New Stock Preview | Konfoong Materials International (300666.SZ) Races Toward Hong Kong Listing as Steady Earnings Materialize; Could an A+H Structure Be the Key Leap to Empower Growth?

Sputtering targets are core consumables in thin-film deposition processes for semiconductors, displays, photovoltaics, and other fields. In recent years, benefiting from the widespread application of sputtered thin-film materials in semiconductor integrated circuits, information storage, and other fields, market demand for sputtering targets has continued to expand. GMTEight notes that, from a competitive landscape perspective, the global sputtering target industry exhibits typical high concentration characteristics, with companies such as Japan's Tosoh and Honeywell having long occupied dominant positions, while Konfoong Materials International (300666.SZ), which has just submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, is precisely one of the few Chinese manufacturers that has squeezed into the industry's first tier. According to the company's prospectus, calculated by 2025 revenue, Konfoong Materials International ranks second among global ultra-high-purity metal sputtering target suppliers, with a global market share of 10.3%. At the current point in time, Konfoong Materials International can be said to be approaching the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with excellent performance. Data shows that over the past few years, Konfoong Materials International's revenue and profit have maintained a trend of rapid growth. In the first nine months of this year, the company's revenue was RMB4.465 billion, up 35.67% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB811 million, up 102.38% year-on-year; in Q3 alone, the company's revenue was RMB1.728 billion, up 44.42% year-on-year and 20.68% quarter-on-quarter; net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB271 million, a sharp increase of 83.2% year-on-year; during the same period, the company's net profit attributable to shareholders after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was RMB227 million, with year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter increases as high as 94.23% and 182.11%, respectively. Steadily materializing performance is undoubtedly the strongest confidence behind Konfoong Materials International's sprint toward the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and once the Hong Kong listing is completed in the future, the A+H dual-platform layout may open up a new layer of narrative, at which point the company's investment value is expected to be more fully recognized by international investors. Dual main businesses of targets and components resonate to stimulate growth momentum Konfoong Materials International's history can be traced back to 2005. It is understood that at the initial stage of its founding, the company undertook projects related to the national "863 Program" and achieved independent R&D breakthroughs in domestic sputtering targets. After more than two decades of development, the company has grown from a single target supplier into a semiconductor materials platform enterprise with dual main businesses of "targets + components." Looking back at historical performance, Konfoong Materials International's revenue has continued to rapidly scale up in recent years. From 2023 to 2025, Konfoong Materials International's revenue was RMB2.602 billion, RMB3.605 billion, and RMB4.604 billion, respectively, corresponding to a compound annual growth rate of 33% during the period. Breaking down the revenue structure, ultra-high-purity targets have always been Konfoong Materials International's foundation. From 2023 to 2025, this business accounted for a stable proportion of more than 60% of revenue, generating revenue of RMB2.850 billion in 2025, up 22.1% year-on-year. It is reported that Konfoong Materials International's product line covers five major metal systems: aluminum, titanium, tantalum, copper, and tungsten, among which high-end categories such as tantalum targets and copper-manganese alloy targets have been applied in volume to advanced process nodes, with customers covering multiple global leading wafer fabs. Components, as the second growth curve, also show a clear pace of volume ramp-up. Data shows that Konfoong Materials International's semiconductor precision components business revenue increased from RMB570 million in 2023 to RMB1.084 billion in 2025, and further achieved revenue of RMB645 million in the first half of 2026, up 40.59% year-on-year, with its proportion rising to 23.6%. On the basis of continued volume ramp-up of core products such as showerheads, Konfoong Materials International also completed the acquisition of KAIDE QUARTZ this year, since which the company has further extended its layout into quartz components. In September, the first electrostatic chuck (ESC) trial-produced by wholly-owned subsidiary Jingpan Electronics rolled off the production line, opening new space for domestic substitution of high-end components. In terms of profitability, from 2023 to the first half of 2026, Konfoong Materials International's gross profit was RMB683 million, RMB888 million, RMB1.133 billion, and RMB677 million, respectively, with overall gross margin long maintained in the range of around 25%. During the same period, the company's net profit increased continuously from RMB217 million in 2023 to RMB441 million in 2025, reaching RMB452 million in the first half of 2026, already exceeding the full-year level of 2025. Structurally, gross margin improvement brought by the upgrading of the target product mix toward advanced processes is the core support for the continued climb in profit, with Konfoong Materials International's ultra-high-purity metal sputtering targets gross margin reaching 33.2% in 2025, up a full 6.8 percentage points from 2023. The Q3 data can be said to further confirm Konfoong Materials International's upward performance trend. Single-quarter revenue was RMB1.728 billion, up 44.42% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was RMB227 million, up 94.23% year-on-year and 182.11% quarter-on-quarter; gross margin recovered to 31.93%, up 4.39 percentage points year-on-year. The implementation of target price increases in some customer orders and the scale effects brought by component volume ramp-up are forming a synergy, driving the company's profit center steadily upward. Industry prosperity continues, and the logic of simultaneous volume and price increases strengthens expectations? At present, AI is reshaping semiconductor chip demand and expanding market opportunities for ultra-high-purity metal sputtering targets and semiconductor precision components. On the one hand, the training and inference of AI large models require stronger computing power, while at the same time logic, memory, and advanced packaging are evolving toward more advanced technologies and architectures, supporting product category expansion and technological upgrading. According to a Frost & Sullivan report, the global ultra-high-purity metal sputtering target market increased from RMB19.3 billion in 2021 to RMB27.7 billion in 2025, and is expected to reach RMB60 billion in 2030, with a compound growth rate of 16.0% from 2026 to 2030; among which targets for semiconductor chips are growing faster, with a compound growth rate of 20.1% from 2026 to 2030, and the scale is expected to reach RMB45.8 billion in 2030. China's semiconductor precision components market increased from RMB32.8 billion to RMB74 billion during the same period, and is expected to reach RMB166.4 billion in 2030, with a compound growth rate of 16.8%. Both the target and component tracks have quantifiable expansion space on the demand side, and against the backdrop of "simultaneous volume and price increases," the industry's high prosperity is bound to continue. Facing this market opportunity, Konfoong Materials International's strategic choice is to take platform-based capabilities as its axis. The prospectus clearly states the extension of three major capabilitiesmaterials, equipment, and processesto more core materials and key components: on the target side, consolidating advanced process categories and making advance arrangements for next-generation systems such as tungsten targets and molybdenum targets; on the component side, concentrating on high-barrier categories such as electrostatic chucks, quartz parts, and ceramic parts; at the same time, advancing the construction of the Huanghu Smart Factory and the Korea base to strengthen global delivery resilience. In summary, Konfoong Materials International's submission of a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this time means it has formally embarked on the journey of building an A+H dual capital platform. Relying on its leading position in targets and the high-elasticity second curve of semiconductor precision components, the company is standing at the forefront of AI computing power driving global semiconductor materials expansion and domestic substitution continuing to accelerate. The Hong Kong platform is not only expected to help it connect with broader international capital, but also make it easier for overseas customers and industry partners to more intuitively understand its technology iteration and capacity expansion blueprint. If it successfully lists on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange subsequently, it will most likely add further fuel to Konfoong Materials International's global expansion; as for whether the company's narrative of dual-wheel volume ramp-up can continue to materialize, this is presumably also well worth the capital market maintaining optimistic expectations.