Yin Qi Can't Save Qianli Technology

Author | Song Wanxin

Editor | Zhang Fan

On October 16th, Chongqing Qianli Technology officially submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, embarking on its journey to list on both the A-share and H-share markets.

This automobile enterprise, which once faced bankruptcy and restructuring due to its traditional fuel vehicle business, is now attempting to enter the intelligent driving sector as a new "AI + Mobility" solution provider, after being transformed by Geely Holding and Yin Qi, the founder of Megvii Technology.

01 Transformation for Self-Salvation

Qianli Technology's predecessor, Lifan Technology, was once an important player in the domestic motorcycle and fuel vehicle sectors. However, after 2019, due to the lag in industry transformation and the outbreak of the debt crisis, it was on the verge of delisting.

In 2020, under the guidance of the Chongqing Municipal Government and Geely Group, Lifan completed its bankruptcy restructuring, introducing Geely-related capital (Manjianghong Fund) and Chongqing state-owned assets, and initiated the process of "de-Lifanization". In February this year, the company officially changed its name to "Qianli Technology" and completely transformed from a traditional manufacturing enterprise to an AI technology company.

From the current background of Qianli Technology, Geely provides industrial resources and supply chain support, while Yin Qi's team leads the R & D of intelligent driving technology. The two parties are trying to create a collaborative model of "automobile manufacturing + AI algorithms".

Yin Qi doesn't come from the automobile industry, but was described by Li Shufu as a smart person with whom he "hit it off immediately". As one of the first students in Tsinghua University's "Yao Class", Yin Qi co-founded Megvii Technology with Tang Wenbin and Yang Mu in 2011. The company was once hailed as one of the "Four AI Dragons".

However, Megvii failed in its attempts to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Science and Technology Innovation Board and has not been successfully listed so far. Apparently, Qianli Technology has taken over Yin Qi's IPO dream.

After integrating the resources of Geely, Megvii, and Lifan, the A-share market value of Qianli Technology soared from less than 20 billion yuan to 50 billion yuan, with a price-earnings ratio of 1,144.49 times, far higher than the industry median price-earnings ratio of 40.81 times.

It can be seen that Qianli Technology's valuation significantly deviates from that of traditional automobile enterprises and is closer to that of unprofitable technology companies. However, judging from its financial data and business structure, there is still a lack of solid data to support this valuation.

(Source: Qianli Technology's prospectus)

From 2022 to the first half of 2025, the company's revenues were 8.627 billion yuan, 6.698 billion yuan, 6.964 billion yuan, and 4.148 billion yuan respectively. In 2023, due to the shrinkage of the fuel vehicle market, the revenue decreased by 22.4% year-on-year. Since 2024, with the increase in the sales of new energy vehicle models, the revenue has resumed growth, with a year-on-year increase of 40% in the first half of 2025.

However, by analyzing the revenue structure, it can be seen that in the first half of 2025, Qianli Technology's revenue from the automobile sector was 2.6 billion yuan, accounting for 62.6% of the total revenue; the revenue from motorcycles was 1.277 billion yuan, accounting for 30.8% of the total revenue.

(Source: Qianli Technology's prospectus)

That is to say, more than 90% of the company's revenue still comes from traditional businesses, and the revenue from intelligent driving solutions accounts for only about 5%. This means that its transformation is still in the stage of "traditional businesses providing funds and new businesses burning money".

The prospectus shows that the company's R & D expenses from 2022 to 2024 were 90 million yuan, 210 million yuan, and 410 million yuan respectively, with an average annual compound growth rate of over 110%.

The direct reason for the sudden increase in R & D costs is the addition of new businesses such as the intelligent cockpit operating system. According to the data, Qianli Technology's R & D expenses in the first half of this year were 288 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 59.67%.

The company's cash flow is also under pressure as a result. Qianli Technology's net profits after deducting non-recurring gains and losses in 2022, 2023, and 2024 were 170 million yuan, -263 million yuan, and -329 million yuan respectively, with profit margins of 2%, -3.9%, and -4.7% respectively. In the first half of this year, Qianli Technology's net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was a loss of 130 million yuan, a decline of more than 900%.

