New Stock Preview | Hai Robotics: A Pioneer in Warehouse ACR Solutions, Can It Cross the Profitability Turning Point with a 32.8% Market Share?

Warehouse picking is the most labor-intensive process within warehouses. Against the backdrop of a gradually fading demographic dividend, demand for machines to replace manual labor continues to be released. As a next-generation flexible automation solution, ACR case-handling Siasun Robot&Automation is seeing its industry commercialization process continue to accelerate. On September 13, Shenzhen Hai Robotics Intelligent Technology Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hai Robotics") once again submitted a listing application to the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with Goldman Sachs and CITIC SEC as joint sponsors. The company first filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on February 13, 2026. As the pioneer of ACR solutions, Hai Robotics has firmly established itself as the global industry leader, but alongside its rapid business expansion, the company has yet to achieve profitability. Coupled with the fact that the track is still in its early stages of development, its growth process is still accompanied by multiple uncertainties. Pioneer of warehouse ACR solutions, business covers more than 40 countries and regions According to the prospectus, Hai Robotics was founded in 2016, focusing on the warehouse picking automation track. Picking is also the most labor-intensive and time-consuming process in warehouse scenarios. According to China Insights Consultancy data, in 2025, based on revenue and shipment volume, Hai Robotics was the world's largest ACR solution provider, with a market share of 32.8%. It is understood that warehouse picking automation solutions are mainly divided into three categories: AS/RS, AMR, and ACR. AS/RS is a traditional heavy-duty stereoscopic warehouse, with high upfront investment and difficult retrofitting; AMR transports entire groups of shelves to workstations, relying on manual picking; ACR relies on sensors and algorithms to directly grab cases and deliver them to workstations, offering greater warehouse height, higher space utilization, flexible deployment, and lower initial investment, with a payback period as short as 12 months. Hai Robotics has built a complete ACR product matrix. In 2017, the company launched its first ACR solution, HaiPick System1, laying the foundation for its product line; HaiPick System2 balances pallet movement and case picking, adapting to multiple forms of irregular items; HaiPick System3 relies on hook-type case retrieval technology to complete case grabbing under dense storage layouts, further improving storage density. In 2025, the company launched the world's first mass-commercialized single-side climbing ACR solution, HaiPick Climb, which can be adapted to both new and retrofitted warehouses and supports storage heights of up to 15 meters. The company also launched an integrated electronics manufacturing production-warehouse solution, which can achieve collaborative operation of multiple types of equipment such as ACR and latent Siasun Robot&Automation, supported by HaiQ scheduling management software. In terms of business model, Hai Robotics "adopts an integrated solution of hardware + software + deployment and O&M services." Revenue is divided into one-time revenue brought by initial project deployment and recurring revenue generated by later expansion and maintenance. Sales implement a strategy of combining direct sales with channel partners in parallel. The channel model plays a prominent role in overseas markets. For the six months ended June 30, 2026, revenue contributed by channel partners had already reached 58.6%. The company's business has expanded to more than 40 countries and regions worldwide, with overseas markets becoming an important growth engine. In the first half of 2026, revenue from markets outside mainland China increased to 50.2%. As of the same period, the company had cumulatively served more than 900 direct and channel customers, covering multiple vertical sectors such as apparel and fashion, e-commerce retail, third-party logistics, pharmaceuticals, 3C electronics, and automotive, with a customer repurchase rate of 89%. Business scale expands rapidly, losses have not yet reversed As the world's largest ACR solution provider, Hai Robotics has achieved rapid business growth in recent years. From 2023 to 2025, the company's revenue was RMB 807 million, RMB 1.360 billion, and RMB 2.017 billion, respectively. In the first half of 2026, revenue was RMB 1.118 billion, a year-on-year increase of 70.2%. The company's order scale also rose in tandem, with full-year orders in 2025 reaching RMB 2.947 billion, and order scale in the first half of 2026 reaching RMB 2.353 billion. In terms of profitability, with the increase in the proportion of high-margin overseas business and the release of product standardization and scale effects, the company's gross margin continued to rise: from 16.0% in 2023 to 31.2% in 2025, and further to 34.4% in the first half of 2026. However, high growth was built on the basis of high investment. During the reporting period, the company continued