Cambrian, earned 2.1 billion

On March 12, Cambricon released its 2025 annual report, delivering the most impressive results since its listing: total revenue of 6.5 billion yuan, a year-over-year increase of 453.2%; net profit attributable to shareholders of 2.06 billion yuan, turning losses into profits. This is Cambricon’s first full-year profit since its listing on the STAR Market in 2020. Previously, the company had accumulated net losses of 3.82 billion yuan over five years and was once called the “AI chip’s biggest loss-maker” by the market. Why did profits grow so rapidly? The main reason is the scale effect driven by revenue explosion. Over the past year, global demand for large model training and inference surged. Cambricon successfully entered multiple industries such as telecom operators, finance, and internet with its SyuYuan series cloud AI chips. During the reporting period, revenue from Cambricon’s cloud product line reached 6.48 billion yuan, a year-over-year increase of 455.3%, accounting for 99.7% of total revenue. The overall gross margin remained high at 55.2%, roughly the same as the previous year, indicating that product pricing power and cost control were not diluted despite rapid revenue growth. Financially and in terms of investment, Cambricon remains stable. Its cash and cash equivalents are 1.32 billion yuan, with trading financial assets of 4.26 billion yuan, totaling 5.58 billion yuan in cash assets, providing ample safety margins. R&D investment reached 1.17 billion yuan, up 9.0% year-over-year, with R&D expense ratio decreasing from 91.3% to 18.0%. Currently, the company has 887 R&D personnel, accounting for 80% of total employees, with 81% holding master’s degrees or higher, indicating a high talent density within the domestic semiconductor industry. Shareholder returns also saw a breakthrough. Cambricon implemented its first cash dividend, distributing 15 yuan per 10 shares, totaling 630 million yuan, accounting for 30.7% of net profit; simultaneously, it issued 4.9 new shares for every 10 shares held, rewarding investors with real value. Aside from these impressive achievements, two major long-term risks remain. First, the business is highly concentrated. Revenue from edge products was only 0.03 billion yuan, down 48.1% year-over-year; IP licensing and software revenue was 0.02 billion yuan, with growth but a small scale. This indicates that Cambricon’s terminal and edge-side deployment is nearly stagnant, heavily relying on a single cloud data center business. Compared to NVIDIA, which derives about 80% of its revenue from data centers and has diversified into gaming, automotive, and other sectors to buffer risks, Cambricon’s “single-legged” model faces higher risks during industry cycle fluctuations. Second, customer and supplier concentration is high. The top five customers contributed 5.76 billion yuan, accounting for 88.7% of total sales, with four being new customers. This shows market expansion capability is improving but also raises concerns about customer stickiness. The top supplier accounted for 4.2 billion yuan, or 55.3% of total procurement, with over half of capacity tied to a single supplier, meaning supply chain fluctuations could directly impact production and delivery. In the short term, domestic AI computing center construction remains at a peak, providing sufficient growth momentum for Cambricon. Long-term, the company still faces competition from NVIDIA’s mature ecosystem. As more players enter the AI chip race, whether Cambricon can maintain its market share while sustaining high gross margins is the key concern. As of the close on March 13, Cambricon’s stock price slightly decreased by 0.3%, with a total market value of 462.21 billion yuan and a trailing twelve-month P/E ratio of 224.5 times. (Planning: Lei Jing, Charting: Li Yuhui)