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In November 2018, the Shanghai Stock Exchange established the Science and Technology Innovation Board (STAR Market); in July 2019, the STAR Market officially opened, with the first 25 companies ringing the bell for listing. At the beginning of the establishment of the STAR Market, it coincided with a time of geopolitical turbulence, and the state assigned significant political missions to the STAR Market. The series of institutional documents regarding the STAR Market also express its positioning with considerable height: facing the world’s technological frontier, the main economic battlefield, and major national needs. As of now, nearly 600 companies have been listed on the STAR Market. Among these nearly 600 companies, we will systematically review the semiconductor listed companies. Today, we will look at this company: SmartSens Technology (688213).
1. Who is SmartSens?
In the context of the domestic substitution wave in the semiconductor industry and the STAR Market’s support for “hard technology” companies, the strategic significance of CMOS image sensor (CIS) chips, which serve as the “eyes” of machines, is becoming increasingly prominent. They are not only core components in trillion-dollar markets such as smartphones, security monitoring, and automotive electronics but also key indicators for measuring a country’s information industry competitiveness. In this critical race, SmartSens Technology Co., Ltd. (stock code: 688213, abbreviated as “SmartSens”) is playing an increasingly important role.
SmartSens was established in 2017 and listed on the STAR Market of the Shanghai Stock Exchange in May 2022. It is a company focused on the research, design, and sales of high-performance CMOS image sensor chips. With its global leading position in the smart security field and rapid breakthroughs in the smartphone and automotive electronics sectors, SmartSens is securing a place in the global CIS market with its outstanding technological innovation capabilities.
2. Development History of SmartSens
1. Startup Phase (2017 – 2019): Deepening Security, Laying the Foundation
From its inception, SmartSens has been led by Dr. Xu Chen, who has over 20 years of research experience in the CIS field, and the core team has precisely targeted the smart security market. With the team’s profound technical accumulation, the company has made breakthroughs in key technologies such as low-light imaging and full-color night vision, quickly launching a series of products that meet the 24-hour operational needs of security monitoring. During this period, SmartSens focused on technological research and product refinement, successfully establishing a foothold in the global security CIS market, laying a solid technical and market foundation for future development.
2. Growth Phase (2020 – 2022): Capital Support, Moving Towards Diversification
As products gained market recognition, SmartSens attracted attention and investment from many well-known industrial capital sources, including the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase II. The influx of capital accelerated the company’s research and development process and market expansion. On May 20, 2022, SmartSens successfully listed on the STAR Market, marking the company’s entry into a new development stage. During this period, the company began to implement a three-pronged development strategy of “smart security + smartphones + automotive electronics,” extending its business reach from the security field to the broader market spaces of smartphones and automotive electronics.
3. Strategic Upgrade Phase (2023 – Present): Blossoming in Multiple Areas, Rapid Growth
Entering 2023, especially in 2024, the effectiveness of SmartSens’s diversification strategy has become evident. Annual report data shows that in 2024, revenue from the smartphone business increased by a staggering 269.05% year-on-year, becoming the strongest engine for the company’s revenue growth. Several high-end 50-megapixel products, applied in flagship smartphones’ main cameras, wide-angle, and telephoto scenarios, achieved large-scale shipments, marking the company’s successful entry into the high-end smartphone supply chain. Meanwhile, the automotive electronics business also maintained a rapid growth rate of 79.09%. The company has formed a favorable situation of collaborative development across three major business segments, entering a new period of comprehensive strategic upgrades and rapid growth.
3. SmartSens’s Business and Products
1. Main Business and Product Matrix
SmartSens’s main business is the research, design, and sales of high-performance CMOS image sensor chips. CMOS image sensors are semiconductor devices that convert optical images into electronic signals and are the core of cameras.
The company’s products have formed a complete matrix covering three major fields: smart security, smartphones, and automotive electronics, and are gradually expanding into emerging fields such as industrial sensing.
(1) Smart Security Field: As the global leader in security CIS market shipments (with a market share of 48.2% in 2023), the company has multiple product series, including Pro Series, AI Series, and SL Series, covering mainstream resolutions from 2M to over 8M. Its unique SmartAOV™2.0 technology meets the needs for 24/7 recording in low-power devices such as smart doorbells and home cameras.
(2) Smartphone Field: This is the company’s fastest-growing business segment. With the global smartphone market, especially the Chinese market, showing signs of recovery, SmartSens seized the market opportunity. The company not only launched high-cost-performance 50-megapixel products for mainstream smartphones but also successfully entered the flagship smartphone main camera, wide-angle, and telephoto lens markets with its XS series high-end products. In 2024, the company ranked fifth in global smartphone CIS market shipments, with a share of 11.2%.
(3) Automotive Electronics Field: With the accelerated penetration of intelligent driving technology (ADAS), the demand for in-vehicle cameras has surged in both quantity and price. SmartSens’s AT series automotive-grade products cover 1MP to 8MP, suitable for imaging, perception, and in-cabin applications, and have achieved mass production in mainstream automakers such as BYD, Geely, Chery, and SAIC. In 2023, the company ranked fourth in the global automotive CIS market and second domestically, becoming a leading player in domestic automotive CIS.
2. Application Fields and Major Clients
The company’s products have been widely applied in terminal products of well-known domestic and international brands such as Hikvision, DJI, Xiaomi, OPPO, VIVO, Samsung Electronics, BYD, and Geely.
4. How Strong is SmartSens’s Listing on the STAR Market?
1. Market Position and Competitive Landscape
The CMOS image sensor market has long been dominated by international giants such as Sony and Samsung. As a representative of domestic CIS, SmartSens has successfully broken through by deeply cultivating niche markets and innovating technologies. It has established an absolute advantage in the security field and has become an undeniable challenger in the automotive and smartphone sectors, serving as a backbone force for domestic substitution.
2. Technological Level and R&D Strength
Technological innovation is SmartSens’s core competitiveness. The company has formed a series of unique core technologies, such as SFCPixel® patented technology, near-infrared sensitivity NIR+ technology, and global shutter technology based on BSI processes, which enable its products to compete with international giants in low-light imaging, high dynamic range (HDR), and high-temperature performance.
5. Conclusion and Outlook
SmartSens possesses a series of core technologies such as SFCPixel® and global shutter, establishing a solid patent barrier. On the business side, SmartSens’s security business provides stable cash flow, the smartphone business ignites growth, and the automotive electronics business opens up long-term imagination space, resulting in a robust structure. Looking ahead, the demand for CIS chips, as the “eyes of machines,” will continue to grow. With its established market position and technological strength, SmartSens is expected to maintain rapid growth in the wave of domestic substitution and industrial upgrading, becoming an important Chinese force in the global CMOS image sensor market.
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