IPO Preview | The global mobile PMIC market is in the top three. What are the chances of Xinmai Semiconductor sprinting to Hong Kong stocks?

Compared with digital chips, analog chips have a longer life cycle and a longer customer certification cycle, which creates higher technical barriers and customer stickiness. Among them, power management chips (PMICs), as an important segment of analog chips, are widely used in terminals such as smartphones, display panels, consumer electronics, automotive electronics, and industrial control, and are an important basic device for achieving stable power supply for terminal devices.

Recently, Xinmai Semiconductor, which submitted an application for listing on the Hong Kong stock market, is an analog chip design company that started with PMIC and is gradually expanding its product matrix to power devices.

Judging from the information disclosed in the prospectus, the company has occupied a certain market position in the global smartphone PMIC and OLED display PMIC markets, and has promoted the continuous enrichment of the product matrix through continuous R&D investment. The power device business has rapidly expanded in recent years, which has also injected new impetus into revenue growth.

However, while the revenue scale continues to expand, the company is still facing practical challenges such as declining gross margin and high R&D investment, and profitability is still in the process of being repaired. In the context of increasing competition in the industry and continuous adjustment of the product structure, can Xinmai Semiconductor further transform its market share advantage into continuous profitability and start a new growth cycle through listing?

From PMIC to power devices, creating a second growth curve

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Xinmai Semiconductor is positioned as an analog and power semiconductor design company. Its main products include power device products such as PMICs and MOSFETs.

Among them, PMIC is still the company's core business, covering various product lines such as mobile terminals PMIC, OLED display PMIC, and LCD display PMIC, and the power device business, which has developed rapidly in recent years, has become the company's new growth engine.

According to the prospectus, the company adopted the Fabless design model common in the industry and further established a virtual IDM operating model covering R&D, wafer manufacturing, packaging testing, and supply chain management.

Judging from the revenue structure, PMIC still contributes to the main revenue stream, but the product structure has changed markedly. From 2023 to 2025, the share of PMIC revenue reached 97.4%, 90.7%, and 74.7%, respectively, while the share of power device revenue rapidly increased from 2.4% to 25.3% during the same period. By the end of April 2026, the share of power device revenue had further increased to 36.1%, while the share of PMIC revenue fell to 63.9%, and the second growth curve is gradually being formed.

If the PMIC business is further split, it can be seen that although the company's mobile PMIC is still the largest single product, its revenue share has dropped from 50.7% in 2023 to 33% in 2025. OLED display PMIC revenue remains relatively stable, accounting for around 28%, while LCD PMIC remains around 13%.

To a certain extent, this reflects that on the one hand, the company is being affected by price competition in the smartphone industry, and on the other hand, it is also reducing its dependence on the single product market through OLEDs and power devices. In particular, power device revenue has achieved rapid growth for two consecutive years, which has become an important driving force for overall revenue growth. It also reflects that the company is using existing customer resources to cross-sell products and increase the value of a single customer.

In terms of industry position, according to Frost & Sullivan data, based on 2024 revenue, Xinmai Semiconductor has become the third largest manufacturer in the global smartphone PMIC market, with a market share of 3.6%; ranked second in the global OLED display PMIC market, with a market share of 12.7%; and ranked fifth in the global display PMIC market, with a market share of 6.9%. In contrast, the company's MOSFET business currently has a global market share of only about 0.1% and is still in the growth stage.

Judging from the competitive landscape of the industry, the PMIC market is a high-barrier industry. Whether it is a smartphone or OLED display field, it requires a long customer certification cycle, and product stability, energy efficiency, and integration capabilities all form the entry threshold. Leading companies usually establish long-term cooperative relationships with terminal brands and panel manufacturers, making it difficult for new entrants to enter quickly, so the market concentration is relatively high.

Xinmai Semiconductor's ability to rank among the top three in the world and second in the world reflects to some extent that its R&D capabilities and customer resources have been recognized by mainstream markets. However, in the field of power devices, the company still needs to face an industry pattern where international leaders have occupied the high-end market for a long time, and Chinese companies are mainly concentrated in the middle and low end markets. Whether it can continue to improve the technical level of products and expand high-value-added applications such as automotive electronics and industrial control in the future will still determine the growth space for the second growth curve.

Financial improvements are beginning to appear, and profitability still needs to be further verified

In terms of financial performance, from 2023 to 2025, the company achieved revenue of 1,640 billion yuan, 1,574 billion yuan and 1,953 billion yuan respectively. Revenue declined slightly year-on-year in 2024 due to weak demand in the smartphone industry and product price competition, but in 2025, revenue resumed growth as shipments rebounded and the power device business rapidly expanded. In the four months ended April 30, 2026, the company achieved revenue of 837 million yuan, an increase of more than 46% over 571 million yuan in the same period last year, continuing its rapid growth trend.

However, compared with the return to revenue growth, the company's profitability improvements have gone through a long period of adjustment. During the reporting period, the company's gross profit was $548 million, 463 million yuan and $530 million respectively, with corresponding gross margins of 33.4%, 29.4% and 27.2% respectively, showing a continuous downward trend; for the four months ending the end of April 2026, gross margin fell further to 26.2%.

