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Ouster Lidar sensors at the company’s booth at the CES 2023 trade show in Las Vegas.
David Baker/Getty Images
The market for lidar, a key technology for self-driving cars, is maturing, making it possible for investors to start differentiating companies and their stocks.
Thursday,
Easter Holiday
(bar: OUST) mentioned Adjusted loss in the second quarter of $24 million before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. That was roughly in line with what Wall Street had expected, as well as lidar sales of $19.4 million. Both numbers are roughly in line with Wall Street estimates.
For the current quarter, management expects sales of between $20 million and $22 million, compared to sales of just under $22 million on Wall Street.
Shares fell 1% in after-hours trading shortly after the results were announced. This may be because investor expectations have risen in recent weeks. In terms of earnings, shares are up about 23% over the past three months while stocks are up
Standard & Poor’s 500
And
NASDAQ Composite
It added 8% and 11%, respectively.
Annual comparisons aren’t that meaningful to the company since its merger with lidar producer Velodyne, in February. “It’s the second consecutive record quarter,” said CEO Angus Bakala. Barron. “I am pleased with the momentum achieved with the merger.”
Results look good. Normally, nothing can be written home with reasonable routing, but the numbers are noteworthy in the lidar business.
Lidar is essentially a laser-based radar that can give a car a set of eyes, allowing for advanced driver assistance features. Along with the car market,
Easter Holiday
Sells to industrial, automation and smart infrastructure clients.
Lidar peers
eye
(LIDR) f
Eva Technologies
(AEVA) Both reported revenue in the second quarter of less than $1 million.
Innovice Technologies
(INVZ) reported less than $2 million in sales for the second quarter. For the full year, Wall Street expects these three lidar producers to generate about $25 million in sales, with 64% coming from Innoviz. When the trio was raising money by merging with SPCAs a few years ago, their combined forecast for 2023 sales was $132 million. They were down more than 80%.
It was slower than expected for Oster, too. Analysts expect the company to generate about $83 million in 2023 sales, while in the 2020-2021 timeframe, Velodyne and Outer expects it to generate about $735 million in combined 2023 sales.
They were a long way off too, but $83 million in sales is a lot. Only among startups are in the early stage of lidar
Luminar Technologies (LAZR) is expected to produce more. Wall Street
Projects that will achieve 2023 sales of $85 million.
When Luminar was raising money in 2020, it projected $124 million in 2023 sales.
Luminar shares have been rewarded for their conservative sales and forecasts with a market value of about $2.3 billion. Ouster and Innoviz come in at around $200 million and $315 million, respectively. eva f
eye
It has a market cap of about $230 million and $57 million.
Luminar owns about 74% of the total market capitalization of the group. Luminar and Ouster own about 87% of the total revenue generated by the group. Both companies will try to pressure their peers in the coming quarters.
“There is no rule that everyone has to win,” Bakala says. Not everyone will.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
