On March 25, 2022, SenseTime (00020. HK) released its full-year 2021 financial results report, which is also its first financial report after listing. According to the data, SenseTime achieved accelerated growth in full-year performance in 2021, with revenue of RMB4.7 billion, an increase of 36.4% year-on-year, and gross profit margin of 69.7%.
Red Star Capital Bureau noted that in addition to the revenue growth of nearly 40%, SenseTime's adjusted loss was 1.42 billion yuan, which outperformed market expectations and showed a steady growth trend. SenseTime's pre-adjustment loss was $17.2 billion, with non-cash gains and losses of $13.5 billion arising from changes in the fair value of the Company's preferred shares. SenseTime further pointed out that due to the completion of the listing at the end of 2021, there will be no further losses in 2022 and beyond.
In 2021, as the opening year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", the innovative development of the "digital economy" has become an important engine leading high-quality development. The wave of digitalization has swept all walks of life, the digital and intelligent transformation of traditional industries has accelerated, the demand for artificial intelligence technology has continued to emerge, and the artificial intelligence industry has begun to accelerate its development.
In this context, SenseTime continues to rely on the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure (SenseCore) to centralize the mass production of artificial intelligence algorithm models, and realize the rapid deployment and commercialization of artificial intelligence models through software platforms. Throughout the past year, SenseTime has built barriers to competition based on the high-investment SenseCore, and the scale effect has gradually emerged. By the end of 2021, the number of commercial models produced by SenseCore through SenseCore reached 34,000, an increase of 152% year-on-year from the end of 2020, while the R&D manpower efficiency has increased significantly, with the average annual number of models used by a single R&D personnel in 2021 being 5.94, which is 13 times that of 2019.
SenseTime's ARTIFICIAL Intelligence Computing Center AIDDC started operations
As a new artificial intelligence infrastructure built by SenseTime, SenseCore is of great significance in SenseTime's strategy of comprehensively realizing AI cost reduction and efficiency increase and large-scale application.
Deeply in line with the national strategic direction
SenseTime has built a high-quality growth model
In January 2022, the State Council issued the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy. According to the plan, by 2025, the digital economy will move towards a period of comprehensive expansion, and the added value of the core industries of the digital economy will increase to 10% of GDP from 7.8% in 2020. Among them, the main indicators of the development of the digital economy in the "14th Five-Year Plan", such as the penetration rate of industrial Internet platforms, online retail sales, and the number of gigabit broadband users, have significantly improved compared with 2020.
The rapid development of the digital economy and the effective integration with the real economy will become the general trend of future economic development.
As one of the important emerging technologies in the development of the digital economy, artificial intelligence has been more widely valued and applied by various industries. SenseTime's layout in the field of artificial intelligence infrastructure construction and the strategic goal of "AI empowering hundreds of industries" are highly in line with the development direction of the national digital economy strategy and will strongly support the rapid development of China's digital economy.
As a leading artificial intelligence software company in the industry, SenseTime takes the four major business sectors of smart business, smart city, smart life and smart car as the core, and the four major business sectors are in the leading position in the industry in 2021, with surging growth momentum.
Among them, with the accelerated integration of digital technology and the real economy, digital transformation has become a key strategic choice for many enterprises, and has also brought great development to senseTime's smart business sector. Red Star Capital Bureau learned that in 2021, SenseTime's smart business segment achieved strong growth, and the customer base of the sector continued to expand, the number of customers increased to 922, and the revenue of single customers increased by 21.3%. The clients include more than 200 Fortune 500 companies and listed companies, ranking first in the market share of enterprise-level computer vision software in China.
For example, in the intelligent transformation of automotive industry enterprises, SenseTime has launched a Deep Spring Industrial Quality Inspection and Training Platform based on SenseCore, which integrates optical, electromechanical and soft computing. Relying on this platform, Foton Cummins can not only realize the automatic detection of surface defects and assembly defects of key engine components in the assembly workshop of the engine production plant, but also greatly improve the efficiency of quality inspection, and liberate workers from boring and tedious quality inspection work in order to engage in work with a higher level of technology, and ultimately help Foton Cummins improve the overall competitiveness of intelligent manufacturing.
Potential for "virtual-real fusion"
Help Shang Tang open up a broad space for development
In the long run, the market space of the artificial intelligence industry is very broad. According to Frost & Sullivan's report, China's AI software market will achieve an annualized growth rate of 41.5% from 2020 to 2025, and will reach a market size of 167.1 billion yuan in 2025. Thanks to the major investment and layout in the past few years, AI is now in the fast lane of high prosperity, and China's relevant layout in the AI industry chain is also relatively perfect. At present, AI technology presents a large-scale landing trend of multi-industry and multi-scenario, and is constantly moving towards efficiency, industrialization and economy, including the "meta-universe" field that has recently been hotly discussed in the industry.
In fact, bringing people a better "virtual-real integration" life experience is one of SenseTime's long-term strategic goals. For SenseTime, 2021 is also a key year for the company's vision of "virtual-real integration" to continue to land.
For example, at the 2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, SenseTime brought the SenseAuto Robobus-AR self-driving AR minibus that amazed the audience, applying intelligent driving technology and AR cross-border applications, turning the window into a screen, allowing passengers to travel through time and space in the visual wonder of virtual and real integration, and experience the industrial development and intelligent life of the future city.
Red Star Capital Bureau noted that in the curling arena of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the "Curling Motion Trajectory Capture and Reproduction" technology based on senseMARS Mars Mixed Reality Platform realized by SenseMars made a stunning appearance, and the combination of smart viewing technology and giant screen in the curling competition played a very good auxiliary viewing effect. This innovative technology has successfully helped the "Winter Olympics of Science and Technology" move from vision to reality.
"In the future, driven by the core technology SenseCore, SenseTime is expected to achieve multi-scenario large-scale landing." According to the Everbright Securities Disclosure Research Report, it is expected that senseTime's total revenue in 2021-2023 will be 4.68 billion yuan, 6.40 billion yuan and 8.78 billion yuan respectively, an increase of 35.8%, 36.7% and 37.3% year-on-year, respectively. Everbright Securities also said that the follow-up SenseTime is expected to gradually strengthen the production efficiency and scalability of the AI model with the help of AI infrastructure accumulation and accelerate commercialization. At the same time, SenseTime maintains a leading position in the field of computer vision AI, with a certain scarcity and premium space for targets.
Looking forward to the future, with the further acceleration of China's digital economy construction, the demand for artificial intelligence in various industries will be further enhanced, and the technology and application of artificial intelligence will usher in one development window period after another. As a leading enterprise in the AI industry, SenseTime will further open up broad performance growth space through its active layout in the field of artificial intelligence infrastructure construction, industry-leading technology research and development strength, and mature landing in multiple business directions, and become a powerful engine for intelligent transformation and upgrading in all walks of life.
Red Star News reporter Yu Yao Tan Xinchi
Edited by Yu Dongmei
(Download Red Star News, there are prizes for the newspaper!) ）