Huachuang Securities: First deposit for Hesai-W (02525) “Strong” rating target price HK$235.93

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Huachuang Securities released a research report saying that Hesai-W (02525), as a leader in the global lidar industry, benefits from the advancement of L2+/L3/L4 regulations, and is expected to continue to seize domestic and foreign market share and achieve rapid scale expansion. At the same time, the robotic lidar industry has broad space and is expected to become the company's second growth curve. The bank expects the company to 2025-27:1) operating income of 30.30, 41.77, 5.823 billion yuan, +46%, +39% year-on-year; 2) net profit of 3.58, 4.88, 887 million yuan, which turned a year-on-year loss into profit, +36%, +82%; 3) non-GAAP net profit of 4.786.02, 995 million yuan, +33.9 times, +26%, +65%; 4) EPS 2.29, 3.13, and 5.68 yuan will use the PS valuation method, corresponding to 2026 The target market value is $33.4 billion, target space of 35%, and target price of HK$235.93. It was covered for the first time, giving it a “strong push” rating.

The main views of Huachuang Securities are as follows:

Hesai Technology is the world's leading lidar R&D and manufacturing enterprise

The company was founded in 2014, listed on NASDAQ in 2023, and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September 2025. It has built 8 major product lines, AT/ET/FT/Pandar/OT/XT/QT/JT/, covering ADAS, autonomous driving and robotics markets. From 2020 to 2024, the company's lidar delivery volume grew rapidly from 40,000 units to 502,000 units, and is expected to deliver more than 1.5 million units in 2025. The company achieved full-year non-GAAP profit for the first time in 2024, and also achieved positive full-year operating and net cash flow. 25Q3 achieved net profit of 260 million yuan, a record high. The annual net profit guideline was raised to 35 to 450 million yuan, showing a continuous rapid growth trend.

As the smart driving market evolves, lidar is expected to reach a large-scale inflection point

According to Geishi Auto, with the development of the “smart driving equality trend, the domestic installed volume of lidars is expected to hit 2.5 million units in 2025, the penetration rate will reach 9.0%, and the price will drop to nearly 1,450 yuan. Looking forward to the future, benefiting from the gradual implementation of L2+/L3/L4 regulations, the lidar penetration rate is expected to continue to increase; on the price side, there is currently limited room for the price reduction of single lidar prices, and superimposing high-performance, multi-chip solutions are expected to become a trend, and the automotive lidar market is expected to expand rapidly. The bank expects the global automotive lidar market to reach US$90/14.8 billion in 2030/2035.

As the world's leading lidar company, the company's medium- to long-term competitive barriers and investment value are outstanding

Technical barriers: Strong independent research and development capabilities. It is the first company to successfully apply a chip solution to both the transmitter module and receiver module, and is currently the only full-stack lidar company in the world. It has developed fourth-generation chips in 8 years to reduce lidar costs by 99.5%, and the latest platform achieves 100% self-development and manufacturing barriers for seven key components: the world's leading intelligent manufacturing system, has the world's first lidar intelligent manufacturing center integrating R&D and manufacturing. The manufacturing team is deeply involved in R&D to test new products with mass production standards, balance performance, quality and cost; self-built production lines achieve a core process automation rate of core processes 100%, a lidar can be offline every 10 seconds; R&D and manufacturing are closely integrated, which can not only improve the speed of product iteration, but also guarantee the quality of large-scale mass production.

Customer barriers: widely recognized by many leading ADAS/robotics customers

① ADAS: In-depth cooperation with high-quality OEMs such as Ideal, Zero Run, and Xiaomi, 25Q3 won 100% standard designation for the top two ADAS customers in 2026; ETX+ multiple FTX combinations won cooperation with a new Chinese car builder, which is expected to be mass-produced by the end of 26 or early '27; overseas markets have reached exclusive targets for many years with top European OEMs to provide high-performance ultra-long-range products for their next-generation platforms, and support Toyota's joint venture brands, which are expected to be mass-produced in 26 years. ② Robotics: Nine of the top ten Robotaxi companies in the world chose Hesai's lidar supplier; the products made rapid breakthroughs in the fields of mowing/companion/agricultural robots, and high-precision modeling; the company expects to deliver 200,000 robotic lidars in 2025.

Risk warning: Industry competition intensifies, lidar penetration falls short of expectations, downstream customer sales fall short of expectations, geopolitical uncertainty.