Mobvoi Successfully Goes Public and Become the “First Stock of AIGC”

Apr 24, 2024, 15:08pm2024/04/24 15:08:27 Pandaily

Mobvoi Inc. was officially listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with the stock code “2438” on April 24.

This means that Mobvoi has officially become the “first stock of AIGC”, or may also become a pioneering force driving China’s large model industry.

Mobvoi issued a total of 84.568 million shares in this IPO. It is worth noting that during the issuance process, Mobvoi’s Hong Kong public offering received an oversubscription of 117.39 times, setting a record for Hong Kong stocks since 2023 with an issuance size exceeding $40 million and oversubscription of over one hundred times.

In addition, Zhongguancun International Limited and Nanjing Jingkai Juzhi Science and Technology Investment Partnership Enterprise participated in this issuance as cornerstone investors, with a total subscription size of approximately 95 million Hong Kong dollars. Among them, Zhongguancun International Limited is affiliated with the Zhongguancun Development Group. The sole general partner and fund manager of Jingkai Juzhi are Nanjing Xingang Gaotou, the sole limited partner is Nanjing High-tech Park Development Company, and the ultimate beneficiary is the Finance Bureau of the Management Committee of Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone. To some extent, the blessing of these two major local state-owned assets signifies their recognition of Mobvoi’s compliant development and future long-term value.

As at 10:30 am, Mobvoi was trading at HK$3.09 per share with a market capitalization exceeding HK$4.6 billion.

Mobvoi founder and chairman Li Zhifei said in his listing speech: “At the beginning of its establishment, Mobvoi has been driven by the mission of ‘defining the next generation human-machine interaction’. From voice assistants to smart hardware, and now to today’s large models and AIGC, we have always been unwavering in our mission. Crossing a twelve-year industry cycle, we have gradually become a leader in the new AI era. Today is a milestone for us, and tomorrow we are about to embark on a new ‘twelve-year’ journey! ‘Technology followers believe because they see it; technology innovators see it because they believe.’ In the future, we will still hold onto the spirit of startups, continue to practice our faith in technological innovation, and create truly sustainable long-term social value!”

Established in 2012, Mobvoi is an artificial intelligence company with generative AI and voice interaction technology as its core, focusing on providing AIGC solutions, AI enterprise solutions, intelligent devices and accessories, and other AI Copilot solutions.

According to the report from China Insights Consultancy, Mobvoi is one of the few AI companies in Asia with the ability to establish a universal large model, and it is also one of the earliest and highest-revenue AI companies in Asia focusing on AIGC technology.

As early as 2020, Mobvoi had developed the large model “UCLAI” and vertical optimization technology modules, and launched the first AIGC voice platform “Moyin” in the same year. This was also the first commercial application of AIGC technology in China. In 2023, Mobvoi released an upgraded version of the universal large model “Sequence Monkey”, which has natural language processing and generation capabilities, making it a versatile tool for understanding text, generating content, engaging in conversations, performing logical operations. It uses its trained knowledge base to provide information and insights to global content creators, enterprise customers, and consumers.

Besides the general large model ‘Sequence Monkey’ and the AIGC dubbing platform ‘Moyin’, Mobvoi’s AIGC solutions also include a one-stop digital human production platform ‘Weta365’, an enterprise AI interactive digital employee generation platform ‘AI.Weta365’, and the overseas version of ‘Moyin’ called ‘DupDub’.

Since 2020, Mobvoi has more than 10 million AIGC solution users worldwide. The number of paid AIGC users since the launch of the AIGC solution exceeds 865,000, and there have been over a million transactions since the solution was launched.

From the perspective of income composition, from 2021 to 2023, Mobvoi’s revenue from AI software increased from 60 million yuan to 343 million yuan at a compound annual growth rate of 140%, with the corresponding revenue share rising significantly from 15.0% in 2021 to 67.7%.

The revenue of AI software can be further divided into AIGC solution revenue and AI enterprise solution revenue. From 2021 to 2023, Mobvoi’s AIGC solution revenues were respectively RMB6.822 million, RMB39.857 million, and RMB118 million, with a compound annual growth rate exceeding 300%.

From 2021 to 2023, Mobvoi’s gross profit margins were 37.5%, 67.2%, and 64.3% respectively. It is worth mentioning that Mobvoi achieved a turnaround in profitability in 2022, with positive adjusted net profits for both 2022 and 2023. In other words, Mobvoi has become a large-scale company capable of self-sustaining profitability.

From a long-term perspective, Mobvoi has maintained high research and development investment in the past few years. The R&D expenditures from 2021 to 2023 were respectively 92 million yuan, 119 million yuan, and 155 million yuan. As of April 8, 2024, Mobvoi’s R&D team accounted for 54.8% of the total number of employees; as of the same date, Mobvoi had obtained a total of 681 AI-related intellectual properties, including 593 granted AI-related patents and 88 AI software copyrights.

Apart from smart hardware products, Mobvoi’s AIGC products have been globalized since day one. Take the AI dubbing tool “DupDub” as an example. As the overseas version of Moyin, DupDub has more than 130 realistic voices and over 15 editing functions. It supports over 37 languages, providing transcription, subtitle alignment, and download tools for audiovisual creators. It serves more than 40 countries and regions worldwide. Over the past three years, nearly 50% of Mobvoi’s annual revenue has come from its overseas business contributions.

At the recent GTC2024 conference, Mobvoi and NVIDIA announced their collaborative achievements in the field of 3D digital humans, with NVIDIA being Mobvoi’s deep cooperation company in the AIGC field.

According to Mobvoi’s strategic plan, it will further increase its efforts to expand overseas.

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