New Stock Spotlight | MOMENTA: Redefining Itself from 'Intelligent Driving Supplier' to 'The First Physical AI Stock'

Momenta (full legal name: Momenta Global Ltd.) was founded in 2016 and specializes in intelligent driving software systems. The company officially launched its IPO today (June 29).

Industry Positioning and Core Business

$MOMENTA-W (06880.HK)$ It does not make chips or complete vehicles,but focuses solely on algorithms and software systems.In the automotive intelligent driving supply chain, its upstream partners include chips such as NVIDIA Orin-X, while downstream it integrates intelligent driving systems for OEMs. Momenta describes itself as the 'first Tier 1 supplier to deliver a full-system intelligent driving software stack,' meaning it provides not just individual modules but an end-to-end software stack covering perception through decision-making and planning.

As of February 2026, Momenta had partnered with 24 global automakers, covering nine of the world's top ten automakers and all ten of China's leading domestic automakers, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, General Motors, BYD, SAIC, and Geely. By the end of 2025, it had secured design wins for 170 vehicle models, with 68 models already in mass production and over 680,000 vehicles equipped with its intelligent driving system. By February 2026, design wins had expanded to 180 models, with vehicle installations surpassing 733,000 units.

Momenta’s business logic can be summarized in one sentence:Earn revenue from mass-produced vehicles today while telling the future story with robotaxis—both sharing the same data flywheel.

The company operates along two business lines.

Mass production vehicle solutions (its primary revenue source), which consist of two sub-businesses

1. Technology Development Services:Customized intelligent driving systems for automakers, billed on a per-project basis. Revenue in 2025 is projected at RMB 1.445 billion, accounting for 59.9% of total revenue;

2. Licensing Services:After vehicle models enter mass production, fees are charged per vehicle equipped with the intelligent driving system. Revenue in 2025 is projected at RMB 968 million, accounting for 40.1%;

There is also a key profit mechanism here:The marginal cost of licensing revenue is nearly zero—development-stage costs have already been amortized, so each additional mass-produced vehicle generates incremental licensing fees, which are almost pure profit. This also explains why gross margin could rise from 17.5% in 2023 to 71.6% in 2025.Over three years, licensing revenue grew from RMB 23 million to RMB 968 million, a 42-fold increase.

Robotaxi Services

Momenta has partnered with Uber, Grab, Easymobility, and Lumo—a premium Robotaxi brand under Mercedes-Benz—to secure commercial operating licenses in Suzhou, Shanghai, and Wuxi in China, and citywide testing permits in Abu Dhabi. It plans to launch commercial services in Dubai, UAE, and Munich, Germany, in 2026.The revenue model is based on sharing a portion of operational ride fares, and this business currently contributes only marginally to total revenue.

On the technology front, Momenta achieves an annual leap in its algorithmic architecture.

2023:First to mass-produce a deep learning-based planning algorithm

2024:World’s first to mass-produce an end-to-end autonomous driving system (earliest among global third-party suppliers)

2025:World’s first to mass-produce the R6 model based on reinforcement learning

April 2026:R7 World Model makes its mass-production debut, integrated into the SAIC Volkswagen ID.ERA 9X

The significance of R7 lies in the fact that it is not merely a driving algorithm, but a foundational model capable of understanding physical laws and reasoning through dynamic scenarios—Momenta leverages this to reinforce its positioning as the 'first physical AI stock' and aims to re-anchor its valuation from a 'smart-driving software company' to a 'physical AI foundation platform.'

competitive landscape

Momenta holds a market share of 64.5%, ranking first globally—higher than the combined shares of companies ranked second through fifth. However, if the scope is expanded to the entire urban NOA market, the landscape shifts dramatically: Huawei Qiankun ADS at 27.9%; Momenta at 13.3%.

This gap indicates that Momenta faces no rivals in the 'third-party lane,' but Huawei remains the biggest variable in the overall market—the chasm between the two measurement frameworks reflects the sheer scale of Huawei's Five Domains model.

Moreover, segmentation by price band is especially pronounced: Horizon Robotics leads in the RMB 100,000–200,000 segment thanks to its chip-scale advantage; Huawei dominates the RMB 200,000–400,000 segment; and Momenta still holds a relative edge in the premium segment above RMB 400,000.

Core competitive barrier

12 billion kilometers of real-world vehicle mileage, 100 million segments of high-quality driving data, an R&D workforce comprising 82% of total employees (over 82% of its 1,157 staff are in R&D, with more than two-thirds holding master’s degrees or higher), and cumulative R&D investment of RMB 4.66 billion over three years.Once a data flywheel achieves scale advantages, the cost and time required for latecomers to catch up rise exponentially, making it extremely difficult to surpass.

Why is Momenta's IPO worth watching?

In the first half of 2026, the Hong Kong IPO market continued its strong momentum, with 84 new listings.Total funds raised exceeded HKD 200 billion; new listings saw an average first-day gain of approximately 60%, with a break-even rate of only 12%—the lowest in five years—and an average oversubscription multiple of 2,628x, 3.8 times that of the same period last year.AI and technology stocks have become the dominant force.

Reason One: Scarcity in the Hong Kong market—there is currently no directly comparable mass-production intelligent driving supplier listed.

WeRide and Pony AI are primarily seen as robotaxi plays, while Horizon Robotics is a vertically integrated provider of chips and algorithms; neither serves as a direct peer to Momenta. Positioned as the 'leader in independent city NOA market share and the largest pure-play software licensor by production scale,' Momenta has no comparable listing in Hong Kong. This scarcity will likely prompt investors seeking exposure to intelligent driving software to pay a premium.

Reason Two: Gross margin has already been validated, and there remains significant room for further growth in the proportion of licensing revenue.

With a gross margin of 71.6%, it exceeds that of many internet companies. More importantly, the structure continues to improve: licensing revenue accounted for 40.1% in 2025, and over 100 vehicle models have already secured定点 but are not yet in mass production—each newly launched model represents pure incremental licensing revenue. China’s urban NOA penetration rate is expected to rise from 11% in 2025 to 62% by 2030, indicating substantial industry growth potential. If the company can maintain its market share, visibility into revenue and gross profit growth is high.

Reason Three: The cornerstone investor lineup carries dual significance—both industrial endorsement and foreign institutional validation.

GIC, Fidelity, BlackRock, Mercedes-Benz, and BYD jointly subscribed for nearly HK$3 billion, accounting for approximately 50% of the global offering. This includes both long-term foreign institutional funds validating the company's quality and strategic backing from industrial capital—Mercedes-Benz and BYD are not only shareholders but also customers, and their participation as cornerstone investors with real capital signals strong confidence in Momenta’s commercial value.

Reason Four: The first-mover window is rare—competitors in the same sector are expected to take at least six more months to go public.

DeepRoute.ai and QCraft are simultaneously queuing for Hong Kong IPOs; given the HKEX’s average IPO timeline, Momenta may remain the only publicly tradable independent mass-production intelligent driving supplier listed in Hong Kong for the next six months. This first-mover advantage helps secure allocation demand from certain investors.

The above content is compiled based on publicly available prospectuses, Post-Hearing Information Packets (PHIP), and public financial documents, with data current as of the article’s writing date (June 29, 2026). It does not constitute any form of investment advice. Investing involves risks; please exercise caution.

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