Recently, a couple from Shenzhen has become a hot topic online, trending on social media. Amid the AI wave, some gain fame through models, others turn their fortunes around with computing power, but you might not expect that a Shenzhen couple's early stockpiling of the right chips has led to a paper wealth surge of 32 billion yuan in just five months.
The protagonists of this story are Li Hu and his wife, Tian Hua. The company they co-founded, Demingli, is a storage module manufacturer headquartered in Shenzhen. Founder Li Hu, 51 this year, co-founded the business with his wife Tian Hua, building it into a storage chip giant. Li Hu himself holds a 35.01% stake in Demingli. Since the beginning of this year, in just five months, his paper wealth has skyrocketed by over 32 billion yuan.
Demingli Technology Co., Ltd., based in Shenzhen, was established in November 2008. It is a national high-tech enterprise, a council member of the Design Branch of the China Semiconductor Industry Association, and a member of the Shenzhen Semiconductor Industry Association. The company specializes in integrated circuit design, research and development, and industrial application. Its main business focuses on chip design, R&D, the development and optimization of module product application solutions, and the sales of module products.
According to reports, Li Hu entered the industry in 2000, spending eight years in sales primarily selling flash memory controller chips and storage products. His wife, Tian Hua, previously served as a marketing director at an IT company in Shenzhen, familiar with product application scenarios, and currently serves as a director at Demingli. When they first started their business, the storage chip technology barrier was high, and the market was almost monopolized by international giants. They initially entered the field by acting as agents for overseas storage chips and selling flash memory modules, accumulating cash flow and customer resources while quietly researching controller chip technology, surviving in the cracks between giants.
Through diligent management, Demingli went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2022 and promptly acquired the UD Store brand, quickly entering the embedded storage field. Currently, the couple has capitalized on the AI wave, providing products such as solid-state drives and memory modules for servers and data centers.
On May 11, Demingli's Chairman Li Hu led an earnings conference, stating directly that "industry sentiment is high, and the supply-demand situation is tight. We have the capability to maintain stable and positive performance." That day, Demingli's stock price rose approximately 7%, coming within a step of a 150 billion yuan market capitalization.
This Shenzhen-based storage module manufacturer reported a staggering profit of 3.346 billion yuan from January to March this year, more than double the total profit of the past ten years combined. In the same period last year, it was still struggling with losses, but now it has soared.
In April this year, Li Hu led a meeting with over 30 investment institutions, detailing the reasons for the performance growth—high sentiment in the storage industry, and the team's early preparation, with "forward-looking layouts in enterprise, embedded, and domestic substitution directions." Products are in short supply, and prices have been soaring. By the end of March, the company's inventory balance reached 12.19 billion yuan, a 72.7% increase from the end of the previous year, accounting for as much as 66.3% of total assets.
"Enterprise business is accelerating its expansion, and we will deepen cooperation with clients such as internet companies and server manufacturers," Li Hu stated frankly at the earnings meeting. He added that the revenue scale of the enterprise storage business continues to climb, and subsequent plans include separately disclosing operational data for this segment.
Comments