Yifan Li
Analyst · Goldman Sachs
Thank you, Yuanting, 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 3 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 sustained R&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 detail 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 million 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 the recent Beijing Auto Show, where Hesai lidar was featured in 56 vehicle models across 24 leading automotive brands. ranking #1 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, Leapmotor, Geely, Great Wall Motor, Changan, Chery to autonomous driving leaders like Pony AI and WeRide. This broad adoption reflects our deep ecosystem penetration and the growing strength of the Hesai insight effect. According to Yole Group, we ranked #1 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 Gasgoo. Roughly triple that of the second ranked player, marking our 14th consecutive month in the #1 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, driving architectures from typically 1 lidar per vehicle last year, representing roughly USD 200 of lidar content per car to 3 to 6 lidars in Level 3 platforms, increasing content to about USD 350 in entry-level multi-lidar setups and USD 500 to USD 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 Changan. Notably, Li Auto officially commenced deliveries of its multi-lidar model on May 15, 2026, marking the first mass production 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, ultrasensitive 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 Picasso platform, our flagship ETX lidar now supports up to 4,320 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 KargoBot for its Phase II transport robots, deploying our 4,320-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 Hesai 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 Hesai'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 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 2 forces are becoming the key structural growth drivers for Hesai in the years ahead. Beyond ADAS, robotics is emerging as an addressable market, roughly 10x larger. We are already a leader across key segments, including humanoid and quadruped robots, Robotaxis, Robovans and robotic lawn mowers, ranking #1 according to GGII, Yole Group and Frost & Sullivan. To share a few recent highlights, in humanoid robotics, our JT -128 lidar-powered Honor's lighting robot to deliver a championship winning performance and break the human world record at the world's first humanoid robot half marathon. In Robovans, 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 NIU Technologies for next-generation electric 2-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 an uncompromised digital foundation for the physical AI era, we introduced Kosmo, 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. Kosmo is purpose-built to break this bottleneck. Unlike traditional 3D reconstruction solutions that rely on bulky hardware and costly workflows, Kosmo combines Hesai's ultra-high precision lidar with proprietary 3DGS and AIGC algorithms to rapidly generate photorealistic production-grade 3D environments at scale. For 200-square- meter space, Kosmo 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, Kosmo 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 Kosmo 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 and Easter egg. More exciting updates will follow in the near future. 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 3 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 Kosmo 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 to truly interact with the physical world and serve humanity. Together, these are unlocking powerful new growth engines and positioning us as a core enabler of physical AI, digitizing the real world and redefining how humans and robots perceive and act. With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrew to discuss our financial performance and outlook. Andrew, please go ahead.