** Brokerage J.P. Morgan sees strong market growth for lidar
makers over this decade as companies race to develop fully
autonomous vehicles and upgrade technology
** Brokerage highlights light detection and ranging (lidar),
a detection system which uses laser pulses, is key to achieving
fully autonomous driving; expects total addressable market for
lidars to reach $110 bln by 2030
** Expects a large part of the growth to occur from 2025
onwards as vehicle makers move to achieve increased levels of
autonomy
** Brokerage starts coverage of Innoviz Technologies
INVZ.O and Luminar Technologies LAZR.O with "overweight"
rating; expects Luminar to exit 2030 with the strongest revenue
among peers including Velodyne Lidar VLDR.O and Cepton Inc
CPTN.O
** Brokerage views Velodyne as likely to lag behind peers in
terms of revenue, sees the company, which is a top supplier of
lidars for industrials, facing challenges in the automotive
market; starts coverage with "underweight" rating
** JPM initiates coverage on Cepton with a "neutral" rating
given doubts about sustainability of growth
** Up to the last close, VLDR and CPTN have fallen nearly
76% and 82% respectively so far this year; LAZR down 46% while
INVZ has lost 12.6%
(Reporting by Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru)
((Amruta.Khandekar@thomsonreuters.com;))