Gross margin continues to be under pressure. On the one hand, it is due to increased competition in the smartphone PMIC market leading to a decline in product sales prices. On the other hand, it is related to the fact that the power device business is still expanding on a large scale and has not fully released economies of scale. Compared to PMIC products that have already entered the mature stage, the power device business still needs to dilute costs through continuous expansion of the scale of shipments, which is a drag on overall profitability in the short term.

It is worth noting that although gross margin continues to decline, the company's revenue structure is undergoing positive changes. In the past, the company relied heavily on PMIC products. Among them, mobile PMIC accounted for half of its revenue and was greatly affected by the smartphone industry cycle. As the share of power device revenue rapidly increased from 2.4% in 2023 to 25.3% in 2025, and further increased to 36.1% in the first four months of 2026, the company's revenue sources began to diversify.

Judging from the business logic, this means that the company is offsetting traditional business price pressure through a secondary product platform, which also helps reduce the impact of fluctuations in the single terminal market on performance. In the future, if power device products can successfully enter more industrial, automotive and high-end consumer electronics applications, their profitability is expected to gradually improve along with increasing scale.

The cost side also reflects the development characteristics of Xinmai Semiconductor's redevelopment. During the reporting period, the company's R&D expenditure reached 336 million yuan, 406 million yuan and 417 million yuan respectively, accounting for 20.5%, 25.8% and 21.4% of revenue respectively, far higher than many mature analog chip companies.

On the one hand, this reduces short-term profit margins, and on the other hand, it also reflects the company's strategic choice to continue to lay out the product platform. From the perspective of R&D, the company not only continues to upgrade the PMIC product platform, but also continues to expand the power device product line to reserve new products for future revenue growth.

For the analog chip industry, due to the long customer certification cycle, R&D investment is often highly forward-looking, so short-term profit pressure does not mean a decline in competitiveness, but more attention needs to be paid to whether R&D results can be successfully converted into mass production orders in the future.

In terms of profit performance, the company recorded net losses of 506 million yuan, 697 million yuan and 278 million yuan respectively in accordance with IFRS. Net profit of 28.48 million yuan was achieved for the four months ending the end of April 2026, achieving phased profit for the first time.

If non-operating factors such as share payments and interest on debt redemptions are excluded, during the reporting period, the company achieved profit of 44.61 million yuan in 2023 after adjustment, and lost 86.69 million yuan and 96.97 million yuan in 2024 and 2025, respectively, and resumed profit of 56.3 million yuan for the four months ended at the end of April 2026, indicating that the main business has shown signs of improvement.

In terms of cash flow, the company is still in the continuous investment stage. Higher R&D investment, product iteration, and supply chain preparation all place high requirements on working capital. As a Fabless company, the company does not need to invest heavily in fab assets, but it still needs to maintain a large level of R&D investment and inventory management. Therefore, one of the important uses of future listing capital raised will also continue to be used for R&D investment, new product development, and additional working capital to support the continuous expansion of the product platform.

Judging from the market layout, the company's overseas revenue still accounts for a high proportion, but the share is gradually declining. From 2023 to 2025, the company's share of overseas revenue was 74.1%, 68.1% and 58.0% respectively, falling further to 51.5% in the first four months of 2026; at the same time, Greater China's revenue share increased to 48.5%, reflecting the increasing contribution to the domestic market.

On the one hand, this change has benefited from the trend of domestic substitution, and on the other hand, it has also reduced the company's dependence on overseas markets. However, the company still maintains a deep cooperative relationship in the Korean industrial chain, and changes in international trade policies, export controls, and the global supply chain may still have a certain impact on future operations.

It is important to note that Xinmai Semiconductor will still face multiple risks in the future. First, the company still has some dependence on important customers. If core customer demand fluctuates or partnerships change, it will directly affect revenue stability; secondly, competition in the PMIC industry continues to intensify, and product price pressure has not been completely relieved. If it is unable to continue to launch new competitive products, gross margin may continue to be pressured;

Third, the company's production is highly dependent on external wafer manufacturing, package testing, and supply chain partners. Fluctuations in upstream production capacity may also affect delivery capacity. Furthermore, external factors such as the international trade environment, export control policies, and exchange rate fluctuations also constitute uncertainty about long-term operations.

Overall, Xinmai Semiconductor has completed the initial layout for dual platform development of analog chips and power devices. The industry position in the smartphone PMIC and OLED display PMIC fields has reached the top of the world, and the power device business has also shown strong growth potential. At the same time, the company's operating performance is gradually moving from book losses due to historical financing factors to a stage of profit improvement.

However, what really deserves continued attention is not short-term profit correction, but rather whether the company can rely on product structure upgrades and scale effects to steadily increase gross profit margins, and continuously transform R&D advantages into market share and cash generation capacity. If it can further reduce customer concentration, expand the proportion of high-value-added products, and promote large-scale profits in the power device business, the company's future growth space is still worth looking forward to;

Conversely, if price competition in the industry continues to intensify or the commercialization of new products falls short of expectations, the pace of profit recovery may still be tested. Overall, Xinmai Semiconductor is at the key point of moving from “scale growth” to “quality growth”. Its ability to implement operations after listing will become a core observation indicator that determines the company's long-term value.