Tiangong Co Ltd (920068), a leading player in the titanium alloy sector, has reached a turning point in its performance.
On the evening of October 29, the company released its Q3 2026 report, showing revenue of 372 million yuan and non-GAAP net profit attributable to shareholders of 29.4162 million yuan for the first three quarters.
Although both metrics still declined compared with the same period in 2025, a closer look at individual quarters reveals a clear reversal trend.
Revenue for the first three quarters of 2026 was 104 million yuan, 126 million yuan and 143 million yuan respectively, while non-GAAP net profit attributable to shareholders was -275,500 yuan, 10.253 million yuan and 19.4387 million yuan.
Both revenue and net profit have shown obvious sequential growth since the second quarter.
More importantly, the third quarter was not merely a sequential recovery but a genuine resonance of both year-on-year and sequential growth.
Unlike the declines in the first and second quarters, third-quarter revenue rose 13.04% sequentially and jumped 74.43% year on year, while non-GAAP net profit climbed 89.60% sequentially and soared 10,962.76% year on year.
The simultaneous strength in both dimensions means the company's earnings repair has shifted from a rebound trend to a strong improvement.
Behind this change is the direct catalyst of Apple's first foldable iPhone Duo stocking pace.
Although the model's official pre-order date was October 16, supply chain stocking typically begins a quarter earlier, and the company's better-than-expected third-quarter performance corresponds to the tangible landing of this front-loaded demand on the supply chain side.
The simultaneous repair in gross margin further corroborates this logic.
From the first quarter to the third quarter of 2026, gross margin was 7.03%, 16.07% and 22.60% respectively, accelerating upward quarter by quarter.
The single-quarter gross margin of 22.60% in the third quarter was precisely due to the impact of gradually recovering consumer electronics orders.
This means the delivery share of high-value-added titanium wire products is substantially recovering, rather than a price-cutting push of low-margin categories.
The clear improvement in profit structure is a more meaningful signal than revenue growth itself.
Looking at multiple dimensions including the titanium content of the iPhone Duo, expected sales volume and the industry trend it drives, the strong third-quarter financial report may only be a new starting point for the company's return to growth.
According to Apple's official disclosure, the iPhone Duo uses titanium in three places: first, the body frame and middle frame, made of grade 5 titanium, which serves as the main load-bearing skeleton; second, the hinge shield, the first large structural component on an Apple phone made with 3D printing; and third, the titanium support plate at the bottom of the inner screen, used to disperse bending stress.
Supply chain teardowns add that some pivot connecting arms inside the hinge, small titanium alloy hinge parts made with the MIM process, and hinge gears also involve titanium materials.
Compared with the pure titanium middle frame solution of the previous iPhone 15 and 16 Pro, the titanium increment structure of the iPhone Duo is clearer.
Supply chain estimates suggest the titanium material usage per iPhone Duo unit is about two to three times that of previous flat-panel iPhones, representing a multiple-level jump in material consumption per device.
On this basis, the ramp-up in sales volume is expected to convert per-unit increments into a total volume explosion.
According to material published by Goldman Sachs' Greater China technology team after iPhone Duo pre-orders opened, it expects iPhone Duo sales to reach 13 million units in 2026 and 33 million units in 2027 under a base case, and 35 million units in 2026 and 66 million units in 2027 under an optimistic case.
The divergence between the two scenarios lies not on the demand side but on the supply side, stemming from different assumptions about the yield ramp-up speed of key components such as hinges and panels.
This means that even if initial output is constrained by yield issues and actual shipments fall within the base-case range, suppressed demand will not disappear, and deferred orders will eventually be recovered once capacity is released.
The base and optimistic cases are not mutually exclusive outcomes but the realization pace of the same demand curve under different supply conditions.
Focusing only on Apple's shipments, however, may underestimate the imagination space for titanium material demand expansion triggered by the foldable screen wave that the iPhone Duo has set off.
The significance of the iPhone Duo lies in binding foldable screens, titanium alloy and 3D printing into a replicable process paradigm.
Once yield and cost are proven, follow-ups by Android manufacturers such as Honor, OPPO and Samsung will turn single-brand innovation into industry-level material upgrading.
Under such an industry trend, the demand curve will no longer be determined by one company's sales volume but jointly lifted by the proportion of titanium-using models multiplied by titanium usage per device.
According to CICC estimates, the market space for Apple's 3D printing titanium materials and processing alone will be about 3.2 billion yuan in 2027 and rise to 7.5 billion yuan by 2030.
If the Android camp accelerates follow-up, the market space will expand significantly, mapping to upstream titanium wire, titanium powder and precision processing segments and granting them a growth-material rather than cyclical-material pricing logic.
Tiangong Co Ltd, which has successfully established a full industry chain closed loop from titanium alloy master material to 3D printing powder, will benefit most from this shift in pricing logic, and its deep full-industry-chain reach is the company's strongest card for weathering single-quarter fluctuations and delivering medium- to long-term growth.
Using the company's performance in 2023, when it supplied titanium alloy middle frame materials for the iPhone 15 Pro series, as a reference, the earnings increment brought by this round of iPhone Duo has a comparable historical anchor.
In 2023, the company's annual revenue exceeded 1 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders reached 170 million yuan, verifying the significant elasticity of consumer electronics titanium material volume growth.
This time, the titanium usage per iPhone Duo unit is several times that of flat-panel phones, and the demand expansion triggered by the foldable screen wave is far greater than in previous years.
Coupled with the company's layouts beyond consumer electronics in fields such as medical, aviation and robotics that are also expected to gradually enter a period of earnings realization, Tiangong Co Ltd already has the foundation to set new historical highs in performance over the medium term, and now may be the golden window for positioning in the company.
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