to record net losses: losses for the year from 2023 to 2025 were RMB 1.009 billion, RMB 1.256 billion, and RMB 828 million, respectively; the loss in the first half of 2026 was RMB 431 million. The losses came from multiple aspects. On the one hand, in order to expand domestic and overseas markets, selling and marketing expenses remained high; on the other hand, the company continued to carry out technological iteration. From 2023 to 2025, R&D expenses were RMB 309 million, RMB 334 million, and RMB 385 million, respectively. Although R&D as a proportion of revenue showed a downward trend, the absolute scale of investment remained high. In addition, it also included non-operating and financing-related losses such as interest on redeemable preferred shares and changes in the fair value of derivative liabilities. If referring to the non-IFRS basis, the adjusted net loss margin narrowed from 86.1% in 2023 to 18.6% in the first half of 2026. In terms of operating cash flow, from 2023 to the first half of 2026, Hai Robotics' operating cash flow remained negative, with cumulative net outflow of RMB 1.072 billion. The company stated in the prospectus that due to continued investment in core technology R&D, expansion of the product matrix, and growth in selling and marketing expenses brought by overseas market expansion, while business expansion will increase working capital requirements, it is expected to continue to record a net loss for the full year of 2026, and operating cash outflow may further expand. The ACR track is expanding rapidly, but growth realization still faces multiple tests From a business logic perspective, scale expansion combined with an increase in the proportion of high-margin overseas business is the core lever for Hai Robotics to move toward profitability. After business volume increases, on the one hand, it can rely on scale effects to dilute procurement and manufacturing costs; on the other hand, if the proportion of high-margin overseas business continues to rise, combined with selling and R&D expense ratios gradually declining as revenue grows, the company is expected to gradually move toward break-even. In order to achieve further expansion of business scale, Hai Robotics plans to use the listing proceeds in four major directions: technological R&D iteration and upgrading of ACR solutions; expansion of global manufacturing capacity to enhance supply chain resilience; expansion of the global commercial and service network; and expansion of the talent team, with the remainder used for working capital. The company's expansion pace is supported by a high-growth track. According to China Insights Consultancy data, the commercialization of ACR solutions only began to reach scale in 2017, and the industry is still in the early market penetration stage. In 2025, the global ACR solutions market was RMB 6.1 billion. Driven by growing downstream demand for high-throughput and high-density storage scenarios, the market is expected to grow to RMB 86 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 70.0% from 2026 to 2030. Given ACR technology's stronger automated picking capabilities and technical advantages, the ACR solutions market is the fastest-growing segment of the global warehouse picking automation solutions market. ACR's penetration rate in this market is expected to increase from 3.2% in 2025 to 21.5% in 2030. The industry's rapid growth mainly relies on two core drivers: global labor costs continue to rise, making enterprises' demand for cost reduction and efficiency improvement and intelligent warehouse upgrading increasingly rigid; at the same time, multi-SKU and fragmented orders in e-commerce and manufacturing have become mainstream, while traditional warehousing equipment has poor adaptability and insufficient flexibility, making efficient and flexible ACR solutions the preferred choice for industry upgrading. While the track is expanding with high prosperity, uncertainties in industry development still objectively exist. Warehouse automation transformation is corporate capital expenditure, and industry demand is clearly affected by macroeconomic cycles. When the economy is under pressure, downstream customers may reduce or postpone intelligent investment; in addition, high-growth tracks continue to attract new players, and intensifying industry competition and price competition in the future may disrupt the pace of the company's profitability recovery. Overall, with its product strength and global layout, Hai Robotics has secured its position as the leader in the global ACR track. Its commercialization capability has been verified, with rapid revenue growth, continuous gross margin recovery, and outstanding customer stickiness. At this stage, the company is still in a period of expansion and investment and has not yet achieved profitability. Supported by the industry's high incremental space and this fundraising, the logic for the company's future scale expansion and profitability recovery is clear. However, whether long-term growth can be successfully realized still depends on the pace of industry penetration, the effectiveness of overseas implementation, and the evolution of the industry competitive landscape.