A-share 2026 Q3 Reports: AI Computing Power Drives Information Technology Net Profit Up 140.25%, Materials Sector Net Profit Up 54.03%

On October 31, the 2026 third-quarter reports for A-shares came to a close: 5,572 listed companies together achieved revenue of 56.65 trillion yuan, up 5.42% year on year; net profit attributable to parent companies was 5.10 trillion yuan, up 7.76% year on year. More than 60% of companies recorded revenue growth, and more than 70% were profitable; overall conditions were good, with resilience standing out.

However, looking at the third quarter alone, total revenue was 19 trillion yuan, up only 2.22% year on year; net profit attributable to parent companies was 1.53 trillion yuan, down 11.02% year on year.

By sector, divergence was obvious, and the warmth or chill of each industry was clear at a glance: the most profitable remained the financial sector, with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China continuing to lead A-shares with net profit of 343.110 billion yuan; the hardest-hit was still real estate, with combined losses of 53.187 billion yuan.

Industries with profit growth and those with declines were almost evenly split. The technology track led strongly: driven by the AI computing power industry chain, the information technology sector recorded revenue and net profit attributable to parent companies growth of 31.95% and 140.25%, respectively; the materials sector was not far behind, catalyzed by both higher volumes and prices plus a low base effect, with revenue and net profit growth of 14.06% and 54.03%, respectively, ranking second; daily consumption saw the largest decline in net profit growth, mainly because hogs, baijiu and other segments came under collective pressure.

Finance still most profitable, real estate struggling most

In terms of revenue, a total of 3,437 listed companies achieved positive year-on-year growth in the first three quarters, accounting for more than 62%. Among them, 416 grew by more than 50%, and 138 grew by more than 100%. Shouyao Holdings-U (688197.SH), Lingxian Co., Ltd. (603991.SH), and Xingyun Technology (300209.SZ) ranked in the top three with revenue growth of 4,561.73%, 1,977.44%, and 1,896.66%, respectively. The three belong to different industries, and all had incidental factors and low bases, so they are not representative.

At the profit level, a total of 4,076 companies were profitable, accounting for more than 73%. Among them, as many as 1,208 had growth of more than 50%, and 769 had growth of more than 100%. The strongest profit-making capability remained in the financial sector, which earned a total of 2.27 trillion yuan in the first three quarters, but growth slipped slightly by 1.51%. Guohang Ocean Shipping (920571.BJ), Aofu Technology (688021.SH), and Demingli (001309.SZ) took the top three spots with growth rates of 98,070.64%, 34,856.86%, and 32,399.91%, respectively.

A breakdown by industry is more telling: among the 11 Wind level-1 industries, 7 recorded positive revenue growth, including information technology, materials, energy, health care, industrials, daily consumption, and finance; 5 recorded year-on-year profit growth, including information technology, materials, real estate, energy, and health care.

Revenue was weakest in the real estate industry, down 24.93% year on year, while utilities, communication services, and discretionary consumption all posted only slight declines.

Profit divergence was even stronger: daily consumption, utilities, communication services, and discretionary consumption fell 32.36%, 21.96%, 16.72%, and 10.69% year on year, respectively, while industrials and finance slipped slightly by 3.82% and 1.51%; but the hardest-hit was still real estate, with combined losses of 53.187 billion yuan.

It is worth noting that within daily consumption, the hog sector suffered huge losses across the board, with 11 hog farming companies posting combined losses of 22.217 billion yuan; baijiu, long known for high gross margins, was also searching for a bottom amid deep adjustment, and both weighed negatively on the sector's growth.

Information technology profit surged 140.25%, AI computing power industry chain leads

Extending the strong performance of 2025, information technology took both top spots in the first three quarters of 2026, and its growth rate expanded significantly.

In the first three quarters, the information technology sector achieved revenue of 6.14 trillion yuan and net profit attributable to parent companies of 219.159 billion yuan, up 31.95% and 140.25%, respectively, far ahead. In 2025, the sector's revenue and net profit growth rates were 15.26% and 32.93%, ranking first and second at that time.

Specifically, among the 1,109 companies in the information technology sector, a total of 770 had positive revenue growth, accounting for nearly 70%. Among them, 145 grew by more than 50%, and 49 grew by more than 100%. The top five were Changxin Technology (688825.SH), DapuStor-UW (301666.SZ), Dongxin Co., Ltd. (688110.SH), Lianxun Instruments (688808.SH), and Puya Semiconductor (688766.SH), all with growth rates above 300%.

Alongside leading in revenue, information technology's profit growth was also robust. Within the sector, 576 companies achieved positive growth in net profit attributable to parent companies, accounting for more than half, among which as many as 222 doubled, and 25 grew more than 10-fold. The top five were Demingli, Biwin Storage (688525.SH), Yangtze Communications (600345.SH), Goke Microelectronics (300672.SZ), and Liyang Chip (688135.SH), all with growth rates above 45-fold.

Breaking it down further, the surge in performance across the entire industry was mainly led by the AI computing power industry chain, with storage, chips and other segments at the forefront. Changxin Technology achieved revenue of 269.024 billion yuan in the first three quarters, up 738.51% year on year; net profit attributable to parent companies was 132.040 billion yuan, up 2,600.77% year on year. The surge in performance stemmed from the continuously rising prosperity of the storage chip market driven by emerging applications such as AI and smart terminals, with strong end demand directly driving steady expansion of the company's product shipments and output scale. Moreover, the company stated bluntly at its latest earnings meeting that "revenue is expected to maintain growth next year."

