China’s Semiconductor Sector
Sees Strong Profit Surge in 2025 on AI Boom and Self-Reliance Push
Domestic A-share companies in the sector
are forecast to achieve substantial growth in their 2025 results, according to
Donghai Securities
·
China’s semiconductor companies recorded strong profit growth in 2025,
driven by rapid AI
infrastructure expansion and Beijing’s push for technological self-reliance.
·
According to Donghai
Securities, domestic A-share semiconductor firms are expected
to post substantial
full-year growth in their 2025 results.
AI Chips and GPU Makers:
·
Cambricon Technologies reported a net profit of 2.2 billion yuan,
marking its first
profitable year, supported by rising AI computing demand.
·
Moore Threads Technology narrowed losses by up
to 41% to 1 billion yuan, while
revenue surged 247%,
driven by demand for its flagship GPU.
·
MetaX Integrated Circuits reduced losses by up
to 54%,
citing progress in building an independent and compatible software ecosystem.
Investor Focus and Niche Chipmakers:
·
Investors increasingly focused on integrated circuits, semiconductor
equipment and storage stocks amid the AI boom.
·
Great Microwave Technology projected a 642% year-on-year profit jump
to 145 million yuan,
driven by demand from satellite communications and defence sectors.
Memory and Storage Chip Gains:
·
AI-driven demand pushed the global memory market into a “super cycle”, according
to Bank of America.
·
Biwin Storage Technology forecast a 520% surge in profit to 1 billion yuan.
·
China Micro Semicon (CMS) and GigaDevice Semiconductor expected
profit growth of 108%
and 46%,
respectively.
·
CMS announced price
hikes of at least 15% on some products due to industry-wide
supply shortages.
Global Context:
·
The memory chip crunch also boosted global players, with Samsung Electronics’ net profit rising
13% and revenue doubling in 2025.
Chipmaking Equipment Suppliers:
·
Despite restrictions on importing ASML’s EUV lithography machines,
Chinese equipment makers posted strong results.
·
Circuit Fabology Microelectronics
Equipment reported up to an 84%
rise in profit, citing global AI demand.
·
Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC) estimated profit
growth of up to 35%,
with rising shipments of high-end etching equipment for logic and memory chips.
EDA Software and Self-Reliance:
·
Primarius Technologies, a leading Chinese EDA
software provider, returned to profitability in 2025 with an estimated 36 million
yuan
gain.
·
Growth followed earlier US restrictions on top global EDA
vendors, reinforcing the strategic importance of domestic alternatives.
Outlook and Strategic Implications:
·
Analysts see China’s semiconductor gains as evidence of
progress in reducing
reliance on foreign technology, despite ongoing trade
restrictions.
·
The AI boom, supply constraints and policy support are
expected to keep the sector on
a strong growth trajectory, even as challenges in advanced
chipmaking persist.
Enterprises
across China’s semiconductor industry recorded hefty profit growth last year, according
to their unaudited financial results, driven by the country’s artificial
intelligence infrastructure buildout and Beijing’s push for tech self-reliance.
Graphics
processing unit (GPU) designer Cambricon Technologies
on Friday reported a net profit of 2.2 billion yuan (US$316 million) in 2025, its
first profitable year, on the back of “the continuous rise in computing power demand
within the AI industry”, according to its Shanghai Stock Exchange filing.
Other
GPU designers, also viewed as alternative AI chip suppliers to Nvidia, managed to
narrow their losses in 2025.
Moore
Threads Technology, which listed in Shanghai last month, reported that its losses
narrowed by up to 41 per cent to 1 billion yuan, while revenue rose as much as 247
per cent on the back of demand for its flagship GPU, the MTT S5000. The Beijing-based
company claimed that its AI chip had “reached market-leading levels in terms of
performance”.
MetaX Integrated Circuits, which started
trading in Shanghai in December, narrowed its loss by up to 54 per cent to 798 million
yuan in 2025. The GPU developer partly attributed its progress to creating “a software
ecosystem that is both compatible with mainstream ecosystems and independently controlled”.
“Benefiting
from the AI boom, domestic A-share companies in related sectors are projected to
achieve substantial growth in full-year 2025 performance”, a Donghai Securities
research note said.
That
assessment reflected investors’ sharpened focus on stocks related to integrated
circuits, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and storage solutions.
Hangzhou-based
Great Microwave Technology – a developer of radio frequency chips and other components
for China’s satellite communications and defence sectors – expected as much as a
642 per cent year-on-year increase in profit to 145 million yuan (US$21 million)
in 2025 on the back of strong “demand from customers in the specialised integrated
circuitry industry”, the company said in a Wednesday filing to the Shanghai
Stock Exchange.
With
AI demand driving the global memory chip segment into what Bank of America has called
a “super cycle similar to the boom of the 1990s”, Chinese storage developers recorded
strong gains on price increases amid a supply crunch across the industry.
Shanghai-listed
Biwin Storage Technology projected up to a 520 per cent
surge in its 2025 net profit to 1 billion yuan. China Micro Semicon
(CMS) and GigaDevice Semiconductor said they expected
profit growth of 108 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively.
Earlier
this week, CMS announced on social media that prices on certain products, including
flash memory, would rise at least 15 per cent owing to “industry-wide chip supply
shortages and rising costs”.
The
global memory chip crunch had already bolstered the results of major suppliers.
Samsung Electronics, for example, reported a 13 per cent jump in net profit to 44
trillion won (US$30.7 billion), as its 2025 revenue doubled to 334 trillion won
from a year earlier.
While
China remains barred from importing ASML’s extreme ultraviolet lithography machines
to build cutting-edge chips, domestic suppliers of less-advanced chipmaking equipment
continued to prosper last year.
A
proponent of so-called direct-write lithography technology, Circuit Fabology Microelectronics Equipment reported as high as an 84
per cent jump in 2025 net profit to 295 million yuan. Based in Hefei, the capital
of eastern Anhui province, the company attributed that gain partly to a “global
surge in AI computing power”.
State-backed
Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment estimated that its profit rose up to 35 per
cent to 2.2 billion yuan in 2025, as revenue grew 37 per cent to 12.4 billion yuan.
The
Shanghai-based manufacturer’s etching equipment, which selectively removes material
from a silicon wafer to create microscopic circuit patterns, said its machines “continued
to gain recognition from an increasing number of customers both domestically and
internationally”.
It
said shipments of high-end products for advanced logic and memory chips “saw a significant
increase”, without providing details.
Meanwhile,
ASML chief financial officer Roger Dassen on Thursday said China’s share of the
company’s global sales, which fell 33 per cent last year, was expected to drop
to around 20 per cent in 2026 amid trade restrictions.
Primarius Technologies, one of China’s leading suppliers
of electronic design automation (EDA) software, said 2025 saw its return to profitability
for the first time since 2022, with an estimated gain of 36 million yuan.
That
followed a brief period last year when the world’s top EDA vendors – Cadence
Design Systems, Synopsys and Siemens EDA – were banned by the US government from
sales and services in China.
“Although
the regulatory restrictions were relaxed in mid-June 2025 against the backdrop of
global supply chain restructuring and intensifying competition in the semiconductor
industry, domestic EDA alternatives represent not only a core strategic choice for
safeguarding national industrial chain security, but also for overcoming critical
technological bottlenecks,” a Guosheng Securities report
said.