On March 25, SenseTime, an artificial intelligence software company, released its first performance report since its listing. According to the financial report, SenseTime's total revenue in 2021 increased by 36.4% year-on-year to RMB4.7 billion, with an adjusted net loss of RMB1.42 billion, compared to a loss of RMB878 million in the same period last year.
"2021 is the most important year for our growth since our inception, with our business recording accelerated growth and a series of major breakthroughs in our R&D to lay the foundation for future growth. We have always believed that China's technological innovation and huge market will support the birth of more world-class technology companies. We also firmly believe that the advanced productivity represented by AI will help human beings have a better life. Dr. Xu Li, co-founder, executive chairman of the board and chief executive officer of SenseTime, said, "Looking to the future, we are full of confidence and expectations for the development of China's digital economy, and have the confidence to maintain a long-term competitive advantage. ”
R&D investment accounts for more than 60% of revenue
In 2021, SenseTime continued to maintain its industry-leading R&D investment level, with annual R&D expenditure of RMB3.06 billion, accounting for 65.1% of revenue. According to the financial report, SenseTime will increase its R&D personnel by 1,500 to a total of 4,200 in 2021, accounting for 70% of the total number of employees; by the end of 2021, SenseTime has a total of 11,494 global patent assets, an increase of 96% compared with the end of 2020, of which 78% are invention patents.
According to the "Chinese Intelligent Market Report for the First Half of 2021" released by IDC, SenseTime once again ranked first in China's computer vision application market share.
The development of smart business and smart city business is accelerating
From the perspective of revenue composition, in 2021, senseTime Smart Commercial's revenue increased by 31.8% year-on-year to 1.958 billion yuan, accounting for 41.7% of total revenue.
According to the financial report, SenseTime served 922 customers in 2021, an increase of 8.7% year-on-year, and single-customer revenue increased by 21.3%. Among them, there are more than 200 Fortune 500 companies and listed company customers, covering energy management, industrial manufacturing, infrastructure operation and maintenance, logistics, transportation, park management, retail, finance, telecommunications and many other industries. Typical customers include state grid, China Southern Power Grid, Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail, China Telecom, SoftBank Group, Alibaba Cloud and other industry leaders.
Smart city revenue increased by 56.6% year-on-year to MOP2,143 million, accounting for 45.6% of total revenue. In terms of smart city business, by the end of 2021, a total of 140 cities have deployed City Ark (Urban Digital Management Platform), an increase of 48.9% compared with the end of 2020, including 15 large cities with a population of more than 10 million, such as Shanghai and Shenzhen, as well as 4 overseas cities. With the improvement of the coverage and penetration rate of City Ark in various cities, more urban data and application scenarios are open, and more long-tail applications can be produced and iterated. By the end of 2021, the number of AI models carried by the City Ark increased to 22,425, an increase of 156% compared to the end of 2020.
Increase the smart car business and develop the meta-universe
In addition, the revenue of the smart life segment was 415 million yuan, accounting for 8.8% of the total revenue; the revenue of the smart car segment was 184 million yuan, accounting for 3.9% of the total revenue.
The Smart Life segment mainly serves consumer-facing enterprises, such as mobile phone manufacturers, mobile application and mobile game developers, and medical institutions. It is worth noting that another component of the smart life sector is the SenseMARS Mars mixed reality platform business that empowers the development of the metacosm.
In the first quarter of 2022, SenseTime completed the organizational structure upgrade and established the Intelligent Vehicle Business Group to develop the intelligent automobile business with greater efforts; it also established the Digital Space Business Group, which fully integrates the advantages of AI perception, AR and MR technology, computing power and customer ecology, and is committed to building an industry-leading meta-universe empowerment platform, providing a variety of key technology engines to empower various industries to build a digital space.
Nandu reporter Manningning