"Four times" Hesai: Why has the lidar, once abandoned by Tesla, regained its shine?
Horizon Robotics, a leading company in the LiDAR sector that has attracted significant attention since its establishment, achieved a 33% global market share in LiDAR revenue in 2024. In the L4 Robotaxi market, its market share soared to 61%!
However, this star stock in the LiDAR industry has also faced numerous challenges. In early 2024, when the market was deeply embroiled in the technical debate between "pure vision solutions and LiDAR," Horizon Robotics' market value hovered at a low point. The high cost of LiDAR and the low willingness of automakers to adopt it, along with the unclear market prospects due to the divergence in technical routes in the robot and passenger car LiDAR sectors, and the shadow of the US Department of Defense's "blacklist" overshadowed its overseas expansion prospects.
But just half a year later, Horizon Robotics achieved a remarkable reversal in its stock price.
The starting point of the previous round of significant valuation increase was the arrival of the industry's break - even point: In the third - quarter financial report of 2024, due to better - than - expected profitability, the stock price began to rise sharply. In the fourth - quarter report, with a single - quarter Non - GAAP net profit of $170 million (exceeding the guidance by $20 million), it became the first leading company in the global LiDAR sector to turn a profit.
As of the close on July 14, 2025, Horizon Robotics' stock price had quadrupled compared to the starting point of the previous round of significant valuation increase before the third - quarter financial report of last year!
As we entered 2025, the competition among automakers in intelligent driving became increasingly fierce. At the beginning of the year, BYD kicked off the "equalization of intelligent driving" campaign, but the intelligent driving accident of Xiaomi SU7 poured cold water on the intelligent driving industry. Essentially, it was still due to the insufficient maturity of intelligent driving technology. However, this accident also further raised consumers' awareness of LiDAR. The YU7, launched in July, comes standard with LiDAR across all models.
At this inflection point where intelligent driving in vehicles is about to explode, and looking at the vast potential of the future robot market, Dolphin Research once again focuses on this leading stock in the LiDAR sector. The core questions that Dolphin Research has about Horizon Robotics are:
1. What kind of company is Horizon Robotics?
2. Why did Horizon Robotics experience an explosion in market value after the third quarter of 2024? What did it do right?
3. How should we view the market potential of LiDAR?
4. Will the strong continue to be strong in the LiDAR sector? Can Horizon Robotics maintain its leading position?
5. Is there still room for investment in Horizon Robotics?
The following is a detailed analysis
I. What kind of company is Horizon Robotics?
1. Actively targeting and deploying in popular sectors with rapidly growing demand
Looking at Horizon Robotics' founding background:
1) Starting from the "niche sector" of gas monitoring equipment: When the company was founded in 2014, due to the severe smog problem in China, it based on laser spectroscopy analysis technology to develop PM2.5 pollution map cloud monitoring nodes. Therefore, it was positioned as a "gas monitoring equipment provider." However, the laser gas analysis industry is still a niche sector with a relatively small market size (according to QYR, the global market size of laser gas analyzers is approximately $545 million, and the expected CAGR from 2025 to 2031 is only 4.7%).
2) Officially switching to the "LiDAR" sector in 2016: Later, as early as 2016, Horizon Robotics saw the broader prospects in the intelligent driving and humanoid robot sectors. Both of these sectors require LiDAR as the "human eye" for external perception (although there are still differences in the preference for pure vision solutions mainly based on cameras and LiDAR solutions in these two sectors).
In 2016, Horizon Robotics launched its first domestic high - performance LiDAR, the Pandar 32, officially entering the LiDAR sector. From 2016 to 2020, several Pandar, QT/XT series products were successively launched, all serving two scenarios: Robotaxi and robots (such as factory forklifts and unmanned delivery fields).
a. First - batch LiDAR shipments for the L4 Robotaxi scenario: From 2020 to 2021, the Pandar series became the company's main source of revenue, which meant that the company seized the opportunity in the booming L4 Robotaxi market for the first time, achieving a 70% increase in hardware revenue in 2021.
However, from the supply side, the Pandar series, being mechanical LiDAR, still had some problems. In summary, it was expensive, difficult to mass - produce, and prone to breakdowns:
① High cost and difficulty in mass production: The average ASP of the Pandar series was around $100,000. The main reasons were the complex structure, low integration level, and cumbersome assembly process, which led to high production costs.
The complex structure also led to a long production process, making it difficult to achieve large - scale and rapid mass production.
② Short lifespan of mechanical components and prone to breakdowns: Due to its structure, mechanical LiDAR generally had a short lifespan and was prone to breakdowns.
From the downstream demand side, the main application scenario of the Pandar series was still Robotaxi. The main customers included Zoox, Aurora, Auto X in the United States, and Luobo Kuaipao, Xiaoma Zhixing, and WeRide in China.
From 2020 to 2021, these players started directly with L4 high - level autonomous driving. However, due to the inherent defects of traditional rule - based algorithms, even when using mechanical LiDAR to supplement the deficiencies in the algorithm for 3D modeling, it was still very difficult to make the business model work (the rule - based algorithm had weak scalability, and the high cost of traditional mechanical LiDAR). Therefore, it was difficult for the downstream demand of Robotaxi to achieve a significant explosive growth under the L4 leap - forward algorithm route.
b. Launching the AT/FT/QT series to enter the passenger car ADAS intelligent driving sector:
When the demand for L4 Robotaxi was limited, Horizon Robotics launched the AT series in 2021, targeting the passenger car intelligent driving sector with greater demand, a broader market, and gradually increasing user demand for intelligent driving. The first product of the AT series, the AT128, started mass - production and shipments in 2022.
