Huaqin’s Platform Expansion in the Age of AI 26.03.2026, 12:20 Uhr von EQS News Jetzt kommentieren: 0

On the evening of March 23, Huaqin Technology Co., Ltd. (“Huaqin” or the “Company”) released a striking 2025 annual performance report.

The Company achieved full-year operating revenue of RMB 171.437 billion, up 56.02% year on year; net profit attributable to parent company shareholders reached RMB 4.054 billion, rising 38.55% year on year; and non-GAAP net profit attributable to parent company shareholders stood at RMB 3.244 billion, up 38.30% year on year. Meanwhile, the Company proposed a cash dividend of RMB 12 per 10 shares.

Against a backdrop of intensifying market competition and volatile raw material costs, the growth of such magnitude from a large-cap player has immediately captured market attention.

Yet focusing solely on these headline figures risks overlooking the truly meaningful takeaways from this annual report.

I. Strategy Enters Realization Phase, Second Growth Engine Accelerates

On top of its already large revenue base, the Company still delivered 56.02% year-on-year growth, pushing annual revenue to RMB 171.437 billion and solidifying its leading position among A-share listed firms. More importantly, Huaqin’s management provided an anchor-setting medium-to-long-term guidance at the performance briefing. The Company expects 2026 revenue to exceed RMB 200 billion and clearly targets RMB 300 billion in total revenue by 2028–2029 under its "3+N+3" structure.

Relative to its current RMB 170 billion scale, this target implies the Company will sustain mid-teens growth over the next 3–4 years, rather than entering the steady-state phase typical of traditional manufacturing.

The sustained robust growth stems not from a passive recovery driven by a single sector rebound, but from the combined effects of expanding platform capabilities, upgraded customer structure, and mass shipment of multiple product lines.

Specifically, the growth curve built around the "3+N+3" strategy — three mature business ecosystems (smartphones, laptops, data centers) plus three strategic new businesses (auto electronics, robotics, software) — has evolved from blueprint to tangible financial results, demonstrating diversified and high-value-added growth traits.

1. Diversified Growth Drivers

Traditional ODM players usually rely heavily on the prosperity of a single category, especially the smartphone cycle. However, Huaqin’s 2025 growth showed clear diversification. The revenue of its basic mobile terminal business increased by 57.17% year-on-year, while the revenue of its computing and data business (PC + data center) increased by 51.93% year-on-year. The more impressive innovative business (mainly covering automotive electronics, robotics, etc.) achieved a year-on-year growth of 121.00%, with a revenue scale of RMB 3.48 billion.

2. Business Mix Shifts Toward Higher Value

While mobile terminals remain the largest revenue contributor, the computing & data business — centered on data centers — now accounts for 44% of total revenue, becoming a second pillar nearly on par with mobile terminals.

According to the annual report, the Company’s data center business saw sharp growth in shipments across all product lines, and it maintained a leading market share in AI servers. China Post Securities noted that Huaqin has become a core supplier to the top three global CSP (communication service providers) customers.

This means the Company’s business portfolio is gaining higher value mix and strategic industry position: it has shifted from a pure consumer electronics player to a dual-engine growth model driven by consumer electronics + computing infrastructure, positioning itself in the high-certainty, high-growth computing infrastructure sector that underpins the digital future.

3.New Businesses Gain Meaningful Scale & Contribution

The annual report explicitly defines robotics as a key second growth curve.

The innovative business segment — robotics, auto electronics and software — posted the fastest growth among the Company’s four divisions at 121.00% year on year in 2025. Auto electronics revenue exceeded RMB 1 billion in 2025, with a target of RMB 10 billion in revenue over the next 3–5 years. Software business began contributing meaningful revenue and profit. Data collection robots entered mass production and delivery; nearly 1 million units of home cleaning robots were shipped in 2025, with a doubling of shipments expected in 2026.

