On the evening of October 29, Lianxun Instruments disclosed its third-quarter report. Revenue for the first three quarters reached 4.043 billion yuan, up 401.91% year-on-year, while net profit attributable to shareholders reached 2.006 billion yuan, up 1,975.60% year-on-year. Third-quarter revenue alone was 2.512 billion yuan, with net profit attributable to shareholders of 1.439 billion yuan, accounting for 62.13% and 71.73% of the first three quarters respectively. The third-quarter net profit margin thus reached 57.29%, notably higher than the approximately 37.04% level in the first half.
As high-speed optical communication products upgrade from 800G to 1.6T, test equipment is transforming from a supporting tool in optical module production into a critical link affecting product development and mass production efficiency.
Optical Module Speeds Double, Test Equipment Must Upgrade First
Within and between data centers, high-speed optical modules handle data transmission tasks. As AI training and inference clusters expand, communication bandwidth demand rises, driving optical modules to evolve from 400G and 800G toward 1.6T.
Higher speeds do not merely mean larger transmission capacity for optical modules. Faster signals impose new testing requirements on eye diagram quality, clock recovery, and bit error rate. Manufacturers need to use sampling oscilloscopes, bit error analyzers, and other equipment to verify whether products meet corresponding performance standards. If the bandwidth and precision of test equipment cannot keep pace with product upgrades, optical modules, even after completing design, will struggle to efficiently complete R&D validation and mass production testing.
Therefore, optical module speed iteration not only increases demand for test equipment procurement but also creates a market for higher-performance instruments. According to an announcement disclosed by Lianxun Instruments on October 23, sampling oscilloscopes, bit error analyzers, and clock recovery units for 800G and 1.6T optical modules have become the company's main delivery products this year. The company claims to be the world's second manufacturer to launch a complete set of core test instruments for 1.6T optical modules. This positioning still requires independent verification, but judging from operating data, the products are no longer停留在 laboratory validation stage and have begun to generate sizable sales revenue. In the first half, high-value-added products such as the company's 65GHz sampling oscilloscope continued to ramp up, with comprehensive gross margin reaching 70.79%, higher than the 58.84% level for the full year of 2025. Compared with manufacturing enterprises that rely on scale production to dilute costs, the value of high-end test instruments depends more on measurement precision, core components, and software algorithms. When customers purchase equipment, they are essentially buying reliable measurement capability for high-speed signals. This is an important distinction between test instruments and ordinary production equipment. Whether equipment can meet next-generation technical standards directly affects product development and manufacturing efficiency, and also affects whether suppliers can secure higher value-added orders.
Order Growth Has Begun to Reflect in Customer Prepayments
As of the end of September, Lianxun Instruments' contract liabilities reached 924 million yuan, compared with only 161 million yuan at the beginning of the year. Contract liabilities typically mainly reflect payments already received from customers but delivery obligations not yet fulfilled. Customers' willingness to pay funds in advance, to a certain extent, indicates that market demand for the company's products and delivery arrangements are undergoing changes. However, contract liabilities cannot be directly equated with all orders on hand, nor can they be simply understood as profit that can all be newly recognized in the future.
During the same period, Lianxun Instruments' inventory reached 1.779 billion yuan, an increase of approximately 255.00% from the beginning of the year, corresponding to growing demand for high-speed test instruments and expanded delivery preparation. More noteworthy is the cash flow performance. In the first three quarters, the company's net cash inflow from operating activities was 1.521 billion yuan, equivalent to 75.82% of net profit attributable to shareholders for the same period. In the process of rapid revenue expansion, the company still achieved a relatively large-scale operating cash inflow. From revenue recognition to order stocking, and then to operating cash flow, the three data points together show that Lianxun Instruments' performance growth this time has genuine commercial transaction support and does not rely solely on non-recurring gains.
Opportunities May Be Hidden in Optical Chip Testing
Lianxun Instruments' current main growth driver comes from high-speed optical communications, but its business layout has already extended into the optical chip manufacturing segment. The company's semi-annual report shows that its products cover multiple segments including optical chip burn-in testing, known good die sorting, and silicon photonics wafer testing. This layout is related to the development direction of next-generation optical interconnect technology.
Traditional pluggable optical modules mainly complete testing at the discrete device and module stages. As technologies such as silicon photonics and co-packaged optics advance, some testing demand will further move into wafer, bare die, and optoelectronic hybrid integration stages. The migration of test objects toward the front end means equipment suppliers have the opportunity to expand from optical module manufacturers to the optical chip and advanced packaging industry chain. Especially in co-packaged optics technology, where the degree of integration between optical devices and computing chips increases, higher requirements are placed on device testing and good die screening. For Lianxun Instruments, this means future market space no longer depends entirely on how many additional test instruments are added to standalone optical module production lines, but may also come from new procurement in chip-level testing and optoelectronic hybrid testing segments.
However, the degree of commercialization varies across products. High-speed communication instruments that have already achieved scale supply and next-generation test systems still in R&D or customer validation stages cannot adopt the same revenue expectations. The expansion of technology routes provides incremental opportunities, but performance realization still depends on customer validation and subsequent batch procurement.
From Catching Up with Product Standards to Participating in Next-Generation Technology Optimization
Lianxun Instruments' R&D investment in the first three quarters was 399 million yuan, up 99.15% year-on-year, accounting for 9.88% of operating revenue. The company is developing next-generation sampling oscilloscopes to meet eye diagram testing requirements for 2.4T and 3.2T optical modules. The self-developed sample-and-hold chip supporting this performance has completed tape-out and is planned for sample verification in the second half of the year. The sample-and-hold chip is an important core component of high-performance sampling oscilloscopes, and its performance affects equipment measurement capability. For domestic test instrument manufacturers, independent R&D of core components helps improve product iteration autonomy and reduce dependence on external key component supply.
This also provides a different perspective for observing domestic substitution. In the past, the market usually focused on whether domestic equipment could replace mature overseas products. Now, as high-speed optical communication technology continues to upgrade, equipment manufacturers face not only replacing old products but also striving to enter customer R&D and procurement systems during the formation and application of new-generation technical standards. The difference between these two business logics is very clear. The former mainly tests whether product performance and price are sufficient to replace existing suppliers, while the latter also requires equipment manufacturers to continuously follow customers' next-generation technology routes and promptly complete product development, validation, and delivery.
Lianxun Instruments' semi-annual report also shows that the company has carried out R&D and validation in the memory chip testing equipment field, including high-speed memory chip testing systems and HBM chip sorting and testing systems. These businesses currently cannot be directly compared with the revenue scale of optical communication test instruments, but they help judge whether the company can replicate its established capabilities in high-speed signal testing, precision measurement, and automation into more semiconductor application areas. For the high-speed test instrument industry, technological iteration is creating new market entry opportunities for domestic suppliers.
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