On the evening of January 30, Zhongji Innolight Co.,Ltd. (SZ 300308, share price: 649.00 yuan, market cap: 721.1 billion yuan), often referred to as "Shandong's top company by market value," released a blockbuster 2025 performance forecast that sent the market into a frenzy: it expects to achieve a full-year net profit attributable to shareholders of 9.8 billion to 11.8 billion yuan, representing a staggering year-on-year increase of 89.50% to 128.17%.
This remarkable performance growth not only validates the robust global demand for computing power infrastructure but also further solidifies Zhongji Innolight's dominant position in the worldwide optical module market.
However, the performance forecast also revealed significant financial headwinds facing the company: a 270 million yuan loss from currency exchange due to the continued depreciation of the US dollar, over 100 million yuan in asset impairment provisions, and share-based incentive expenses are collectively acting as "invisible drains" on its profits.
Notably, as Zhongji Innolight approaches a critical juncture in its pursuit of a dual listing on both the A-share and H-share markets ("A+H"), this report card serves as both fuel for investor euphoria and a potential litmus test for examining the financial resilience of high-tech manufacturing firms.
In 2025, a year marked by the rapid iteration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and large language model technologies, the optical module industry—the essential "blood vessels" for data transmission in computing—emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries of this technological wave.
The performance forecast indicates that, before deducting share-based incentive expenses, Zhongji Innolight's optical module business is expected to achieve a consolidated net profit of approximately 10.8 billion to 13.1 billion yuan in 2025, a massive increase of 90.81% to 131.44% compared to the 2024 fiscal year.
The explosive growth in demand is the core driver behind this performance surge. The company's announcement explicitly states that during the reporting period, it benefited from strong capital expenditure by end customers on computing infrastructure, leading to rapid growth in product shipments.
This trend was already evident in the company's third-quarter report for 2025, which showed revenue surpassing 25 billion yuan for the first three quarters, a year-on-year increase of over 44%. From an industry perspective, major overseas customers have consistently raised their capital expenditure guidance, not only increasing plans for AI data center construction but also specifying clear demand for optical modules for 2025-2026.
In investor relations activities at the end of October 2025, Zhongji Innolight revealed that, from a product standpoint, demand for 800G orders has been continuously released since the first quarter of 2025, with shipment volumes maintaining quarter-on-quarter growth, while the proportion of silicon photonics products and production yields have also been steadily improving. Consequently, the company's revenue and gross profit have maintained healthy sequential growth over the past few quarters, and 800G shipments are expected to continue growing. In the third quarter of 2025, key customers began deploying 1.6T products and steadily increased orders; 1.6T shipment volumes are anticipated to grow steadily in the coming quarters, with other major customers expected to begin large-scale deployment of 1.6T between 2026 and 2027.
"Rising volumes and prices" coupled with "structural optimization" are key factors behind the improvement in profit quality. The performance forecast mentions that during the reporting period, benefiting from strong end-customer investment in computing infrastructure, the company's product shipments grew rapidly, with the proportion of high-speed optical modules continuing to increase. Furthermore, continuous optimization of product solutions and improved operational efficiency contributed significantly to the growth in both revenue and net profit compared to the same period last year.
Despite the flourishing core business, as a highly internationalized technology manufacturing company in a phase of rapid expansion, Zhongji Innolight also encountered complex financial headwinds in 2025.
The performance forecast detailed three main factors that collectively had a negative impact exceeding 600 million yuan on the net profit attributable to shareholders.
Due to Zhongji Innolight's significant overseas business, which is primarily settled in US dollars, exchange losses arising from the continued depreciation of the dollar during the reporting period directly reduced net profit attributable to shareholders by approximately 270 million yuan. This aligns with the surge in financial expenses mentioned in the Q3 2025 report, where financial expenses skyrocketed by 496.06% year-on-year for the first nine months, primarily due to increased exchange losses.
Additionally, behind the high growth performance, and adhering to the principle of prudence, Zhongji Innolight recognized inventory impairment provisions for potentially obsolete stock at its subsidiaries and recognized credit impairment losses for accounts receivable estimated to be at risk of bad debt. These two items together reduced net profit attributable to shareholders by approximately 113 million yuan.
According to the Q3 2025 report data, as of the end of September 2025, Zhongji Innolight's inventory balance had climbed to 11.216 billion yuan, an increase of 52.64% since the start of the year, mainly due to preparatory production and materials stockpiling to meet delivery schedules for high-end optical module orders. While this substantial inventory level ensures delivery capability, it also increases the exposure to inventory devaluation risks.
Simultaneously, to retain core technical talent, the company implemented restricted stock incentive plans and an employee stock ownership plan. The share-based payment expenses recognized during the reporting period reduced net profit attributable to shareholders by approximately 223 million yuan.
However, impressive performance on the investment front helped recoup some of these losses. The performance forecast shows that during the reporting period, recognized investment income and fair value change gains contributed a positive impact of approximately 296 million yuan to net profit attributable to shareholders. These gains primarily stemmed from investment income recognized using the equity method from associates and fair value changes in other equity investments. For instance, in the Q3 2025 report, the company's long-term equity investments increased by 50.09% since the start of the year, mainly due to increased external equity investments and recognized investment income.
Currently, Zhongji Innolight is in a critical preparation period for its "A+H" listing, with plans to issue shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to enhance its overseas financing capabilities and advance its internationalization strategy. Against the backdrop of a substantially higher profit forecast for 2025, a key focus for the next phase of this 700-billion-yuan market cap giant will be how it leverages capital market strength to mitigate risks associated with currency fluctuations and capacity expansion.
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