDAR business, we are actively forging the eyes and muscles of physical AI. This evolution underscores what has always been at the core of Hesai’s DNA a deep tech enterprise that leverages hardcore technological innovation and and sustained R and D intensity to deliver the world’s most cutting edge products, ultimately unlocking profound long term industry value. At our recent 2026 Tech Open Day, we unveiled several breakthrough innovations that we believe will redefine the industry landscape. I will come back to these in more details later in my remarks. Before turning to the broader opportunities in physical AI, let me first walk through our LiDAR business highlights for the quarter. Last year we delivered a record 1.6 million LiDAR units. This year we expect our total shipments to approximately double, reaching between 3 to 3.5 million units. We are confident that this level of scale firmly reinforces our leadership position in the global LiDAR industry. The trend we highlighted before is only accelerating. LiDAR is fast becoming the invisible airbag deployed across vehicles at scale. This was clearly demonstrated at a recent Beijing auto show where Hesai LIDAR was featured in 56 vehicle models across 24 leading automotive brands, ranking number one in LiDAR presence across exhibited models at the show. Our LiDARs were deployed across the automotive ecosystem from leading brands such as Audi, Cadillac, Lotus, Li Auto, Xiaomi, byd, Leap Motor, Geely, Greatwell Motor, Chang’an An, Chery to autonomous driving leaders like Pony AI and We Ride. This broad adoption reflects our deep ecosystem penetration and the growing strength of the HESAI Insight effect. According to Yole Group, we ranked number one globally in long range ADAS LiDAR shipments with a 43% market share in 2025. Our leadership only strengthened in March 2026 when our China market share surged to 55% according to Ganji, roughly triple that of the second ranked player, marking our 14th consecutive month in the number one position. This momentum was fueled by our industry leading product portfolio with our flagship ATX continuing to scale across major platforms. In April 2026 we began SOP for the revamped version of ATX OEM. Demand remained exceptionally strong with backlog now exceeding 6 million units as level 2 scales. Level 3 is emerging as the next major growth driver for the LiDAR industry. As responsibility shifts from the driver to the automaker, vehicle safety requirements are rising rapidly, thriving architectures from typically one LiDAR per vehicle last year representing roughly US$200 of LiDAR content per car to three to six LiDARs in level three platform platforms, increasing content to about US$350 in entry level multi LiDAR setups and 500 to US$1,000 in more advanced configurations. We are well positioned for this transition with multi LiDAR design wins secured across leading OEMs such as Li Auto, Xiaomi and Chang’an. An. Notably, Li Auto officially commenced deliveries of its multi LiDAR model on May 15, 2026 marking the deployment of our FTX blind spot. LiDAR Level 3 is not just about more sensors. It fundamentally elevates the role of LIDAR from a passive backup to an active decision enabler in safety critical driving scenarios. To lead this shift we introduced Picasso, the world’s first 6D full color ultra sensitive SPAD SoC. It fuses RGB color and precise 3D geometry at the true chip level generating real time colorized point clouds. In plain terms, it enables systems to see and understand the world more like humans do and directly addresses the long standing LiDAR versus camera debate. For the first time, we are delivering a unified perception stack in a single chip, bringing both worlds together and taking a real leap in how machines perceive and understand the physical world. For example, through native pixel level fusion of color and depth. Picasso equipped lidars help address challenging real world edge cases across intelligent systems, not only in autonomous driving but also in robotics and industrial applications such as distinguishing overlapping traffic lights at adjacent intersections or differentiating a yellow signal from sunlight. Scenarios where vision based systems can struggle. Powered by the Picaso platform, our flagship ETX LiDAR now supports up to 4320 channels and delivers a maximum 600 meter range enabling ultra high resolution full color 3D imaging with enhanced small object detection, ETX pushes safety margins to unprecedented heights. Commercial momentum is already building for this industry. First technology, we secured an exclusive design win with Cargobot for its phase two transport robots, deploying our 4320 channel ETX together with FTX blind spot lidars. This marks the first commercial vehicle contract for our 6D full color lidar. ETX is expected to enter mass production in the second half of 2026 across multiple flagship programs, with additional engagements actively progressing among both ADAS and robotics clients. Looking ahead, we see LiDAR expanding far beyond today’s boundaries, with many camera dominated applications