As the gathering place for "hard technology" in the capital market, the STAR Market has delivered an impressive scorecard in its third-quarter reports: 614 STAR Market companies together achieved operating revenue of 1.51 trillion yuan in the first three quarters, up 41.88% year on year; they realized net profit of 223.52 billion yuan, a sharp increase of 474.56% year on year.
Behind these explosive growth figures is not simply a rebound from a low base, but the result of China's hard-tech industry, after years of high-intensity R&D investment, gradually crossing the "investment phase" of breaking even and entering a phase of profit realization in its main business.
From computing power chips to the entire integrated circuit industrial chain, and then to biomedicine, the STAR Market is using the "progress" of technological self-reliance and self-strengthening to reshape the underlying logic of high-quality development.
The most distinctive feature of the STAR Market's third-quarter reports lies in their extremely high "gold content." In the first three quarters, STAR Market companies' total non-recurring net profit reached 198.059 billion yuan, up 674.17% year on year, a growth rate significantly higher than the overall net profit growth of 474.56%.
The gap of about 200 percentage points means that the profit growth of STAR Market companies came almost entirely from endogenous growth in their main businesses, rather than one-off gains or government subsidies.
Driven jointly by improved industry prosperity, product volume growth, expanded market share, and higher capacity utilization, hard-tech enterprises have truly realized the transition from "being able to make" to "selling well."
Behind the leapfrog growth in performance is the strong pull of leading enterprises. Memory chip leader ChangXin Technology achieved operating revenue of 269.024 billion yuan in the first three quarters, up 738.51% year on year, with net profit attributable to shareholders reaching 132.040 billion yuan, compared with a loss of 5.280 billion yuan in the same period last year, turning losses into profits.
This turnaround is not the luck of short-term price fluctuations, but the inevitable result of completing the evolution from the first-generation to the fifth-generation process platform based on a "generation-skipping R&D" strategy. Its LPDDR6 chip has a peak rate of 12,800 Mbps, and its core process has reached the international advanced level.
At the same time, in the computing power chip segment, Cambricon Technologies achieved revenue of 9.526 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders of 3.715 billion yuan in the first three quarters, with third-quarter performance hitting a new high.
The profit turning point of leading enterprises marks that the industrial logic of domestic hard technology has moved from "expectation-driven" to "financial statement realization."
The sector's prosperity did not fade in the third quarter and showed a trend of marginal acceleration. The 614 companies achieved revenue of 571.823 billion yuan in the third quarter, up 44.76% year on year and 6.27% quarter on quarter; 277 companies saw quarter-on-quarter net profit growth in the third quarter.
AMEC said in a recent survey that in the coming years, through independent development and external mergers and acquisitions, it will cover more than 60% of the high-end integrated circuit equipment market and more than 70% of the advanced packaging equipment market.
ChangXin Technology management also expects that, driven by demand from the rapid development of AI applications, the shortage of DRAM supply in the fourth quarter will continue, and revenue will continue to maintain a growth trend.
These positive signals from the front lines of industry have laid a solid foundation for the STAR Market's full-year performance finish and even next year's profit growth.
Computing power and integrated circuits, as the "base" of the digital economy era, showed a strong industrial chain resonance effect in the STAR Market's third-quarter reports. In addition to SMIC and Hua Hong Semiconductor, STAR Market integrated circuit companies together achieved revenue of 561.908 billion yuan in the first three quarters, up 138% year on year; they realized net profit of 181.076 billion yuan, up 1,474% year on year.
By segment, net profit in chip design, materials, and equipment rose 278%, 161%, and 116% year on year, respectively, in the first three quarters. This shows that the independent controllability of "China's chip" has shifted from technical breakthroughs at single points in the industrial chain to a leap in systematic engineering capability, and an industrial ecosystem in which upstream and downstream advance side by side is taking shape.
On the computing power supply side, the year-on-year revenue growth rates of representative domestic enterprises generally reached triple digits in the first three quarters. Market shares of companies such as Hygon Information, Cambricon Technologies, MetaX, Moore Threads, and Enflame Technology continued to expand, among which revenue growth rates of MetaX, Moore Threads, and Enflame Technology reached 128.45%, 319.15%, and 331.74%, respectively.
Supporting segments benefited in tandem: net profit of Shengyi Electronics in the PCB (printed circuit board) field and Lianxun Instruments in the testing equipment field rose 71.49% and 1,975.60% year on year, respectively.
In the upstream materials and components sector, Nanya New Material's copper-clad laminate products saw both higher volume and prices, with third-quarter net profit up 1,295.94% year on year; Nanjing Tunghsu Photoelectric Technology's optical communication optical components orders increased substantially, with third-quarter net profit growth exceeding 60%.
From computing power chips to supporting hardware, a domestically controlled and efficiently coordinated domestic computing power industrial chain has begun to take shape.
Breakthroughs by leading enterprises in key technology areas have further consolidated the industry's "moat." ChangXin Technology achieved breakthroughs in advanced technologies such as the 4F2 DRAM architecture, and its global market share reached double digits for the first time; Hygon Information and others helped bring into operation China's first fully domestic 100,000-card AI supercluster; AMEC's platformization strategy was fully implemented, with 54 types of high-end equipment developed. As of the end of September, more than 9,300 reaction stations had achieved mass production on more than 220 production lines at home and abroad.
In addition, Skyverse Technology's 2,000th integrated circuit quality control equipment was officially shipped, and Jingzhida delivered its first high-speed testing machine to a key domestic customer. The independent controllability of these equipment and materials is supporting the long-term security and development of China's semiconductor industry.
While hard-tech manufacturing advances triumphantly, the STAR Market's biomedicine industry has also blossomed in multiple areas and entered a concentrated harvest period for R&D investment. In the first three quarters, STAR Market innovative drug companies achieved revenue of 38.176 billion yuan, up 58% year on year; they realized net profit of 9.56 billion yuan, an increase of 11.97 billion yuan year on year.
Net profit of RemeGen, Dizal Pharmaceutical, and Zelgen Biopharmaceutical increased by 5.824 billion yuan, 4.219 billion yuan, and 732 million yuan, respectively, year on year. Nine companies saw revenue double, and 12 companies saw net profit increase by more than 100 million yuan year on year. The commercialization process of innovative drugs is accelerating across the board.
Of landmark significance is that the R&D advantages of STAR Market innovative drug companies are accelerating into global commercial value. In the first three quarters, STAR Market innovative drug companies completed 9 BD (business development) overseas licensing transactions, with a total potential transaction value of about US$12 billion.
Among them, Baili Tianheng has triggered the second milestone payment, with cumulative received funds expected to reach US$1.3 billion. This shift from "bringing in" to "going out" not only verifies the R&D strength of domestic innovative drug companies, but also brings abundant cash flow to enterprises, feeding back into the R&D of subsequent pipelines.
The dense emergence of innovative achievements cannot be separated from policy support and the inclusiveness of the capital market. In the first three quarters, innovative drug companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange pushed 15 Class 1 new drugs to approval for listing; in terms of going overseas, a group of innovative drug companies such as RemeGen completed 12 overseas authorizations, with total potential transaction value exceeding US$30 billion.
From basic research to clinical translation, and then to commercialization and global expansion, STAR Market biomedicine companies are forging a virtuous cycle of high investment and high returns. As more innovative products enter the harvest period, the biomedicine sector is expected to become another important profit growth pole for the STAR Market after integrated circuits.
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