From "Burning Money" to "Profitable," the LiDAR industry is approaching a turning point, and the robot sector is on the verge of a significant scale-up.

Every reporter｜Liu Xi Every editor｜Yu Tingting

Recently, Hesai Technology (NASDAQ: HSAI; 02525.HK) and Robosense (02498.HK) both released their financial reports for the fourth quarter and the entire year of 2025. Hesai Technology achieved annual GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) profitability, while Robosense achieved single-quarter profitability in the fourth quarter of 2025.

The profitability of these two leading companies marks the official shedding of the “money-burning” label for the lidar industry, welcoming a turning point toward profitability.

Farewell to the “Money-Burning” Era

The financial report shows that Robosense achieved single-quarter profitability for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2025, with a net profit of 104 million yuan. For the entire year, Robosense’s 2025 revenue was approximately 1.941 billion yuan, with a gross profit of about 514 million yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 81.3%, while net losses narrowed by 69.9% year-on-year to 145 million yuan. Hesai Technology went even further, becoming the first lidar company in the industry to achieve annual GAAP profitability, with a net profit of 440 million yuan for the year and fourth-quarter revenue exceeding 1 billion yuan, continuing its profitability trend.

Robosense Financial Report Image Source: Hong Kong Stock Exchange Official Website

From a phase significance perspective, Robosense represents the “establishment of the profitability turning point,” while Hesai Technology represents the “viability of the profitability model,” together marking the industry’s transition from a “high investment period” to a “return period.”

The improvement in profitability for lidar companies primarily stems from explosive growth in demand. According to data from the Gaogong Industry Research Institute, in 2025, the number of lidar units installed as standard in new passenger cars (excluding imports and exports) in the Chinese market reached 3.2484 million, a year-on-year increase of 112.07%, with lidar penetration in new energy vehicles reaching 20.48%.

In terms of market structure, industry concentration has further increased. Data shows that in the market for forward-looking main lidar systems for new passenger cars in China in 2025, Hesai Technology, Robosense, and Huawei together accounted for over 90% of the market share, demonstrating a significant leading effect.

The rapid growth in demand has directly driven a substantial increase in company shipments. In 2025, Hesai Technology’s lidar annual delivery volume tripled year-on-year, while Robosense’s total lidar sales increased by 67.6% year-on-year.

However, the start of profitability does not mean the pressure has disappeared. Faced with intensified competition among vehicle manufacturers, both companies acknowledged that lidar product prices will continue to be under pressure in 2026. However, with the stabilization of technological architecture and continuous optimization of cost structures, price reductions are expected to gradually narrow, and profit margins will trend toward improvement.

Hesai Technology Financial Report Image Source: Hong Kong Stock Exchange Official Website

Robosense CEO Qiu Chunchao pointed out that as new products stabilize in ramp-up, sales grow, and product and chip advantages are released, the profit margin for ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) will gradually improve and stabilize. Hesai Technology co-founder and CEO Li Yifan stated that through the increase in the number of lidar units per vehicle, the release of high-end products such as ETX (automotive-grade ultra-long-range lidar), and the expansion into overseas markets, structural growth is expected to offset the impact of price declines.

Shifting from “Cost-Driven” to “Performance-Driven”

If 2025 is the “profitability year” for the lidar industry, an equally important change is that the competitive logic in the industry is shifting from “cost-driven” to “performance-driven.”

In March of this year, Huawei launched a new generation of dual-path image-level lidar with a line count of 896 lines. Subsequently, the Dongfeng brand, in collaboration with Huawei, announced that all models will be equipped with this lidar. The industry generally believes that lidar is entering the “thousand-line era,” where a new round of competition will unfold in the ultra-high line digital lidar sector in 2026.

Image Source: Robosense Official Website

In this regard, Qiu Chunchao pointed out that high-performance lidar will become a definitive development direction for two core reasons: first, as autonomous driving shifts from urban NOA (Navigation on Autopilot) to full-scene applications, the demand for long-distance small target recognition and complex scene perception continues to rise, making higher-density point clouds a rigid requirement; second, digital architectures enable high-line-count lidar to achieve mass production at controlled costs, where the higher the line count, the more significant the advantages, potentially even exponentially amplified.

Moreover, different stages of autonomous driving are showing a trend of differentiated demand for lidar. Qiu Chunchao stated, “L2 and L4 are both competing for performance, but the methods of competition differ.” In the past, the L2 market was long considered to be “only about cost,” but the essence was an insufficient supply-side capability. As higher line-count products come to market at costs close to existing ones, automakers are beginning to proactively upgrade their configurations.

For example, when 192-line products enter the market, clients originally using 64-line or 128-line solutions will reassess and adjust their technical routes. This means that the competitive logic in the L2 market will undergo a fundamental shift from “whether there is” to “how good it is,” with performance becoming the new core variable.

Qiu Chunchao believes that, from a macro perspective, the industry is undergoing structural changes: the baseline capabilities for L2 are continuously being raised and are no longer just low-cost solutions; the technical thresholds for L4 are continuously being elevated, imposing higher requirements on system capabilities; L3, as a critical transition layer, once mature, will reshape L2 downwards and support L4 upwards. In this process, the boundaries between L2 and L3 will be redefined.

Robotics Business as a Second Growth Curve

The improvement in profitability and the shift to performance-driven strategies provide a foundation for lidar companies to explore new businesses. The rapid increase in robotics product sales has led to a noticeable change in the revenue structure of industry players.

The financial report shows that Robosense’s sales of robotic lidar exceeded 303,000 units in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 1141.8%; among them, fourth-quarter sales reached 221,200 units, a year-on-year surge of 2565.1%, contributing 49% to revenue. Hesai Technology also achieved rapid breakthroughs, with annual related product deliveries reaching 240,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 425.8%. Qiu Chunchao expects that this year, Robosense will achieve robot sales of 800,000 to 1 million units, nearly three times that of last year.

Specifically, within the business sector, lidar companies are showing clear differentiation. On one hand, they focus on applications that have already achieved large-scale commercialization, such as lawn mowers and logistics AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles); on the other hand, they actively explore cutting-edge technology directions such as embodied intelligence.

In the segmented market, lawn mowers are currently one of the most mature and largest-scale directions. Hesai Technology recently signed an order for 10 million JT series lidar units for lawn mowers with ZhiMi; Robosense has also collaborated with Kuma and Weilan Continent, securing exclusive orders from a leading cleaning robot brand, with expected lawn mower shipments reaching 450,000 to 600,000 units in 2026.

Image Source: Company Provided Image

The demand in the field of embodied intelligent robots is also rapidly climbing. Qiu Chunchao revealed that the company has established partnerships with several humanoid and quadruped robot companies, such as Zhiyuan and Yushu Technology.

In response to the huge demand for lidar in the automotive and robotics markets in 2026, leading companies are accelerating their capacity planning to ensure mass production capabilities and delivery rhythms. It is reported that Robosense has completed a planning for an annual production capacity of 4 million units, while Hesai Technology expects its shipment volume in 2026 to double from 1.6 million units in 2025, reaching approximately 3 million to 3.5 million units.

Dongwu Securities pointed out that as robots expand into open environments, the number of lidar units carried per robot may increase from 1 to 3, and by 2030, the market size for robotic lidar is expected to reach 28 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 67.9%.