It should also be noted that Qianli Technology capitalizes a considerable part of its R & D investment in the long term and does not include it in the current period's profit and loss. The proportion has exceeded 50% from 2022 to 2024, which may be an attempt to whitewash the performance.

Qianli Technology is highly dependent on its shareholder Geely in terms of performance.

The prospectus shows that from 2022, 2023, 2024, and the first six months of 2025, Qianli Technology's revenues from Geely Group were 3.423 billion yuan, 2.249 billion yuan, 2.144 billion yuan, and 1.378 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 39.7%, 33.6%, 30.8%, and 33.2% of Qianli Technology's revenues respectively.

In addition, Qianli Technology also expects to provide intelligent driving solutions to Geely Group. It can be inferred that the company's revenue dependence on Geely will not decrease in the short term.

Geely has already achieved an excess return on its investment in Qianli Technology. Geely holds nearly 30% of Qianli Technology's shares. Based on Qianli Technology's current market value of 50 billion yuan, Geely has already achieved a floating profit of more than 14 billion yuan, with an investment return rate of more than 15 times.

02 Competition in the Existing Market

The current intelligent driving sector is quite different. The industry has formed a relatively stable leading pattern, namely, traditional automobile enterprises conducting self - R & D, such as Tesla and BYD, and technology companies providing enabling services, such as Huawei and Baidu.

In terms of the competition model, automobile enterprises have found a more suitable way from the early binary model of self - R & D or outsourcing, that is, self - R & D of core technologies and outsourcing of non - core links, while binding key suppliers through capital. For example, FAW has acquired the equity of Zhuoyu and bound the Qualcomm platform, and also introduced Huawei's intelligent driving technology.

This makes it difficult to break the cooperation relationship from the outside, which is not conducive to Qianli Technology in obtaining customers other than Geely. For Qianli Technology, it may be too early to talk about competition. The first difficult problem it faces is that it has extremely limited experience in mass - producing intelligent driving technology.

Looking at the composition of Qianli Technology's team, the company's framework was only established two months ago.

In March this year, Geely, together with technology ecosystem partners such as Xingji Meizu, Jieyue Xingchen, and Qianli Technology, released the intelligent driving solution "Qianli Haohan". At the same time, Qianli Technology, Geely, Maichi, and Lotus jointly established "Qianli Intelligent Driving".

In August this year, Geely announced that it would integrate its ZEEKR intelligent driving team, Geely Research Institute's intelligent driving team, and Maichi Zhixing under Megvii Technology into Qianli Intelligent Driving.

Qianli Technology's prospectus shows that Qianli Technology holds more than 50% of the voting rights of Qianli Intelligent Driving and controls the board of directors, making Qianli Intelligent Driving a subsidiary of Qianli Technology.

(Source: Qianli Technology's prospectus)

Although the team integration has only been going on for a few months, Yin Qi's plan for Qianli Technology shows great ambition. On October 11th this year, Yin Qi said that Qianli Technology plans to provide large - scale Robotaxi operation services in 10 cities around the world within the next 18 months. That is to say, Qianli Technology's planned business scope already includes intelligent driving systems, intelligent cockpits, and Robotaxi.

Currently, the company has released the "Qianli Intelligent Driving 1.0" solution, providing L2 - level intelligent driving capabilities, and plans to release the L3 - level intelligent driving solution "Qianli Intelligent Driving 2.0" within 2025 and the L4 - level intelligent driving solution "Qianli Intelligent Driving 3.0" for the Robotaxi scenario in the second half of 2026.

However, regarding the mass production and delivery of specific intelligent driving solutions, according to the Economic Observer, it was not until after the name change to Qianli Technology that there were reports in the industry that Maichi Zhixing had promoted the mass production of the intelligent driving solution for Geely Galaxy E8 based on the Black Sesame Intelligent A1000 chip. There are no reports of Maichi Zhixing providing intelligent driving solutions for other automobile enterprises.

The market will be watching to see whether the transformation will be Qianli Technology's second growth curve or a new source of losses.

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