Nearly three months after filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Nasen Technology made a critical restructuring of its IPO lineup on July 22, with original overall coordinator CLSA exiting and Haitong International, BOC International, and Essence Securities stepping in to form a new joint sponsor matrix. As a local substitute stock carrying the first-mover advantage of L4-level wire-controlled braking commercialization but deeply mired in consecutive losses, this last-minute change in the sponsor team, added to earlier inquiries from the China Securities Regulatory Commission about financial internal controls, may reflect the company's proactive reset of its roadshow distribution network and regulatory communication strategy under the current tightening scrutiny of Hong Kong IPOs, adding a new layer of uncertainty to its listing path.
Revenue Doubled in Three Years Yet Mired in Non-Cash Losses – Adjusted Profitability Faces a 'Stress Test'?
In its decade of existence, Nasen Technology has completed ten rounds of financing, accumulating approximately 1.294 billion yuan, building a shareholder matrix that includes state capital like BOC Capital and the Advanced Manufacturing Fund, alongside industrial and financial investors such as CATL, Hillhouse Ventures, Qiming Venture Partners, and Matrix Partners China. Its post-D+ round valuation stands at 4.05 billion yuan. As a rare domestic supplier with full-stack in-house capabilities for wire-controlled chassis, its client base covers top OEMs like Changan, Li Auto, and Chery, with its 2024 sales volume of wire-controlled brakes ranking among the top three domestic players, validating its commercialization ability. However, amidst the grand narrative of domestic substitution for the 'execution layer' of intelligent driving, the company still needs to prove to the market its ability to translate technological first-mover advantages into sustainable profitability and positive operating cash flow under high R&D investment intensity and patent blockades from international Tier 1 suppliers like Bosch – this is the core point of contention for the Hong Kong IPO pricing and aftermarket performance.
From a revenue perspective, Nasen Technology shows strong growth. From 2023 to 2025, the company's revenue grew from 272 million yuan to 391 million yuan, and then jumped to 615 million yuan in 2025, achieving a three-year compound annual growth rate of over 50%. This growth aligns with the rapid increase in penetration of wire-controlled brakes in China's new energy vehicles and validates the company's commercialization ability as a core local wire-controlled chassis supplier, driven by volume ramp-up from key clients like Changan, Li Auto, and Chery. However, running parallel to this revenue surge is the company's persistent deep loss. From 2023 to 2025, annual losses were 201 million yuan, 170 million yuan, and 190 million yuan respectively, totaling cumulative losses of about 561 million yuan over three years, a classic case of 'revenue growth without profit growth'.
The improving trend on the gross margin side is worth noting. The company's gross margin rose significantly from just 1.1% in 2023 to 10.7% in 2024, and further recovered to 13.6% in 2025, an improvement of over 12 percentage points. This change suggests that, as production scales up, unit fixed costs are being gradually diluted, and may also reflect progress in the company's supply chain bargaining power and product mix optimization. Looking at the cash and cash equivalents balance, year-end cash reserves increased from 115 million yuan in 2023 to 166 million yuan in 2024, but fell back to 149 million yuan at the end of 2025. Although the absolute amount remains at a certain level, compared to the company's 615 million yuan in revenue and ongoing operating losses, the current cash reserve safety margin is not ample. Additionally, operating cash flow shows significant volatility. In 2023, net cash outflow from operating activities was 88.875 million yuan. In 2024, operating cash flow turned positive to a net inflow of 25.338 million yuan, the only year in the reporting period with positive net operating cash flow, somewhat validating an improvement in supply chain bargaining power as revenue scaled up. However, in 2025, operating cash flow deteriorated sharply to a net outflow of 165 million yuan, forming a stark divergence from the concurrent revenue growth to 615 million yuan.
In summary, Nasen Technology is at a critical stage of transition from a technology validation phase to a volume scaling phase. The sustained improvement in revenue growth and gross margin sends positive signals, but its operational cash generation ability is not yet stable, investment activities continue to consume cash, and its survival is highly dependent on financing inflows. Can the domestic substitution narrative, underpinned by a 9.9% market share, break through the marginalization dilemma and confront the siege of international giants?
Can the 9.9% Market Share Domestic Substitution Narrative Break Through Marginalization and Face the Siege of International Giants?
