NAURA Technology Group denies the rumor of being reviewed online, claiming the company reserves the right to pursue legal action and will take relevant measures; NAURA Technology Group released a performance forecast, expected to achieve a net income of 2.57 billion-2.96 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a 42.84%-64.51% year-on-year growth. Product revenue by order of magnitude 100-300 billion yuan were 401/1288/60 million yuan respectively.
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On July 11th, Caixin reporter verified with the securities department of NAURA Technology Group (002371.SZ), the leader of the semiconductor equipment industry with a market value over 100 billion yuan, who responded that "the company's business is doing well and the operation is normal" after the rumor of being reviewed online.
Today, there is a rumor online that multiple American politicians have requested the administrative department to review several Chinese semiconductor manufacturers including NAURA Technology Group. When contacted for verification, NAURA Technology Group's securities department stated clearly that "the news is a rumor. The company reserves the right to pursue legal action and will take relevant measures."
Tonight, NAURA Technology Group released an announcement that in the first half of this year, they expect to achieve a net income of 2.57 billion-2.96 billion yuan attributable to the shareholders of the listed company, a year-on-year growth of 42.84%-64.51%, which is basically in line with institutions' expectations. The net income for Q1 was 1.127 billion yuan, based on which, the net income for Q2 is expected to be 1.443 billion yuan-1.833 billion yuan, a 28%-63% increase quarter-on-quarter.
NAURA Technology Group stated that the growth in revenue is mainly due to the increase in the coverage and market share of process equipment in fields such as etching, film deposition, cleaning, furnace tube, and rapid annealing used in integrated circuits. Public information shows that in the field of semiconductor equipment, NAURA Technology Group mainly provides three categories of products: integrated circuit equipment, compound semiconductor equipment, and new energy photovoltaic equipment.
Since the beginning of this year, the semiconductor market has seen destocking and rebounding trends. Many industry insiders believe that as the development of AI chips brings process upgrades, equipment investment will also increase, especially for lithography, film deposition, and etching equipment with higher value.
According to SEMI's latest "2024 Mid-Year Total Semiconductor Equipment Forecast Report," semiconductor manufacturing equipment is expected to continue to grow in 2025. Driven by the front-end and back-end markets, the sales in 2025 is expected to reach a new high of $128 billion. At the same time, the shipment amount of equipment overseas to mainland China in 2024 is expected to exceed the record-breaking $35 billion, and it is estimated that mainland China will still be one of the top three regions for equipment expenditures by 2025.
In the investor communication process, NAURA Technology Group has repeatedly expressed a more optimistic attitude, stating that "orders are full." The reporter noted that NAURA Technology Group raised funds of 1.769 billion yuan for the semiconductor equipment industrialization base expansion project in 2023. It is understood that the project has now been completed and put into production.
In addition, under the background of domestication, seizing market share has also become one of the goals of domestic equipment manufacturers, especially when domestic market share is low and there is a large room for growth. NAURA Technology Group also responded in the investor communication, stating that "with the gradual increase in the proportion of chip equipment localization, the domestic semiconductor equipment industry will continue to maintain growth in the next few years."
According to Knometa Research, as of the end of 2023, mainland China's share of global wafer production is about 19%, of which the share from domestic companies in mainland China is only 11%. In addition, the proportion of local manufacturing companies with advanced process capacity is even smaller. CITIC Securities also expects semiconductor equipment demand to grow by more than 20% in 2024.
It is worth noting that NAURA Technology Group mentioned in the announcement that the company's revenue scale continues to expand and scale effects are gradually showing. In addition, the decline in cost rate is also the reason for the year-on-year growth of net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company.