(Yicai) May 27 -- Hesai Group’s loss shrank 84 percent in the first quarter from a year ago, as sales of the Chinese firm’s three-dimensional light detection and ranging sensors more than tripled.

The net loss was CNY17.5 million (USD2.4 million) in the three months ended March 31, according to the Shanghai-based firm’s earnings report released yesterday. Revenue jumped 46 percent to CNY525.3 million (USD73 million), with product sales contributing CNY510.7 million, a 45 percent increase, and income from services more than doubling to CNY14.6 million (USD2 million).

The strong performance was thanks to a huge jump in Lidar sales, which surged 231 percent to 195,818 units. Of that, shipments of Hesai’s Advanced Driver Assistance Systems lidars soared 179 percent to 146,087, while its robotics lidar sales came in at 49,731 units.

“2025 is off to a strong start, and we are ready to build on this momentum,” co-founder and Chief Executive Officer David Li said in a statement to accompany the earnings release.

The Nasdaq-listed company expects revenue to jump 48 percent to 57 percent for this quarter to between CNY680 million and CNY720 million (USD94.5 million to USD100 million).

In pre-market trading in New York today, Hesai’s shares [NASDAQ: HSAI] were trading up 1.5 percent at USD21.76 each as of 7.04 a.m. local time.

The company’s ADAS lidars have been selected for use by 23 original equipment manufacturers across more than 120 vehicle models, including those of Chery Automobile, Great Wall Motor, Zeekr Intelligent Technology Holding and Geely Automobile Holdings, the report said. Li Auto's entire L series uses Hesai's specialized ATL lidar as standard equipment.

And the company's ATX lidar has design wins from 12 OEMs and nearly 40,000 units were shipped in the first quarter as mass production ramps up.

Hesai has secured its first development project with a top-five global Tier 1 supplier in Japan and is pursuing five proof-of-concept programs with four global OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers across Europe and Japan, it said.

The company also supplies lidar to robotaxi fleets such as those run by Baidu Apollo Go, Didi Chuxing Technology, Pony.ai and WeRide. Hesai expanded its robotics partnership to supply 300,000 units of its Lidar JT series over 12 months to a smart home robotics company.

“With a solid foundation in place and accelerating demand across both ADAS and robotics, we are well positioned to maintain growth momentum and remain on track to hit our full-year profitability target, despite a dynamic tariff environment,” said Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fan.

Editor: Kim Taylor