According to reports from Electronic Enthusiasts (by Zhang Ying), in the first quarter of 2025, the open-source of large model technology represented by Deepseek has brought disruptive changes to the development of edge and endpoint AI applications. With the significant reduction in the development threshold for AI at the endpoint, and thanks to advantages such as real-time performance, low network dependency, and privacy protection, AI technology is accelerating its implementation in automotive, robotics, home, education, healthcare, and wearable fields.
Research by Electronic Enthusiasts shows that terminal manufacturers are accelerating their strategic transformation to “All in AI,” through hardware architecture reconstruction and system-level optimization to equip AI devices, while upstream chip manufacturers are launching dedicated NPU architectures. Taking Qualcomm, a leading global IoT chip company that first introduced NPU architecture, as an example, the company’s financial report for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 (ending December 2024) shows that its IoT business revenue reached $1.549 billion, a year-on-year increase of 36.1%, indicating that Qualcomm is seizing the opportunity in generative AI through AI chips at the device end.
Benefiting from the growing demand for smart home, smart automotive, smart education, and other terminal applications, several Chinese AIoT chip listed companies have intensively released their 2024 financial reports around April 30. The leading AIoT chip companies in the A-share market not only showed significant growth in 2024 but also achieved continuous improvement in performance during the traditional off-season of the semiconductor industry in the first quarter of 2025.
Which AIoT chip companies have shown impressive performance? What essential breakthroughs have domestic AIoT chip companies made in product matrix and new product development compared to the past? How do we compare advanced endpoint AI chips with products from internationally leading manufacturers in terms of distance or differentiated advantages? This article provides a detailed analysis.
Seven companies reported positive growth in revenue and net profit in 2024, with three companies seeing net profit growth exceeding fourfold.
In 2024, driven by the demand growth from smart home, smart automotive, industrial equipment, robotics, and wearables, AIoT chip companies exhibited strong growth momentum.
Performance of 13 AIoT Chip Listed Companies in 2024 and Q1 2025
Chart created by Electronic Enthusiasts based on public data
Statistics from Electronic Enthusiasts show that among the 13 AIoT chip listed companies in 2024, only three companies surpassed 5 billion in revenue. Weir shares, Zhaoyi Innovation, and Amlogic ranked in the top three. Weir shares led the industry with a revenue of 25.731 billion, benefiting from the continuous rise in demand for image sensors from AI smartphones and automotive autonomous driving, resulting in rapid growth in company performance; Zhaoyi Innovation achieved a record high revenue of 7.356 billion in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 27.69%, ranking second; Amlogic’s revenue reached 5.926 billion in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 10.34%, ranking third.
Both Goodix Technology and Beijing Junzheng also surpassed 4 billion in revenue, indicating that leading AIoT chip companies generally achieved good performance growth amid the recovery of AIoT terminal demand.
Thanks to the growth in downstream terminal demand, companies optimized their product sales structure, leading to a significant increase in net profit. Statistics from Electronic Enthusiasts show that among the 13 A-share AIoT chip listed companies, seven achieved positive growth in revenue and net profit, accounting for 53.8%. Among them, Allwinner Technology led with a growth rate of 625.82%, but its net profit was only 167 million; Zhaoyi Innovation’s net profit growth rate reached 584.21%, with a net profit of 1.03 billion, ranking second; Weir shares ranked third with a growth rate of 498.11%, but the company’s net profit in 2024 reached 3.323 billion, exceeding the total net profit of the second to fourth AIoT chip manufacturers. Other companies with net profit growth exceeding twofold include Rockchip, Goodix Technology, and Hengxuan Technology.
Why did Allwinner Technology and Rockchip see a surge in net profit in 2024? Both companies mentioned in their interpretations that the market demand rebounded in 2024, and the global electronics market demand recovered. Both companies continuously improved their product matrix, with Allwinner Technology significantly increasing shipments in business lines represented by robotic vacuum cleaners and smart projectors, expanding into automotive and industrial sectors, resulting in a year-on-year revenue growth of approximately 35%; Rockchip, on the other hand, has advantages in the layout of AIoT chips in a “V-shaped formation,” leading to a continuous increase in market share across multiple product lines, represented by the RK3588, RK356X, and RV11 series AIoT computing platforms.