Notably, the Company’s operating cash flow (OCF) improved markedly in the second half of 2025. After a net outflow of RMB 1.522 billion in H1, the full-year net outflow narrowed sharply to RMB 223 million, implying a net inflow of approximately RMB 1.299 billion in H2 — a decisive reversal from the first half.

This signal suggests that upfront capital expenditures (CAPEX) on procurement and inventory for business expansion has started translating into effective cash collections from customers and healthy operational quality, indicating the Company is entering a harvest phase of sustained free cash flow generation.

II. Platform Capabilities Extend Outward, Tech-driven Competitive Advantage Reshapes Business Logic

For a long time, limited market perception of ODM firms to their manufacturing capabilities: supply chain management, cost control, mass production, project delivery — all important, and all part of Huaqin’s foundational competitiveness.

Yet viewing Huaqin merely as a hardware assembler or contract manufacturer can no longer explain its simultaneous expansion across vastly different product categories, nor its stronger positioning than many traditional ODMs in the AI hardware wave.

The core logic lies in long-term invested technical capabilities moving from a back-office support system to the forefront, translating into significant commercial leverage.

Unlike traditional manufacturing ODMs, Huaqin is a hardware company with strong software capabilities — rooted in its founding team’s software background and sustained investments in AI software, visual recognition and related fields. In the AI era, on-device inference and multimodal interaction have become mainstream; underlying software and system optimization directly define a hardware product’s performance ceiling and user experience. This software-hardware integration capability forms Huaqin’s core competitive differentiation.

As this capability extends outward, it rapidly builds competitive barriers in new sectors.

In terms of data center business, Huaqin is one of the few industry players with full-stack design capabilities across computing nodes, network nodes and liquid cooling. It leads in core technologies such as whole-machine architecture, high-speed interconnectivity and liquid cooling. Meanwhile, it has built an open and compatible ecosystem fully supporting mainstream global GPUs (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel) and domestic computing platforms.

Management disclosed at the performance briefing that data center revenue is projected to grow 30%–50% in 2026, with AI servers accounting for over 70% of the mix. Switch revenue is set to double again, and “hyper-node products will enter mass production and delivery in H2 2026”.

Moreover, backed by technical accumulation from its large consumer electronics hardware platform, strong computing support from AI PCs and servers, and massive test data and application scenarios from its global manufacturing footprint, Huaqin has advanced rapidly in robotics.

During the reporting period, the Company established an independent robotics subsidiary Yiren Intelligent Robotics and assembled a dedicated R&D team, aiming to become a leading full-stack robotic solutions provider for the 3C manufacturing sector.

With rich global manufacturing scenarios and data reserves, the Company is currently focused on industrial wheeled robots that boost production efficiency. It delivered data collection robots at scale in 2025 and expanded customer coverage in home cleaning robots. Management noted that cleaning robot shipments reached the 1-million-unit level, with doubling growth expected in 2026. The Company is also developing humanoid robots: it completed debugging of its first self-developed biped robot and plans a second generation based on NVIDIA’s Thor platform.

Additionally, Huaqin provides mass manufacturing services to multiple robotics firms, expanding capacity and delivery capabilities to refine its robotics ecosystem.

In intelligent driving business, Huaqin has built full-stack automotive-grade R&D capabilities covering hardware, software, HMI and testing, alongside a specialized and large-scale automotive-grade manufacturing center. It has achieved key breakthroughs and mass delivery across core product lines including intelligent cabin, ADAS, body domain and display systems, and forged deep partnerships with numerous traditional automakers, new energy vehicle makers and overseas clients.

Management expects this business to double again in 2026, targeting RMB 10 billion in revenue and profitability over the next 3–5 years.

In AI hardware business, the Company offers comprehensive coverage of high-growth edge AI device categories: AI phones, AI PCs, smart wearables and XR devices.

Across data centers, robotics, auto electronics and AI hardware, a clear path emerges: Huaqin is not entering unrelated new industries — it is repeatedly deploying the same core capability system.

This may well be the real reason Huaqin can keep expanding its business scope amid the current AI wave.