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Key Takeaways:
Zhongding Intelligent has applied to list in Hong Kong, reporting its revenue grew by nearly 5% last year
The onsite logistics company's revenue is heavily concentrated on few new energy clients, mostly in the lithium-ion battery sector
Ever since its introduction by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to describe AI-powered devices acting autonomously in the physical world, "Physical AI" has been taking on a life of its own. That was especially evident in the onsite logistics realm last year when Figure AI wowed observers with the launch of its Figure 03 robot, which can process 45,000 packages over 30 hours in a logistics facility. Since then, stocks blending logistics operations and robotics have become a new investor darling in their own right.
Riding that wave, Chinese intelligent logistics equipment and system integration provider Zhongding Intelligent (Wuxi) Technology Co. Ltd. submitted its application for a Hong Kong IPO earlier this month.
Founded in 2009, the company initially collaborated with a new energy firm to provide stacker cranes. It was acquired in 2016 by Shanghai-listed Noblelift Co. (603611.SH), which currently holds nearly all of Zhongding's shares with a 99.6% stake.
Logistics spending in China is massive, worth 19.5 trillion yuan ($2.86 trillion) last year, forming a crucial pillar of the economy. The industry is broadly divided into external and onsite logistics, the latter also known as intralogistics. While external logistics primarily covers various transportation modes and supply chains between separate companies and facilities, intralogistics focuses on production lines and inventory systems within individual factory and warehouse walls. Driven by technological advancements, the broader logistics sector is shifting toward high-end, intelligent development to boost efficiency and reduce human error.
Compared to external logistics, intelligent intralogistics has higher technological barriers, covering multiple stages of operations, such as storage, conveying, and sorting, within factories and logistics parks. The global intelligent intralogistics market grew from 379.8 billion yuan in 2021 to 528.6 billion yuan last year, averaging 8.6% annual growth. ...