1) From the downstream demand side:
As the competition among automakers in intelligent driving at the downstream demand side gradually intensified, and currently, passenger car automakers adopting the incremental approach (led by Tesla, Huawei, and new - energy vehicle startups) are more likely to achieve high - level intelligent driving (L4 - L5) through the data - driven end - to - end technical route compared to L4 players (such as Waymo and Luobo Kuaipao) mainly using the leap - forward route.
As the innovation in electrification is approaching its end, the competition among automakers around intelligence has begun to emerge. After Tesla clearly stated in its earnings conference that intelligent cars are the future, and cars without high - level intelligence are like variants of flip phones and will eventually be replaced by intelligent cars (comparable to the iPhone), the competition among automakers around high - level intelligence is an inevitable trend, and this inflection point is not far away.
Although automakers have not yet reached a consensus on the intelligent driving technical route (most automakers have switched to the end - to - end route, but there are still two major camps: pure vision (represented by XPeng and Tesla) and LiDAR), as the cost of LiDAR gradually decreases, some automakers, even those with leading intelligent driving technology, still install LiDAR as a safety redundancy (such as Huawei and Li Auto).
2) From Horizon Robotics' supply side:
By providing automakers with the semi - solid - state LiDAR AT series (detailed product information will be summarized later), Horizon Robotics significantly reduced the cost compared to the solid - state LiDAR Pandar series, and the cost was still decreasing year by year. It could better meet the dual requirements of downstream automakers for performance and cost, thereby significantly increasing the shipments of passenger car ADAS LiDAR.
After mass - producing LiDAR for passenger car ADAS in 2022, ADAS became the main contributor to Horizon Robotics' LiDAR shipments. By 2024, ADAS LiDAR accounted for 91% of the total LiDAR shipments, and in terms of revenue, ADAS LiDAR accounted for 68% of the total LiDAR revenue, mainly driven by the shipments of the AT128.
In 2025, Horizon Robotics guided the total LiDAR shipments to be between 1.2 million and 1.5 million units, of which 1 million to 1.3 million units were ADAS LiDAR shipments.
This guidance also means that in the ADAS LiDAR sector this year, Horizon Robotics will continue to achieve a year - on - year growth rate of 120% - 186%. The main product for ADAS shipments has shifted from the AT128 to the ATX, which started mass - production in the first quarter of 2025 and has a lower price.
c. Continuing to launch the JT series to target the robot sector
In January 2025, Horizon Robotics launched the JT16 and JT128 of the JT series to target the robot sector. Currently, the JT series is mainly used in self - propelled lawn mowers of Dreame and unmanned agricultural vehicles of Agtonomy (mainly the JT16 is shipped), and it has not yet been applied to broader sectors such as industrial robots and humanoid robots.
However, Horizon Robotics has guided the shipments in the general robot sector to reach 200,000 units in 2025, with a year - on - year growth rate of 340%. It is expected to become the next growth point for Horizon Robotics after the ADAS passenger car LiDAR, bringing more imagination space for the application scenarios in the robot sector.
Summary:
It can be seen that Horizon Robotics has a relatively comprehensive LiDAR layout. The company is good at seizing opportunities in popular sectors and switching products. Initially, it used the Pandar series to target the L4 Robotaxi sector. After this sector cooled down, it catered to the high - growth trend of LiDAR in the passenger car sector and used the AT series to target the passenger car ADAS sector (the main product for shipments in 2025 is the ATX), achieving rapid growth in 2024 - 2025.
The company's JT series launched in the general robot sector currently mainly receives orders for lawn mowers, but it still brings high growth in revenue/shipments in 2025 (Dolphin Research expects the revenue from the Robotics sector to double in 2025). The application scenarios in the broader robot sector are still waiting to be unlocked.
2. The company has a relatively comprehensive product layout in three major sectors, and successfully binding large customers in the ADAS sector has brought high growth
① In the ADAS passenger car LiDAR sector, which currently contributes the main revenue to the company: The company's ADAS LiDAR products include the AT/ET/FT series. The AT series is the company's main product for shipments. The ET series is mainly used inside the vehicle (installed on the inside of the windshield, mainly for aesthetic purposes). The FT series, due to the low maturity of the Flash pure - solid - state solution, has low accuracy and detection range and is mainly used as a blind - spot - filling LiDAR.
Looking at the AT series, the company's main product for shipments, in 2024, the main product for shipments was the AT128. After 2025, the company's new - generation ATX has further improved performance, reduced volume, and continued to lower the price, becoming the main product for shipments in the AT series (Dolphin Research expects the ratio of ATX/AT128 shipments to be 3:1 in 2025, and the AT128 will no longer be shipped after 2026).
Looking at the company's own proposed solutions for passenger car ADAS, the company hopes to achieve shipments with two versions: low - price + high - performance (the ATX targets the L2+ market, and the AT1440 targets the L4 market). At the same time, it hopes that the number of LiDAR units installed in high - level intelligent driving will significantly increase (still to be verified. Currently, most L2+ intelligent driving solutions mainly install one LiDAR unit).
Looking at the downstream customers of Horizon Robotics' ADAS LiDAR in 2024, the top three customers were Li Auto, Xiaomi, and Leapmotor, accounting for 93% of the ADAS shipments. Horizon Robotics achieved rapid growth in shipments in the passenger car sector by binding large customers.
