Inventory Levels on the Rise, Focus on New Product Iterations
发布时间:2026-03-17 来源:华泰证券
Cambricon’s 2025 revenue/attributable net profit(NP)were RMB6,497/2,059mn(+453%/turning positive YoY),broadly in line with our prior forecasts(RMB6.50/2.05bn).For 4Q25,revenue/attributable NP were RMB1,890/455mn(+91/+67%YoY,+9/-20%QoQ).During 4Q25,the company’s products maintained stable shipments to internet clients,driving both YoY and QoQ revenue growth,while the gross margin was broadly flat at 54.81%(+0.57pp QoQ).However,owing to increased bonus accruals and higher engineering expenses,R&D spending increased significantly(+69%QoQ),leading to asequential decline in profit.With the continued deepening of AI model applications,we think that token usage has reached aclear acceleration inflection point.We are optimistic about the rapid growth in domestic AI chip procurement demand and the rising share of domestic sourcing.As the company remains firmly positioned in the first tier of domestic AI chip providers,we expect it to be akey beneficiary.Maintain BUY.
2025 review:rapid profit release;inventory continues rising
By segment,in 2025 Cambricon’s cloud product line/edge product line generated revenues of RMB6,477/3mn(+455.3/-48.1%YoY).We attribute the significant YoY growth in the cloud product line mainly to the strong performance of the company’s products in major AI scenarios such as large-model training and inference,intelligent vision,speech processing,and recommendation systems,which enabled large-scale deployments across key industries including internet companies and telecom operators.In terms of profitability,the company’s gross margin for 2025 was 55.15%(-0.14pp YoY),remaining broadly stable.With operating leverage taking effect,profits expanded rapidly.On the supply chain side,as of end-2025,advances to suppliers had reached RMB745mn(+RMB55mn vs end-3Q25),while inventory was RMB4,944mn(+RMB1,215mn vs end-3Q25).Since 2025,the company’s inventory level has increased quarter by quarter,with supply capability steadily improving.
2026 outlook:agent deployment to boost compute demand
At the beginning of 2026,domestic large-model applications further deepened,with accelerated commercialization of AI agents.According to OpenRouter data,token usage of Chinese models reached 4.12tn for 9-15 February,surpassing that of US models during the same period for the first time,and further increased to 5.16tn during 16-22 February.The rapid growth in token usage of domestic models may drive strong demand growth for inference-side computing power.Coupled with overseas export restrictions on high-end computing chips,domestic AI chip substitution is likely in our view to accelerate further in 2026.Cambricon maintains ahigh level of R&D investment,continuing to advance iterations in intelligent processor microarchitecture,instruction sets,and foundational software platforms to facilitate the rollout of next-generation products.We remain optimistic that,leveraging its leading advantages in supply assurance capability,product iteration speed,and precise product definition,the company could fully benefit from the rapidly rising demand for domestic AI chips among customers such as internet companies.
Earnings forecasts and valuation
We are positive on the accelerated development of the domestic AI industry and the company’s strategic positioning.We forecast 2026/2027/2028 revenue at RMB16.9/40.8/53.0bn(+160/+142/+30%YoY),with attributable NP of RMB5,963/17,537/22,555mn(+190/+194/+29%YoY).Considering the company’s domestic leadership in AI chip product definition,supply capability,and product iteration speed,we maintain our target valuation at 40x 2027E PE(compared with its peers’median of 33x on Wind consensus),for our target price of RMB1,663.60(previous:RMB1,679.4).BUY.
Risks:the Entity List posing supply-chain risks;slower product iterations than we expect;stiffer industry competition.