Pony.ai goes public, officially kicking off the Robotaxi competition | Market headlines

Author | Geng Chenfei

Editor | Song Wanxin

Another Chinese autonomous driving company has landed on the US stock market.

On November 27, Eastern Time, the Chinese autonomous driving company Pony.ai officially listed on the Nasdaq, with the stock code "PONY". On the first day of listing, Pony.ai's stock price once rose by more than 19% during the trading session, and finally closed down 7.69% to $12 per share.

After expanding the offering size, if the underwriters' overallotment option is fully exercised, Pony.ai will issue a total of 23 million American Depositary Shares at the upper limit of the offering range of $13 per share, raising $299 million. It has become the largest IPO in the field of autonomous driving on the US stock market this year. Coupled with the common shares through the concurrent private placement, Pony.ai's IPO fundraising amount can reach approximately $452 million.

Figure: Pony.ai officially listed on the Nasdaq

Pony.ai is the second general autonomous driving company listed on the US stock market this year, while its "rival", WeRide, has taken the lead in entering the secondary market.

One month ago, WeRide also listed on the Nasdaq. Due to the small number of publicly offered shares, on the first day of listing, WeRide's stock price rose sharply and triggered two circuit breakers. It closed up 6.77% on the day to $16.55 per share.

Whether it is Pony.ai or WeRide, they are both optimistic about the development of Robotaxi. However, in terms of the company's business, Pony.ai takes the Robotaxi business as the core, while WeRide emphasizes "general autonomous driving". Its business is divided into autonomous driving taxis, autonomous driving minibuses, autonomous driving trucks, autonomous driving sanitation vehicles, and advanced driver assistance systems, with a more extensive and diverse layout of scenarios.

From this perspective, for the Robotaxi track, Pony.ai's listing has a stronger signal significance.

Whether it is Pony.ai or WeRide, they are both part of the listing wave of autonomous driving enterprises this year. Before this, many autonomous driving enterprises such as RoboSense, Black Sesame Technologies, Horizon Robotics, and Zongmu Technology have accelerated the listing process.

Behind the clustering of listings, in addition to the advancement of autonomous driving technology, the improvement of market acceptance, and the favorable policies of the capital market to lower the listing threshold, there is also the factor that the autonomous driving companies are in urgent need of funds. From the financial data, autonomous driving enterprises have not yet escaped the predicament of losses.

The prospectus shows that Pony.ai's revenues in 2022, 2023, and the first three quarters of 2024 were $68.39 million, $71.90 million, and $39.51 million, respectively; the net losses were $148 million, $125 million, and $94 million, respectively.

WeRide's revenues from 2022 to the first half of 2024 were 528 million yuan, 400 million yuan, and 150 million yuan, respectively; the net losses were $58 million, $69 million, and $43 million, respectively.

In the Robotaxi track, Pony.ai is the first company in China to launch an autonomous driving travel service.

Up to now, Pony.ai has obtained unmanned driving travel service licenses in the four first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Among them, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have begun to charge for fully unmanned Robotaxi commercial services.

However, for Robotaxi, to truly achieve large-scale commercialization and implementation, scale operation and mass production capabilities are crucial.

"In cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, when the number of Robotaxi vehicles is 1,000, the operation will reach the break-even point, beyond this point, for each additional vehicle, our cost will be lower, and the gross profit margin will be higher, entering a positive stage of continuous self-hematopoiesis." Zhang Ning, Vice President of Pony.ai and the person in charge of the Robotaxi autonomous driving travel business, once publicly stated.

The latest news is that Pony.ai has collaborated with Toyota and BAIC to mass-produce Robotaxi, and a thousand-scale Robotaxi will be launched in the next two years.

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