Goodix Technology, which started with “fingerprint chips,” achieved a net profit of 604 million in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 265.76%, significantly enhancing its profitability due to three main reasons: 1. Benefiting from increased market demand, the company’s new products “ultrasonic fingerprint” and “under-display light sensor” were commercialized, and the penetration rate of OLED increased, with shipments reaching 1.25 billion units; 2. Thanks to the decrease in chip procurement costs and the positive impact of product iterations, the gross margin increased from 40.5% to 41.8%; 3. The company continuously improved R&D efficiency and optimized sales and management expenses, resulting in a total expenditure reduction of 161 million year-on-year, a decrease of 10.9%.
Hengxuan Technology focuses on the research and development of low-power wireless computing SoC chips. In 2024, Hengxuan Technology made significant breakthroughs in the smart watch/band chip field, achieving revenue of 1.045 billion, a year-on-year increase of 116%, with shipments exceeding 40 million units. In the first quarter of 2025, the company’s smart watch chip sales ratio increased, and the average sales price of chip products improved compared to the same period last year.
Espressif Technology, which started with WiFi MCUs, has now expanded its product line to the AIoT SoC field, achieving revenue of 2.007 billion in 2024, with a net profit of 339 million, a year-on-year increase of 149.13%. This growth is mainly attributed to the continuous increase in digitalization and intelligence penetration across various industries, and the company launched new chips such as ESP32-C61 and ESP32-H4 in 2024 to further meet customer needs.
From AR glasses to AI cars, domestic edge AI chips have made breakthroughs in four major fields.
According to the latest research report from Guotai Junan Securities, 2025 will be a key node for AI development, with the inference capability of large models leaping forward, pushing AI from single-modal to general intelligence. With the continuous innovation of the DeepSeek series models, R1 is promoting the global popularization of large models through open-source strategies, technological breakthroughs, and cost optimization, accelerating the commercialization of AI in both B-end and C-end markets.
It is reported that Allwinner Technology’s ecosystem partners have already deployed the DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B model on the Allwinner A733 and T527 SoC platforms, fully validating the potential of high-performance platforms for deploying AI inference at the endpoint. In April 2025, Allwinner Technology announced the mass production of the new generation V821 smart vision chip, based on which the leading innovative AI smart glasses were launched, making their debut at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair on April 18 and officially starting sales.
Rockchip stated at the performance briefing on April 30 that since launching the first generation AI processor NPU in 2018, it has continuously iterated and launched multiple AIoT SoCs with built-in NPUs, forming a complete layout of AIoT SoCs with built-in NPU computing power ranging from 0.2 TOPs (trillions of operations per second) to 6 TOPs.
On April 25, during the automotive semiconductor forum held concurrently with the Shanghai Auto Show, Chen Chuyi, VP of Rockchip’s automotive division, highlighted the next-generation smart cockpit chip, the 4nm automotive-grade flagship AI SoC RK3688M, with a CPU of 300K DMIPS, GPU of 2TFLOPS, and NPU computing power of 32 TOPs, showcasing strong display capabilities that can support up to 12 screens or 6 4K resolution screens. This chip is expected to be officially launched in 2026.
In 2024, Amlogic made significant commercial progress with several strategic new products. Among them, the 6nm S905X5 series chip can complete functions such as simultaneous translation and subtitles locally, enhancing consumer experience in cross-language environments. This product has smoothly integrated existing customers and secured orders from several top international operators since its commercial launch six months ago. Amlogic expects the 6nm chip to achieve sales of over 10 million units in 2025.
