IPO Foresight | Hairou Innovation: A pioneer in warehousing ACR solutions, can cross the profit inflection point with a market share of 32.8%?

Warehouse picking is the most labor-intensive part of the warehouse. Against the backdrop of the gradual decline in the demographic dividend, the demand for machines to replace labor continues to be released. As a next-generation flexible automation solution, ACR box-type storage robots are continuing to accelerate the commercialization process of the industry.

On September 13, Shenzhen Hairou Innovation Intelligent Technology Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Hairou Innovation”) submitted another listing application to the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The co-sponsors are Goldman Sachs and CITIC Securities. The company first submitted a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on February 13, 2026. As the pioneer of ACR solutions, Hairou Innovation has established a leading position in the global industry, but while the business is expanding rapidly, the company has yet to achieve profits. The superposition circuit is still in the early stages of development, and the growth process is still accompanied by multiple uncertainties.

The pioneer of ACR solutions for warehousing, covering more than 40 countries and regions

According to the prospectus, Hairou Innovation was founded in 2016, focusing on the automated warehouse selection circuit. Picking is also the most labor-intensive and time-consuming part of the warehousing scene. According to Insight Consulting data, in 2025, according to revenue and shipment statistics, Hairou Innovation is the world's largest ACR solution provider, with a market share of 32.8%.

According to the Zhitong Finance App, automated warehouse picking solutions are mainly divided into three categories: AS/RS, AMR, and ACR. AS/RS is a traditional heavy-duty three-dimensional warehouse, which has a high initial investment and is difficult to transform; AMR carries the entire set of shelves to the station and relies on manual picking; ACR relies on sensors and algorithms to directly grab the containers and deliver them to the workstation. The storage layer is larger, the space utilization rate is higher, the deployment is flexible, the initial investment is lower, and the payback period can be as short as 12 months.

Hairou Innovation has created a complete ACR product matrix. In 2017, the company launched the first ACR solution, HaiPick System 1, which lays the foundation for the product line; HaiPick System 2 takes into account tray movement and container selection to accommodate multi-shaped special-shaped parts; HaiPick System3 relies on hook picking technology to complete container handling in a dense storage layout, further improving storage density.

In 2025, the company launched HaiPick Climb, the world's first single-sided climbing ACR solution for large-scale commercial use. It is suitable for both newly built and remodeled warehouses, and supports a maximum storage height of 15 meters. The company also launched an integrated electronics manufacturing warehouse solution, which can enable collaborative operation of various types of equipment such as ACR and latent robots, and is equipped with HaiQ scheduling management software.

In terms of business model, Hairou innovates “integrated solution using hardware+software+deployment operation and maintenance services”. The revenue is divided into one-time revenue from initial project deployment and continuous revenue from later expansion and maintenance; sales implement a strategy where direct sales are combined with channel partners, and the channel model plays a prominent role in overseas markets. For the six months ending June 30, 2026, channel partners have contributed 58.6% of revenue.

The company's business has expanded to more than 40 countries and regions around the world, and overseas markets have become an important growth engine. The share of revenue from markets outside the mainland increased to 50.2% in the first half of 2026. Up to the same period, the company has served more than 900 direct and channel customers, covering various vertical fields such as clothing fashion, e-commerce retail, third-party logistics, pharmaceuticals, 3C electronics, automobiles, etc., and the customer repurchase rate has reached 89%.

The scale of the business is expanding rapidly, and losses have not been reversed

As the world's largest ACR solution provider, Hairou's innovative business scale has grown rapidly in recent years. The company's revenue for 2023-2025 was 807 million yuan (RMB, same below), 1,360 million yuan, and 2,017 billion yuan, respectively. Revenue for the first half of 2026 was 1,118 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 70.2%. The company's order volume increased at the same time, reaching 2,947 billion yuan for the full year of 2025, and 2.353 billion yuan in the first half of 2026.

In terms of profitability, with the increase in the share of overseas high-margin business, product standardization and the release of 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 is based on high investment. The company's continuous net loss during the reporting period: losses for 2023-2025 were RMB 1,009 million, RMB 1,256 million, and RMB 828 million respectively; loss for the first half of 2026 was RMB 431 million.

Losses come from many sources. On the one hand, sales and market expenses remained high in order to expand domestic and foreign markets; on the other hand, continuous technology iteration was carried out. R&D expenses in 2023-2025 were 309 million yuan, 334 million yuan, and 385 million yuan respectively. Although R&D's share of revenue showed a downward trend, the scale of investment remained high. In addition, it also includes non-operating and financing losses such as interest on preferred stock redemption debts and changes in the fair value of derivative liabilities. When referring to non-IFRS standards, the adjusted net loss ratio 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, the cash flow from Hairou's innovative operating activities continued to be negative, with a cumulative net outflow of 1,072 billion yuan. The company stated in its prospectus that due to continuous investment in core technology research and development and expansion of the product matrix, compounding the increase in sales and marketing expenses brought about by the expansion of overseas markets, and at the same time, business expansion will raise working capital requirements. It is expected that net losses will continue throughout 2026, and operating cash outflows may expand further.

The ACR track is rapidly expanding, and there are still multiple tests to achieve growth

Judging from the business logic, the expansion of scale combined with the increase in the share of overseas high-margin business is the core gripper for Hairou's innovation to profit. After the 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 share of high-margin overseas business continues to rise, and the combined sales and R&D expenses rate gradually decline as revenue increases, the company is expected to gradually move towards break-even.

In order to further expand its business scale, Hairou Innovation plans to use the capital raised from the listing to invest in four major directions: technology research and development to iteratively upgrade ACR solutions; expand global manufacturing capacity and enhance supply chain resilience; expand the global business and service network; and expand the talent team, with the remaining portion used for working capital.

The company's pace of expansion is supported by a booming racetrack. According to Insight Consulting data, commercialization of ACR solutions only began to take shape in 2017, and the industry is still in the early stages of market penetration. In 2025, the global market for ACR solutions was 6.1 billion yuan. Driven by growing downstream demand for high-throughput, high-density storage scenarios, the market is expected to grow to 86 billion yuan 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, and ACR's penetration rate in this market is expected to increase from 3.2% in 2025 to 21.5% in 2030.

The rapid growth of the industry is mainly driven by two core drivers: global labor costs continue to rise, enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, and demand for intelligent warehousing upgrades is prominent; at the same time, e-commerce and manufacturing with multiple SKUs and fragmented orders have become mainstream, and traditional storage equipment is poor adaptability, insufficient flexibility, and efficient and flexible ACR solutions have become the preferred choice for industry upgrading.

While the racetrack is booming and expanding, uncertainty about the development of the industry still exists objectively. Warehouse automation transformation is an enterprise capital expenditure. Industry demand is clearly affected by the macro-cycle. Downstream customers may reduce or delay intelligent investment when the economy is under pressure; in addition, the booming circuit continues to attract new players, and future industry competition will intensify, price competition may disrupt the company's profit recovery pace.

Overall, with its product strength and global layout, Hairou Innovation has established a leading position on the global ACR circuit. Its commercialization capabilities have been verified, with high revenue growth, continuous recovery in gross margin, and outstanding customer stickiness. At this stage, the company is still in the expansion investment period and has not yet achieved profit. Relying on the industry's high growth space and the support of this fundraising, the company's future scale expansion and profit recovery logic 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's competitive landscape.