Demingli and Biwin Storage, also in the storage track, were likewise top-tier players, with profit growth rates as high as 323-fold and 287-fold, respectively. A Guohai Securities research report pointed out that the storage sector is currently in an AI-driven structural prosperity cycle, with supply and demand for high-end HBM and server storage tightening, while the elasticity of ordinary consumer-grade storage has weakened; the market has gradually shifted from being driven purely by earlier price-increase expectations to a stage of verification through earnings delivery.

Chip segments such as Liyang Chip, Goke Microelectronics, and Powlicon (688045.SH) also performed strongly, with net profit growth rates all above 32-fold. A Central China Securities research report said that AI applications are currently accelerating penetration into fields such as programming, film and television games, mathematical research, and cybersecurity, and the process of breakthroughs in physical AI is also accelerating. The autonomous execution of Agents means the frequency of model invocations is also growing substantially, keeping computing power supply persistently insufficient and the rental price of computing cards continuing on an upward trend. Relatively speaking, affected by the chip shortage, domestic computing power tension is even higher. With the release of domestic card capacity and the launch of new cards in 2027, domestic computing power demand is expected to be better met. We continue to hold an optimistic expectation for the development of the domestic AI computing power industry and recommend continued focus on the upstream and midstream segments of the AI industry chain, including semiconductor equipment, chips, storage, optical communications, servers, AIDC, cloud computing and other segments.

Cycles flex their muscle, materials move upward

Beyond information technology, the performance of the materials sector was also notable. In the first three quarters, the sector achieved total revenue of 8.76 trillion yuan, up 14.06% year on year; net profit attributable to parent companies was 505.332 billion yuan, up 54.03% year on year, both ranking second.

Within the sector specifically, of 875 materials companies, 651 achieved positive revenue growth, accounting for more than 74%; 90 had growth rates above 50%, and 27 above 100%. The top five were Lingxian Shares, Rongjie Co., Ltd. (002192.SZ), Fengyuan Co., Ltd. (002805.SZ), Foshan Plastics Technology (000973.SZ), and Shengxin Lithium Energy (002240.SZ), all with growth rates above 275%.

In terms of profitability, a total of 467 companies recorded positive growth, accounting for more than half; 261 had growth rates above 50%, and 179 above 100%. The top five were Shandong Fiberglass (605006.SH), Ganfeng Lithium (002460.SZ), Dongyue Silicon Materials (300821.SZ), Hengguang Co., Ltd. (301118.SZ), and Wanli Stone (002785.SZ), all with growth rates above 36-fold.

It should be noted that the materials industry includes multiple sub-sectors such as nonferrous metals and lithium battery materials, all of which are cyclical industries. The sharp performance increases in the first three quarters were mostly due to simultaneous rises in volume and price brought by downstream demand expansion.

Taking lithium salt companies Ganfeng Lithium and Tianqi Lithium as examples, their profits in the first three quarters grew 195-fold and 30-fold, respectively, with the core driver being simultaneous rises in volume and price of lithium products. Lithium carbonate futures prices oscillated upward from above 100,000 yuan/ton at the start of the year, touched an intraday high for the year of 200,000 yuan/ton on May 15, and then, although oscillating downward to 110,000 yuan/ton by the end of Q3, compared with the low range of 50,000-90,000 yuan in January-September last year, the year-on-year increase was significant. During the same period, many companies released production capacity, thereby achieving dual growth in revenue and net profit. Hunan Yuneng, Enjie Co., Ltd., Longpan Technology and others in the same lithium battery industry chain also fall into this category.

"Those with mines" — various metal companies — also benefited. Since the start of this year, strategic minor metals closely related to AI computing power and semiconductors, such as germanium, indium, antimony, tantalum, and molybdenum, have led gains; among industrial metals, prices of copper, aluminum, zinc, and tin also rose somewhat; light rare earths saw their price center shift upward, driven by supply controls and overseas magnetic material restocking.

Taking Yunnan Germanium as an example, in the first three quarters it recorded revenue of 1.364 billion yuan and net profit attributable to parent companies of 176 million yuan, up 70.71% and 869.79% year on year, mainly benefiting from simultaneous rises in volume and price of its indium phosphide and germanium products. SMM data showed that as of October 23, the average prices of domestic 4-inch, 3-inch, and 2-inch indium phosphide substrates were 7,100 yuan/piece, 3,900 yuan/piece, and 1,275 yuan/piece, respectively, with increases of 64.9%, 97.0%, and 5.8% since the start of the year.

It is worth mentioning that the sharp performance increases of many companies in the materials sector were actually also compounded by a low-base effect. For example, Shandong Fiberglass, Hengguang Co., Ltd., and many lithium salt companies actually recorded losses in the first three quarters of 2025.

In addition, the power of cycles is evident not only in upturns but also clearly in downturns. For example, in the author's previous article "The Lithium Cycle Wavers Again: Lithium Companies' First Three Quarters' Performance Explodes, Q3 Weakens Quarter on Quarter | Industry Wind Vane," it was mentioned that in the third quarter of this year, as lithium prices fell rapidly, lithium companies' Q3 performance generally came under quarter-on-quarter pressure. If lithium prices continue to be unfavorable later, the sector's performance will decline collectively. (This article was first published on TMTPost APP, Text | Value Scale, Author | Taozi)