Hengxuan Technology, as a leading manufacturer of smart audio SoCs, officially launched the new generation 6nm BES 2800 chip in September 2024. This chip integrates multi-core CPU/GPU, NPU, RAM, and key components such as low-power Wi-Fi and dual-mode Bluetooth, with CPU computing power doubled compared to BES2700 and NPU computing power increased fourfold. The latest Galaxy Buds3 Pro wireless Bluetooth earphones from Samsung will be the first to feature its new generation smart wearable SoC chip—BES2800, fully demonstrating the recognition of Hengxuan Technology’s technical strength by international manufacturers.
At this year’s CES and Shanghai AWE exhibitions, the displays of edge AI, from smart homes to personal assistants, various robots, smartphones, smartwatches, and AR glasses, left a deep impression. Many domestic manufacturers, including Allwinner Technology, Rockchip, Hengxuan Technology, and Tailin Micro, showcased their new products.
Broadcom Integrated’s net profit surged by 1256%, with AIoT chip performance showing differentiation in Q1 2025.
In the first quarter of 2025, Weir shares achieved revenue of 6.472 billion, a year-on-year increase of 14.68%, setting a historical record for first-quarter revenue; the net profit attributable to the parent company was 866 million, a year-on-year increase of 55.25%. The core driver of Weir shares’ sustained high-speed growth is the continuous penetration of the company’s image sensor products in the high-end smartphone market and automotive autonomous driving applications.
In the first quarter of 2025, Weir shares invested 654 million in R&D, a year-on-year increase of 5%; over the past five years, the cumulative R&D investment exceeded 14 billion, providing favorable support for product upgrades and new product development. As smartphones enter the AI era, sensors need to capture richer light and shadow information in a single exposure. Recently, OmniVision Group launched a new CIS product OV50X, which is expected to enter mass production in Q3 2025, further enriching the company’s high-end mobile CIS product line.
Rockchip and Hengxuan Technology performed well in the first quarter of 2025. Rockchip achieved total revenue of 885 million in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 62.95%. Last year, Rockchip’s R&D expenses were 569 million, maintaining a ratio of R&D investment to revenue of around 20% for over a decade. During the reporting period, the company successfully launched several new products, including RK3576, RK2118, RV1103B, RK3506, and surrounding chips.
Hengxuan Technology achieved revenue of 995 million in the first quarter of 2025, a year-on-year increase of 52.25%, setting a new historical high for a single quarter. The main reason is the continuous growth of the smart wearable market, with national subsidies significantly promoting consumer demand; at the same time, the sales ratio of the company’s smart watch chips increased, and the average sales price of chip products improved compared to the same period last year.
Notably, Broadcom Integrated reported revenue of 165 million in the first quarter of 2025, a year-on-year decrease of 1.6%; however, the net profit attributable to the parent company was 16.49 million, a year-on-year increase of 1256.1%. This was mainly due to the company strengthening inventory and expense control, with asset impairment losses and period expenses decreasing, while asset disposal gains increased significantly.
Goodix Technology reported revenue of 1.064 billion in the first quarter of 2025, a decrease of 12.64% compared to 1.218 billion in the same period last year, mainly due to changes in the stocking rhythm of terminal customers. The net profit attributable to the parent company was 195 million, an increase of 20.29% compared to 162 million in the same period last year, mainly due to increased investment income from the sale of DCT. This indicates that the company’s adjustments in investment strategy have achieved certain results.
In conclusion, the edge AI device and chip market is booming, with international manufacturers such as Qualcomm, ST, NXP, and Infineon increasing the pace of launching new edge AI chips. The demand for AI smartphones, AI PCs, smart glasses, and robots is increasing.
Domestic AIoT chip manufacturers achieved widespread growth in performance in 2024, and in 2025, they will compete with international manufacturers in more application fields. Facing the comprehensive layout of overseas manufacturers’ chip products and ecological platforms, how domestic manufacturers can achieve breakthroughs from single chips to series products remains to be seen.
Disclaimer: This article is original from Electronic Enthusiasts, please indicate the source above when reprinting. For group communication, please add WeChat elecfans999, for submission, exposure, and interview requests, please send an email to [email protected].
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