China's wire-controlled braking track is undergoing a structural shift towards domestic substitution. International Tier 1 suppliers like Bosch and Continental still hold a near-monopoly competitive barrier with a combined market share of over 80%. Nasen Technology, with a 9.9% market share of wire-controlled brake sales in 2024, ranks third among domestic players and second among independent third parties. While it holds a place in the local camp, it remains in a significantly marginalized position in the overall market landscape. A 9.9% market share means the company can currently only participate in competition for about one-tenth of the market, with the remaining over 90% firmly controlled by international giants. The 'domestic substitution' narrative at this scale still has a fundamental gap from a market position with true industry pricing power and influence.
Product structure iteration provides the company with a rhythm for catching up. Revenue from the NBC integrated braking solution jumped from 40 million yuan in 2024 to 301 million yuan in 2025, with its share rising from 10.1% to 49.1%, marking the initial completion of the company's technology migration from a split-type to an integrated solution. However, this transition has benefited considerably from the industry-wide beta tailwind of moving from Two-Box to One-Box solutions. Whether the company possesses alpha competitiveness to outperform the industry average growth rate remains to be verified over a longer time window. More concerning is the traditional NBS revenue, which shrank from 187 million yuan to 119 million yuan over three years, a decline of 36%. The replacement of the core product line represents not incremental addition but more of a substitution effect. The company's overall revenue growth is largely dependent on the ASP increase brought about by product iteration itself, rather than a substantial expansion of the customer base.
Inefficient customer expansion is a deep-seated obstacle to breaking free from the marginalization dilemma. During the reporting period, the total number of customers only increased from 15 to 18, a net addition of just 3 companies over three years. This expansion pace severely mismatches the industry's market expansion rhythm during the same period, where wire-controlled brake penetration rose from less than 10% to over 20%. The company only achieved limited customer growth during a window where the market size doubled, making this expansion efficiency worrying. The revenue contribution from the top five customers remains consistently high at over 94%, with the largest customer's share still at 47.2%. The customer concentration risk has not been diluted by business growth. Although fixed-point projects increased from 51 to 117, considering the typical 12-24 month lead time from fixed-point to mass production in the automotive industry, the revenue conversion pace of these projects is highly uncertain. Any order reduction from core customers could disproportionately impact the company's revenue and cash flow.
In terms of R&D investment and market competition, the company faces a more severe test. As the industry evolves from L2-level driver assistance to L3/L4 high-level autonomous driving, Electro-Mechanical Brakes (EMB), as the next-generation wire-controlled brake technology, are accelerating from lab to front-end application. While the enactment of UN R13-H.02 regulations has cleared compliance hurdles for EMB commercialization, this technology route has attracted intensive deployment from international giants like Bosch and ZF, as well as local competitors like Bethel and Asia-Pacific Corp. There is high uncertainty about whether the company's advantages built on the NBC solution can be smoothly transferred to the next-generation technology platform, and whether it can maintain a technological edge against competitors with stronger financial resources and customer bases. Simultaneously, the vertical integration trend among OEMs is becoming increasingly significant. Major automakers like BYD and Great Wall Motors are accelerating the development of their own in-house wire-controlled braking capabilities. If these core customers achieve self-sufficiency, Nasen Technology could face a substantial contraction in demand.
At a macro level, the penetration rate of wire-controlled brakes rose from 18.6% in 2025 to 22.3% in the first quarter of 2026, meaning the industry's favorable window continues to open. However, seeking a breakthrough from a 9.9% market share base means the company faces not a simple 'share increase' problem, but a need to comprehensively narrow the gap with international giants across multiple dimensions: product reliability, cost competitiveness, capacity delivery, and customer service systems. With a gross margin of 13.6% in 2025, the health of the company's unit economic model is far below that of international peers like Bosch. Under the industry practice of continuous annual price reduction pressure from OEMs, further compression of profit margins is almost a certainty. The grand narrative of domestic substitution cannot replace the reality of competitive challenges. If Nasen Technology cannot achieve a substantial leap in market share, a diversified improvement in customer structure, and a sustained recovery in profitability within the next 2-3 years, its third-place position in the local camp may also face strong challenges from up-and-coming competitors.
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