China’s LiDAR manufacturer RoboSense reported on Wednesday its first-ever profitable quarter in the final three months of 2025, posting net income of 103.7 million yuan — equivalent to $15.0 million.
The first profitable quarter since the 2014 inception was largely due to robotics LiDAR shipments skyrocketing more than twenty five fold, and as the Shenzhen-based company completed a full transition from analog to digital architecture.
A year ago, the LiDAR supplier of BYD, Rivian, Zeekr, and dozens of other carmakers had posted a net loss of 131.1 million yuan — equivalent to $19.0 million.
Revenue for the period climbed 46.1% year-on-year to 750.7 million yuan, while gross margin expanded to 28.5% from 22.1% a year earlier.
For the full year, RoboSense narrowed its net loss to 145.0 million yuan from 481.8 million yuan in 2024, though annual revenue growth of 17.7% to 1.94 billion yuan was tempered by an ADAS revenue decline that the company offset with explosive robotics growth.
Robotics Drive Growth
The quarter’s standout figure was robotics and general robotics LiDAR shipments.
The segment delivered approximately 221,200 units in Q4 alone, a 2,565% increase from just 8,300 units a year earlier and a 523% jump quarter-on-quarter.
Revenue from LiDAR products for robotics reached 346.7 million yuan in Q4, up 427.5% year-on-year, making it the primary driver of quarterly growth for the first time.
For the full year, robotics product revenue surged 257.7% to 709.8 million yuan from 198.5 million yuan, driven by 303,000 units sold versus only 24,400 units in 2024.
Revenue from robotics accounted for roughly 39% of total product revenue in 2025, up from 13% in 2024.
The surge was powered by RoboSense’s newer digital products — E1R and Airy Lite — which entered large-scale mass production in the final quarter of 2025, targeting lawn mower robotics manufacturers, unmanned delivery vehicle operators, and embodied robotics companies.
RoboSense said it now supplies more than 90% of China’s leading unmanned delivery vehicle makers, with customers including Neolix, JD, Meituan, and Cainiao.
In the embodied robotics segment, the company disclosed partnerships with nearly 50 customers, including AgiBot, Unitree, and EngineAI.
ADAS
The ADAS business presented a more complex picture as the average selling price (ASP) continued to drop in the final quarter of 2025.
LiDAR shipments for ADAS applications rose 17.2% for the full year to approximately 609,000 units and climbed 54.8% in Q4 to 238,400 units.
But revenue from ADAS products declined 17.2% annually to 1.11 billion yuan as average selling prices fell sharply — to approximately 1,800 yuan per unit from 2,600 yuan in 2024, and to about 1,500 yuan ($218) in Q4 alone.
The drop in ASP reflected a product mix shift toward the lower-priced MX and EM series digital LiDARs, according to the company.
RoboSense’s digital EMX, featuring 192 laser-beam channels and a 300-meter detection range, has become what management described as the mainstream industry configuration for L2+ driving.
The higher-end EM4, with more than 500 laser-beam channels, targets L3 applications and entered mass production in Q4.
Built on RoboSense’s proprietary SPAD-SoC and VCSEL chips, the EM4 is a platform product supporting customizable configurations of 520, 720, 1,080, and 2,160 channels — a range RoboSense claims no other supplier can mass-produce.
The 520-channel version has already reached series production on IM Motors’ LS9 and LS6 and the Zeekr 9X, while higher-channel variants target Robotaxi operators and premium flagship models pursuing L3 and above.
IM Motors is a Chinese brand under SAIC Motors, while the recently delisted Zeekr is a premium carmaker under the Geely Holding Group conglomerate.
Despite the revenue headwind, ADAS gross margins improved to 19.1% for the full year from 13.4% in 2024, and to 22.0% in Q4 from 16.3% a year earlier.
Margin Expansion and Cost Structure
Overall gross profit rose 81.3% for the year to 514.2 million yuan ($74.6 million), with gross margin expanding 9.3 percentage points to 26.5%. In Q4, gross margin hit 28.5%, up 6.4 points year on year.
The margin improvement came from both segments.
Robotics products delivered a 39.7% gross margin for the year, up from 34.5%, while ADAS margins rose to 19.1% from 13.4%.
The company cited three structural drivers: the shift to digital architecture, in-house semiconductor chip adoption, and production scale benefits.
34 OEMs
RoboSense disclosed 163 vehicle model design wins from 34 automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers as of December 31, 2025, with 57 models having reached start of production across 16 partners.
The figure has since risen to 167 models. Of those, 33 design wins came from overseas OEMs and Sino-foreign joint venture OEMs covering Japan, North America, and Europe.
In Q4, the company added three new major customers: one of the top-selling new energy vehicle companies, a leading global manufacturer of SUVs and trucks, and a leading extended-range new energy vehicle OEM.
The company continued to not disclose Rivian by name, instead describing one of its design win customers as “a leading global manufacturer of SUVs and trucks.”
