Has the leading computing power company that missed out on YMTC emerged from its darkest hour?

Semiconductors are undoubtedly the strongest mainstay in the A-share market this year.

Any stock associated with semiconductor concepts has basically witnessed a wave of price surges.

However, amidst the overall market enthusiasm, there is a former industry leader whose stock performance has been lackluster, and it has even experienced a significant correction recently.

Its name is Unisplendour Corporation.

Perhaps the biggest regret for this company is that it sold YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd.) for a mere 60 billion yuan four years ago.

Now, YMTC, which is preparing for an IPO, is already valued at over 200 billion yuan.

As YMTC is thriving, has Unisplendour, which has been under restructuring for four years, emerged from its darkest hour?

01 A High-Stakes Gamble

In 1999, backed by Tsinghua University, Unisplendour Corporation went public on the A-share market under the halo of being the "king of scanners".

At that time, it was small in scale and had diverse businesses, but development opportunities were starting to brew.

Four years later, Huawei spun off its enterprise network department and jointly established Huawei 3Com (H3C) with 3Com, which later became the predecessor of New H3C Group.

Unisplendour Corporation, which was desperately seeking growth points at that time, thus missed out on its future core asset.

The turning point came in 2009.

Zhao Weiguo, an alumnus of Tsinghua University, acquired 49% of the equity of Unisplendour Group and officially took over.

After Zhao Weiguo, who graduated from the Department of Electronic Engineering of Tsinghua University and made his fortune in real estate, took the helm of Unisplendour Group, he injected a powerful impetus into the company.

He firmly believed in "exchanging capital for technology" and even vowed to "make Unisplendour a world-class semiconductor company within five years".

In 2013, Unisplendour spent $1.78 billion to acquire Spreadtrum Communications, and the following year, it spent $900 million to buy RDA Microelectronics.

Subsequently, the two companies merged to form Unisoc, instantly becoming the largest mobile phone baseband chip company in China.

Source: Company's official website

In 2015, Zhao Weiguo made even bolder moves.

He first acquired 51% of the equity of H3C Technologies Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of HP, for $2.5 billion and established New H3C Group, filling the last piece of the puzzle in the enterprise network field.

In the same year, he attempted to acquire Micron Technology, a US memory giant, for $23 billion and planned to invest $3.775 billion in Western Digital to control its subsidiary SanDisk, aiming to gain full control of the entire storage chip industry chain in one go.

However, these "David vs. Goliath" acquisitions ultimately failed due to strong opposition from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

Moreover, he also tried to promote the merger of Unisplendour and MediaTek of Taiwan to challenge Qualcomm's dominance, but this dream was also shattered due to policy restrictions.

After the overseas merger and acquisition path was blocked, Zhao Weiguo turned to a more difficult and capital-intensive path - building his own factories.

This also laid the groundwork for future crises.

In July 2016, Unisplendour Corporation, a subsidiary of Unisplendour Group, jointly with the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, Hubei Guoxin Industry Investment Fund, etc., established YMTC based on the acquired Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation.

Among them, Unisplendour Corporation contributed 19.7 billion yuan, holding a 51.04% stake, making it the absolute controlling shareholder of YMTC.

Subsequently, with the support of local governments, Unisplendour increased its efforts in factory construction and carried out extensive external investments.

By 2018, the total investment scale of Unisplendour Group had exceeded 400 billion yuan, and it had merged, participated in, or invested in more than 150 enterprises, covering almost the entire semiconductor industry chain, including storage, CPU, GPU, communication, security, smart cards, and enterprise networks.

So, where did the money come from?

The answer is borrowing, and a huge amount of it.

By 2020, the total debt scale of Unisplendour Group had quietly swelled to over 200 billion yuan.

In a speech, Zhao Weiguo once said, "There's no need to worry about the debt problem. As long as the industry is developed, the asset value will far exceed the debt."

Objectively speaking, there is nothing wrong with this statement.

However, the problem is that when the company's funds are tied up in multiple bottomless pits such as storage chips, mobile phone chips, and chip manufacturing, the debt won't wait.

In September 2020, the global storage chip market price hit a historical low.

One month later, due to the failure to redeem a short-term financing bill on schedule, Unisplendour Group's debt crisis fully erupted, and this giant ship with a debt of tens of billions began to sink.

The stock price of Unisplendour Corporation was halved in six months, the controlling shareholder went into bankruptcy restructuring, and overnight, the future of the group became uncertain.

In 2022, the restructuring plan was finalized. A consortium composed of Wise Road Capital and JianGuang Asset Management took over Unisplendour Group, and Zhao Weiguo was investigated after leaving the company.

The new management quickly divested heavy assets such as YMTC, and the Wise Road - JianGuang consortium acquired the entire Unisplendour Group system for 60 billion yuan.

Looking back at the development history of Unisplendour Group, using high leverage to bet on the long - cycle and high - risk semiconductor manufacturing industry was against the industrial laws.

The semiconductor industry is a typical "three - high" industry, featuring high investment, high risk, and long cycles.

Industry giants such as TSMC and Samsung have built their moats through decades of accumulation and continuous huge capital expenditures.

However, Zhao Weiguo tried to use the quick money from real estate and capital operations to drive chip manufacturing, which requires long - term and stable capital.

This mismatch might be sustainable through refinancing during the industry's upswing, but once it encountered a down cycle, like the avalanche of storage chip prices in 2020, a broken capital chain was an inevitable outcome.

