Rising prices and volumes boost performance; AI injects "core" power into semiconductor companies

As of March 25, data from Choice shows that 23 companies in the A-share semiconductor industry (according to the Shenwan industry classification) have disclosed their annual reports for 2025. Among them, 14 companies achieved year-on-year growth in net profit, 3 companies turned losses into profits, and 2 companies reduced their losses. Catalyzed by the explosive demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI, multiple sub-sectors such as computing chips, storage chips, and power semiconductors have reported favorable performance.

Data shows that driven by AI investment demand, global semiconductor sales are expected to reach $791.7 billion in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 25.6%, setting a new historical record. The Chinese market is also performing strongly, with semiconductor sales expected to grow by over 15% year-on-year in 2025.

It can be seen that the semiconductor industry is being strongly driven by the computing power demand brought by artificial intelligence, especially large models, entering a new round of upward and profound transformation cycles.

AI Demand Ignites the “Compute-Storage” Market

Currently, large model AI technologies represented by ChatGPT and DeepSeek require strong computing power support for both training and inference stages. As the complexity of models continues to rise, the corresponding demand for computing power is also increasing, and the intelligent chip market is expected to welcome a completely new incremental demand.

The performance of Cambricon confirms the industry’s growth potential. In 2025, Cambricon achieved operating revenue of 6.497 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 453.21%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 2.059 billion yuan, achieving annual profitability for the first time.

At the same time, technologies such as storage-compute integration, enhancing computing with storage, and substituting computing with storage are receiving increasing attention, leading to an explosive growth in storage demand. In the second half of 2025, overseas cloud service providers are expected to lock in long-term production capacity from storage manufacturers, driving accelerated R&D and production capacity towards the enterprise-level storage market, and the strong demand side has restructured the supply-demand pattern of the storage industry.

In the consumer market, AI PCs and AI smartphones have both entered the stage of large-scale production and shipment, further providing incremental support for storage demand. Looking ahead, local large model operational experiences may become differentiated selling points, and terminal single-machine memory configurations are expected to continue rising, further driving improvements in memory rates and expansions; the domestic storage industry is welcoming significant development opportunities.

Against this backdrop, relevant companies are expected to achieve impressive performance in 2025. Baiwei Storage achieved operating revenue of 11.302 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68.82%; it achieved a net profit attributable to the parent company of 853 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 429.07%. Among them, revenue from emerging AI edge storage products was approximately 1.751 billion yuan, showing significant year-on-year growth.

Demingli achieved operating revenue of 10.789 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 126.07%; it achieved a net profit attributable to the parent company of 688 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 96.35%.

Power Semiconductors Benefit from AI Implementation

The continuous expansion of cloud and edge computing power also brings benefits to power semiconductor manufacturers.

On the server side, when the demand for computing power grows exponentially, the market for server power supply chips is experiencing “explosive” growth. As a result, Chipown achieved operating revenue of 1.143 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 18.47%; it achieved a net profit attributable to the parent company of 186 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 67.34%. Among them, revenue from emerging markets (servers, communications, industrial motors, light storage charging, new energy vehicles) grew by about 50% year-on-year, and revenue from new product categories (DC-DC, Driver, etc.) grew by about 39% year-on-year.

It is reported that Chipown launched 12 core new products for the AI computing energy field in 2025, completing the full-link layout from server primary power, secondary power to tertiary power.

In the consumer electronics sector, the shipment volume of AI terminal devices is seeing a significant increase, driving higher demand in the charging chip market.

For smartphones, IDC predicts that in 2026, the shipment volume of the new generation of AI smartphones in China will reach 147 million units, a year-on-year increase of 31.6%, accounting for 53% of the overall market. In the smart glasses sector, the market is also expected to reach a scaling inflection point in 2026, with global smart glasses shipments expected to exceed 23.687 million units, and shipments in the Chinese market expected to exceed 4.915 million units.

Xinda Technology stated that the company is actively promoting product upgrades and iterations, based on its own mature design modules, innovating to develop a full range of more efficient and intelligent charging chips, protection chips, and other products. In 2025, Xinda Technology achieved operating revenue of 394 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.52%; net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses attributable to the parent company was 68.8864 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.54%.

Materials and Equipment in the Packaging Segment Scale Up

As the demand for technologies such as HPC and AI continues to grow, electronic products are further developing towards miniaturization and multifunctionality. Some chips mentioned above are continuously shrinking in size and increasing in variety, with their physical performance approaching the limits in the post-Moore era, and the economic benefits of advanced process nodes are gradually slowing down.

This has shifted the focus of the semiconductor industry from improving wafer processing nodes to innovations in packaging technology, with advanced packaging technologies like WLCSP (Wafer-Level Chip Scale Packaging) and FCCSP (Flip-Chip Chip Scale Packaging) becoming one of the key paths to extending and surpassing Moore’s Law and improving system performance.

Annual reports from related listed companies show that their performance in 2025 significantly benefited from the scaling-up of materials and equipment in the packaging segment.

Huahai Chengke saw a steady increase in order volume in 2025, driving operating revenue to grow by 38.12% year-on-year, reaching 458 million yuan. Huahai Chengke stated that as advanced packaging technologies continue to advance, the requirements for packaging materials are also increasing, and the advanced packaging materials industry is welcoming new development opportunities, with market capacity increasing year by year and expected to continue growing.

On the equipment side, NAI Equipment had sufficient production orders in 2025, manufacturing a total of 843 sets of various equipment, including 115 sets of semiconductor packaging equipment and molds. In 2025, NAI Equipment achieved operating revenue of 295 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.96%; it achieved a net profit attributable to the parent company of 80.3332 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.49%.