EV previously confirmed RoboSense as Rivian’s undisclosed LiDAR supplier for the upcoming R2 and future models.
The company said it now holds more than 70% of the LiDAR supply market share in Sino-foreign joint venture vehicles, citing data from Shujubang.com.
In the Robotaxi segment, RoboSense claimed cooperation with more than 90% of the world’s core Robotaxi and Robotruck operators, naming Baidu Apollo Go, DiDi Autonomous Driving, WeRide, and Pony.ai among its customers.
Overseas revenue grew more than 90% year-on-year in 2025.
The company secured design wins from 14 overseas and Sino-foreign joint venture OEMs, including projects with Japan’s top three automakers and exclusive wins from North American OEMs.
LiDAR’s Falling Cost
The sharp decline in RoboSense’s ADAS average selling price — from approximately 2,600 yuan ($377) in 2024 to 1,500 yuan ($218) in Q4 2025 — provides concrete evidence behind claims by automaker executives that LiDAR costs have plummeted.
Rivian founder and Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe addressed the economics directly during the company’s second-quarter 2025 earnings call in August last year.
“LiDAR, radars, these things are not as expensive as they once were,” Scaringe said, describing the company’s strategy of feeding raw data from multiple sensors — including cameras, radar, and LiDAR — directly into AI models through what Rivian calls ‘early sensor fusion.’
“It allows us to build a much richer understanding of what the vehicle sees at the early stage… and it’s accretive, meaning if the sensors get better, you don’t throw away the model as we once did,” Scaringe said.
In separate interviews last year, Scaringe was more specific.
“The cost of LiDAR used to be tens of thousands of dollars. It’s now low, a couple of hundred bucks,” he told Business Insider in October. “It’s a really great sensor that can do things that cameras can’t.”
Rivian‘s VP of Autonomy and AI James Philbin, hired in 2022 to lead the company’s self-driving efforts, called the decision to add LiDAR a “no-brainer,” telling Business Insider the sensor had significantly reduced in cost and was safety-critical for autonomy.
Geely Auto Group VP Li Chuanhai put the cost curve in starker terms earlier this year, saying the price of a single automotive LiDAR unit in China had plunged from about 30,000 yuan ($4,350) to around 1,000 yuan ($145).
RoboSense’s Q4 ADAS ASP of roughly 1,500 yuan stood between those figures, reflecting both the lower cost of digital architecture and the mix shift toward smaller, lower-channel products like the EMX.
The blended average understates the cost of higher-end units — RoboSense’s EM4 platform, which supports configurations from 520 to 2,160 channels, commands a premium for its more capable variants.
Rivian has not disclosed any specifications for the LiDAR unit selected for its Gen 3 autonomy platform, making it impossible to match it to a specific RoboSense product or price point.
R2 to Debut RoboSense’s LiDAR
The first R2 units expected to be delivered this spring — first to internal customers and to external customers by late June — will ship with Gen 2 autonomy hardware. That means cameras and radar only, no LiDAR, and no next-generation Rivian silicon at launch.
The LiDAR-equipped variant arrives later.
Rivian plans to introduce its third-generation autonomy platform on R2 models starting in late 2026, featuring a total sensor stack of 11 cameras, five radars, and one front-facing long-range LiDAR sensor.
Philbin said every LiDAR-equipped R2 sold would become a “ground-truthing vehicle,” providing continuous training data for the company’s self-driving models.
At the core of the Gen 3 platform sits the Rivian Autonomy Processor, the company’s first in-house chip unveiled in the final weeks of 2025.
The 5nm processor can handle 5 billion pixels per second and delivers 1,600 TOPS of processing power when integrated into the autonomy compute module.
Scaringe said the chip “enables a dramatic expansion of Rivian‘s autonomy capabilities” when he unveiled it at the company’s inaugural AI and Autonomy Day in December.
Customer Concentration Risk
RoboSense’s revenue concentration improved but remained elevated.
Two customers accounted for more than 10% of 2025 revenue — Customer A at 517.5 million yuan and Customer B at 331.8 million yuan.
In 2024, five customers had exceeded the 10% threshold, with Customer A at 571.9 million yuan.
The loss of a major OEM and a Tier 1 supplier in Q1 2025, disclosed but not named, forced the strategic pivot toward robotics and broader customer diversification.
Management framed the disruption as a catalyst for the company’s structural transformation.
2026 Outlook
RoboSense guided for continued strong growth across both ADAS and robotics, targeting balanced revenue contribution from the two segments.
The company disclosed annual production capacity of 4 million LiDAR units, a figure it said would sufficiently match ramp-up needs across both business lines.
Management positioned semiconductor chip development as the next competitive battleground, pledging continued investment in proprietary chip capabilities.
The company also signaled its intent to push LiDAR into consumer markets beyond automotive and industrial robotics — without providing further details on which products it plans to debut its LiDAR.