Unisplendour's rise coincided with an era when China's semiconductor industry received unprecedented attention and capital flooded in.

The national major fund, local industrial funds, and private capital all rushed into the semiconductor industry.

However, when ambition exceeded one's ability and went against the actual development laws, it was bound to be severely punished by reality.

Unisplendour thus completely changed its direction.

02 The Only Pillar

After the bankruptcy restructuring of Unisplendour Group, the new management significantly streamlined the new Unisplendour Group.

Divesting YMTC was undoubtedly the most painful move.

Strategically, YMTC is a national - level storage chip base that requires continuous investment of tens of billions of yuan over more than 10 years. This is obviously beyond the capacity of Unisplendour Group, which has experienced a debt crisis.

Leaving it to national and local capital for cultivation is a rather rational choice.

However, this also means that the future of Unisplendour Corporation almost entirely depends on New H3C Group.

In the whole year of 2025, Unisplendour Corporation achieved an operating income of 96.748 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 22.43%, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 1.686 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 7.19%.

Among them, its controlling subsidiary, New H3C Group, achieved an annual revenue of 75.981 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of a whopping 37.96%, and a net profit of 3.151 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 12.30%.

In other words, more than 70% of Unisplendour Corporation's revenue and most of its profits come from New H3C Group.

This high - level binding is both the strongest moat for Unisplendour and its greatest risk.

The current semiconductor industry is at an unprecedented turning point.

Now, the semiconductor cycle has gradually shifted from being driven by consumer electronics to being driven by AI computing power. The global high - end AI chip market is expected to grow by more than 60% in 2026, and domestic substitution is also accelerating under external blockade.

As a leading player in the ICT infrastructure field, New H3C Group is undoubtedly a direct beneficiary of this trend.

Because the demand for AI computing power has driven the growth of hardware such as servers and switches, and domestic substitution is also accelerating in key information infrastructure fields such as government, finance, energy, and transportation.

New H3C Group has inherited the technological accumulation of Huawei 3Com and HP H3C Technologies. It is one of the few domestic manufacturers that can provide a full range of products, from core switches to access switches, from enterprise - level routers to network security, and from general - purpose servers to AI servers.

Source: Company's official website

This supply capacity gives it an obvious competitive advantage among government and enterprise customers.

However, the competitive landscape that New H3C Group faces is becoming more complex.

Currently, the domestic enterprise - level ICT market has entered a stage of stock competition.

And Huawei is New H3C Group's biggest competitor. In terms of technology, brand, and government - enterprise relationships, New H3C Group is far behind.

Huawei not only has a more complete independent technology system but also has extensive customer resources and channel networks in the government - enterprise market. It is extremely difficult for New H3C Group to further expand its market share in the stock market.

Moreover, Internet companies represented by Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud are reducing their reliance on hardware through cloud services. In the long run, this will inevitably impact the business of traditional hardware manufacturers.

In addition, domestic server and network equipment manufacturers such as Inspur Information, Ningchang, and Super Fusion are rapidly rising. Although their overall strength is still inferior to that of New H3C Group, they are posing significant competitive pressure in niche markets.

Although New H3C Group is also actively transforming, facing competition from Huawei in the front, attacks from Internet giants in the back, and impacts from emerging companies like Inspur, the company's situation is not easy.

Moreover, in New H3C Group's high - end switches and servers, core chips such as CPUs, switch chips, and AI chips still rely heavily on external procurement, especially from US suppliers.

Against the backdrop of the Sino - US technological competition, supply - chain security is always a Damocles sword hanging over the company's head.

Looking at Unisplendour Corporation as a whole, through multiple transactions, Unisplendour Corporation has increased its stake in New H3C Group from 51% to 100%, completely bringing the company under its wing. This also means that more profits will belong to the listed company's shareholders in the future.

From a financial perspective, this is undoubtedly a boost.

However, due to the cash acquisition of New H3C Group, Unisplendour Corporation's asset - liability ratio suddenly rose from 54% in 2023 to 82% in 2024 and has remained at a high level.

Meanwhile, the rapid growth of the low - margin server business is pulling down Unisplendour Corporation's gross profit margin. As a high - tech company, in the first quarter of 2026, Unisplendour Corporation's gross profit margin was even less than 13%.

Therefore, with the continuous decline in the gross profit margin and the high - level asset - liability ratio, it may be difficult for Unisplendour Corporation's stock price to have long - term growth.

However, from the perspective of New H3C Group, its main business, if New H3C Group can form differentiation in fields such as liquid - cooled servers and intelligent computing centers, accelerate the domestic substitution of core chips, or seize the opportunity to open up overseas markets, the company still has considerable long - term growth potential.

Only then can Unisplendour Corporation completely emerge from its past shadow.

03 Conclusion

Now, Unisplendour Corporation is standing at a new crossroads.

In the past, the capital market's valuation of Unisplendour Corporation has been quite contradictory.

On the one hand, due to New H3C Group's stable performance, Unisplendour Corporation is regarded as a blue - chip stock.

On the other hand, some investors have pinned semiconductor concepts on it because of its past relationship with YMTC.

Now, the fact that it has lost YMTC is a fait accompli, and the market has fully priced this in.

In a market dominated by AI computing power and self - sufficiency, Unisplendour Corporation's positioning as a pure hardware integrator may not be very attractive.

However, looking to the future, although there is no longer a possibility of becoming the "Chinese Samsung", if Unisplendour Corporation can continuously deliver solid performance and a clear future strategy, there is still significant growth potential.

This article is from the WeChat official