naturally shifting toward lidar over time, positioning us for the next wave of physical AI. On the global side, we are incredibly honored and excited to announce that huisai serves as strategic LIDAR partner and confirmed supplier for Mercedes Benz models, enabling Level 3 autonomy. The new supply agreement supports Mercedes Benz programs in Europe and China with LiDAR production supported by HESIDE’s new Galileo manufacturing center in Thailand. In parallel, we continue to deepen our footprint with Chinese joint ventures as well as fast growing Chinese automakers expanding overseas. We have been selected for GAC Toyota’s 2026 BZ3X model, marking our first entry into the Japanese automotive E ecosystem. We have also secured new overseas design wins with Xiaomi, one of our largest customers with SOP expected to begin in 2027. Looking ahead, we see strong and sustained momentum driven by both global OEM partnerships and the continued international expansion of Chinese automakers. Together, these two forces are becoming the key structural growth drivers for HESAI in the years ahead. Beyond ADAS, robotics is emerging as an addressable market roughly 10 times larger. We are already a leader across key segments including humanoid and quadruped robots, robotaxis, robovans and robotic LawnMowers ranking number one according to GGII, Yole Group and Frost and Sullivan to share a few recent highlights in Humanoid Robotics, our JT128 LIDAR powered honors lightning robot to deliver a championship winning performance and break the human world record at the world’s first humanoid robot half marathon in Robovance. We secured an exclusive design win with Zelos for 200,000 LiDAR units and deepened our partnership with Neolix as its largest LiDAR supplier. We are also expanding into smart mobility with an FTX design win from New Technologies for Next Generation Electric two wheelers, a market with more than 60 million units sold annually in China. Having established ourselves as a global leader in 3D perception solutions, one thing is clear. Bringing AI into the physical world takes more than just LiDAR. That’s why we are taking our most exciting step yet, expanding from spatial perception to spatial intelligence. To build the uncompromised digital foundation for the physical AI era, we introduced Cosmo, an AI algorithm integrated spatial intelligence device. As physical AI accelerates, we believe richer, higher fidelity spatial data is becoming an increasingly scarce strategic resource, arguably even more critical than computing power itself. Cosmo is purpose built to break this bottleneck. Unlike traditional 3D reconstruction solutions that rely on bulky hardware and costly workflows, Cosmo combines Hesai’s ultra high precision LiDAR with proprietary 3DGs and AIGC algorithms to rapidly generate photorealistic production grade 3D environments at scale for a 200 square meter space. Cosmo requires only 1/5 the time of existing 3DGs solutions and roughly 1/50 the time of traditional methods with dramatically lower labor costs. More importantly, Cosmo is far beyond a hardware AI integrated product. It is the starting point of a scalable new business model combining hardware, AI software, spatial data and future platform services, creating recurring revenue streams, strong ecosystem effects and a durable long term moat. We believe Cosmo unlocks trillion RMB downstream opportunities across robotics, simulation and training, immersive media, 4D entertainment and beyond. Commercial traction is already building rapidly. We are actively engaging with a powerhouse roster of industry leaders spanning global pioneering embodied AI companies and top tier entertainment studios to market leading tech giants, AI driven industrial titans and global luxury brands. With some customers already having placed orders, we are incredibly excited about the long term growth potential ahead. Beyond Perception Bringing AI into the physical world also means enabling it to act, giving it the muscles to truly come to life. This leads to our next strategic pillar, Robotic actuation modules this is a natural extension of our systemic expertise in materials simulation, physical design and the manufacturing of delicate components. We also bring proven know how gained from millions of in house developed automotive grade motors and encoders deployed in our LiDAR products. Consider this a first glimpse an Easter egg. More exciting updates will follow in the nearest to wrap up Let me bring us back to the core theme today, our evolution from spatial perception to spatial intelligence. We are executing this across three clear dimensions. First, perceiving the world powered by our chip based LIDAR solutions, giving robots the eyes to see the physical world in high fidelity. Second, understanding the world with Cosmo and its ecosystem, transforming rich spatial data into actionable intelligence for real reasoning and decision making. Third, changing the world through our robotic actuation modules, the muscles that allow machines …
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