On the evening of February 27, 2026, three leading domestic GPU companies—Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited, Moore Threads, and MetaX—released their 2025 performance forecasts. All three firms demonstrated impressive growth, though each had distinct highlights.
Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited successfully turned a profit, MetaX significantly narrowed its losses, and Moore Threads reported high revenue growth.
However, despite these strong results, the market reaction was negative. Following the announcements, the stock prices of all three companies, which had previously been on an upward trend, declined. By March 4, the share prices of Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited, Moore Threads, and MetaX had fallen by 5.17%, 8.11%, and 5.06%, respectively, since the release dates.
The reason appears to be that while the performance was robust, it did not fully meet market expectations. Investors, like strict parents expecting a perfect score, viewed the near-perfect results with new concerns.
Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited has repeatedly lowered its forecasts, with production capacity likely being a key constraint. The company also faced a situation where quarterly revenue increased without a corresponding rise in profit, raising questions about its profitability potential.
As the most established of the three, Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited gained early client recognition, with major internet firms like Alibaba and ByteDance driving revenue to 6.5 billion yuan, far exceeding its peers. However, earlier analyst expectations were even higher. In October 2025, following third-quarter results, many brokerages projected revenue above 6.7 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders exceeding 2.2 billion yuan, with Guosheng Securities forecasting revenue of 8.522 billion yuan and net profit of 2.912 billion yuan.
On January 30, 2026, Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited issued a performance forecast, guiding revenue between 6.0 and 7.0 billion yuan and net profit between 1.85 and 2.15 billion yuan. Its stock fell in subsequent sessions, dropping 9.18% on February 3 alone. Brokerages subsequently revised their estimates; by early February, Guosheng Securities expected revenue of 6.368 billion yuan and net profit of 2.062 billion yuan.
The official performance report on February 27 confirmed revenue of 6.497 billion yuan and net profit of 2.059 billion yuan. The stock opened lower but recovered on the first trading day, then fell 4.94% on the second day. Guohai Securities later adjusted its 2026–2027 forecasts upward but lowered its PE and PB valuation multiples, suggesting a market reassessment of Cambricon's long-term growth and profitability.
Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited is now fulfilling large-scale orders, indicating its technology's performance and stability are proven. However, production capacity has become a critical variable. In August 2025, rumors that SMIC would allocate a monthly capacity of 2,000 wafers to Cambricon—potentially adding over 20 billion yuan in revenue and billions in profit—sparked a rapid stock surge. The rally faded after the company denied the rumors and provided specific guidance, highlighting market consensus that capacity limits Cambricon's revenue ceiling. Its repeated downward revisions reflect uncertainty in securing sufficient production resources.
A quarterly breakdown shows declining profitability. In 2025, revenue for the four quarters was 1.111 billion yuan, 1.769 billion yuan, 1.727 billion yuan, and 1.890 billion yuan, with net profit at 355 million yuan, 683 million yuan, 567 million yuan, and 454 million yuan, respectively. Profit declined for two consecutive quarters, with the latest quarter showing higher revenue but lower profit. While seasonal factors and revenue recognition timing may influence quarterly results, the persistent decline has raised concerns.
According to Wind data, Cambricon Technologies Corporation Limited's gross margin fell from 69.16% in 2023 to 56.71% in 2024 and 55.29% for the first three quarters of 2025. Some analysts suggest that as more GPU companies complete IPOs and secure funding, validated products and supply chains could lead to scaled competition and potential price wars, which may further pressure margins. Whether Cambricon can maintain its net profit margin around 30% remains uncertain.
In contrast to Cambricon's scale-driven approach, Moore Threads and MetaX are in earlier stages of R&D conversion, seeking breakthroughs through diverse development and scenario adaptation to secure large orders.
In 2025, Moore Threads focused on adapting its flagship product, the MTT S5000 AI training and inference GPU, achieving compatibility with domestic large models like GLM-5, MiniMax M2.5, Kimi K2.5, and Qwen3.5. Its full-function GPU strategy also includes graphics capabilities, enabling diversified layouts across data centers, consumer products, automotive, and embodied AI.
MetaX continues to focus on GPGPU for AI, targeting large enterprise and government projects with a concentrated resource strategy.
Despite different technical and business approaches, both face similar financial challenges. First, high R&D spending: over the past three years and three quarters, Moore Threads and MetaX incurred R&D expenses of 4.67 billion yuan and 2.943 billion yuan, respectively, 3 times and 1.5 times their revenues. Second, neither can yet compete with Cambricon for large orders, and secondary market demand remains fragmented, limiting volume growth. Consequently, their 2025 revenue growth lagged Cambricon's, with revenue sizes only a quarter of Cambricon's.
Notably, however, Moore Threads and MetaX have market capitalizations of 262.7 billion yuan and 203.5 billion yuan, about half of Cambricon's 471.1 billion yuan. This implies their price-to-sales ratios are roughly double that of Cambricon, possibly reflecting higher growth expectations for these younger companies or sentiment-driven investment, warranting investor caution.
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