The "Queen of Apple Supply Chain" with a 93.6-billion-yuan valuation teams up with Intel: Can it reverse its sluggish performance?
Lens Technology, the leading "Apple supply chain" enterprise with a market capitalization of 190 billion yuan, has joined hands with Intel, the American tech giant.
According to the announcement released by Lens Technology on July 24, Lens International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, recently signed a memorandum of cooperation with Intel.
Pursuant to the memorandum, the two sides will take TGV advanced packaging as the key direction for discussions, and will discuss and evaluate potential cooperation related to key processes such as through-glass via forming, high-precision laser processing, metallized via deposition and multi-layer interconnection wiring.
However, before this partnership with Intel, Lens Technology had just suffered a Waterloo in its performance. In the first quarter of this year, the company achieved operating revenue of 14.14 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 17.13%; the net profit attributable to shareholders was -150 million yuan, turning from profit to loss year-on-year.
Regarding this less-than-impressive result for the first quarter, Lens Technology stated that it was mainly caused by exchange rate fluctuations and the price increase of storage products.
In addition, high customer concentration is also a major challenge facing Lens Technology. In 2025, the combined sales of the company's top five customers accounted for as high as 81.64% of the total annual sales.
Among them, the sales revenue from the largest customer (some media reported that it was Apple) was 33.491 billion yuan, accounting for as high as 45.01%.
It is worth mentioning that after boarding the giant ship of Apple, Zhou Qunfei, the founder of Lens Technology, has repeatedly topped the list of the richest people in Hunan. The newly released "2026 New Fortune 500 Rich List" shows that with a net worth of 93.61 billion yuan, she has once again become the richest person in Hunan, with her wealth increasing by nearly 26 billion yuan compared to last year.
The leading "Apple supply chain" enterprise partners with Intel
On July 24, Lens Technology released an announcement stating that Lens International (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, recently signed a memorandum of cooperation with Intel Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Intel").
This memorandum is valid for one year from the date of signing by the authorized representatives of both parties, and can be extended through negotiation before the expiration date.
The memorandum shows that the two sides will take TGV advanced packaging as the key direction for discussions, and Intel regards Lens Technology as a valuable potential partner in this field.
The two sides will discuss and evaluate potential cooperation related to key processes (including but not limited to the above contents) such as through-glass via forming, high-precision laser processing, metallized via deposition and multi-layer interconnection wiring. Intel will provide illustrative architecture information, design for manufacturability (DFM) guidelines, benchmark testing methods and verification methods.
It is understood that glass substrate is an important development direction of the current advanced packaging material system, which has the advantages of low thermal expansion coefficient, high mechanical strength, excellent electrical isolation performance and low high-frequency signal loss.
According to another research report from Changjiang Securities, TGV technology is the core process to realize the vertical interconnection of glass substrates, which achieves high-density packaging by constructing conductive channels in ultra-thin glass. It is an advanced packaging technology that uses glass as the base material to form vertical conductive vias through processes such as laser drilling and electroplating copper filling, so as to realize efficient interconnection between chips and external circuits.
Lens Technology stated that the company has long-term technical accumulation in processes such as TGV precision machining, micropore forming, metallization deposition and multi-layer interconnection. It has built relevant pilot production lines and carried out sample trial production. At present, it has sent samples to some potential customers for evaluation, and some customers have passed the preliminary proof of concept and entered the technical testing stage.
In addition to TGV, Lens Technology and Intel also believe that there is meaningful exploration potential in other fields where their respective advantages complement each other.
For example: structural parts and modules for AIPC, high-reliability structural parts and heat dissipation components for data center servers, as well as embodied intelligent robots, industrial intelligent equipment and edge computing hardware.
Lens Technology said that the two sides will hold discussions when the above opportunities arise, and any such cooperation (if any) will be promoted under a separate written agreement.
From the perspective of Lens Technology, the signing of this memorandum will help the company establish a long-term, stable and mutually trusting strategic partnership with Intel. Leveraging the strong professional strength and operational capabilities of all parties in their respective fields (including precision manufacturing, materials science and global supply chain management), the two sides will promote the large-scale application of relevant new technologies as soon as possible and facilitate the realization of the company's medium and long-term strategic goals.
It is worth mentioning that in May this year, BOE A, a leading domestic panel enterprise, also released an announcement, announcing the signing of a similar memorandum of cooperation with Corning Incorporated.
Lei Cai Finance learned from the relevant announcement that the two sides will carry out cooperation in key areas such as glass-based packaging carriers, foldable glass, perovskite glass substrates, and optical interconnection related applications, and jointly explore technologies and market opportunities with commercial potential.
Performance Waterloo in the first quarter, with both revenue and net profit declining
According to Tianyancha and the company's official website, Lens Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Lens Technology") was registered and established in 2006, and its predecessor was established in Shenzhen in 1993.
As a leading one-stop precision manufacturing solution provider for the entire industrial chain of intelligent terminals in the industry, with technological innovation as the core and intelligent manufacturing as the driving force, Lens Technology's business covers AI intelligent terminals (including smartphones, AI glasses, intelligent vehicles, embodied intelligence, etc.), AI servers, commercial aerospace, optical communications and other fields.
Lei Cai Finance noticed that before this partnership with Intel, Lens Technology had just suffered a performance Waterloo.
In the first quarter of this year, Lens Technology achieved operating revenue of 14.14 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 17.13%; the net profit attributable to shareholders was -150 million yuan, turning from profit to loss year-on-year.
In response, Lens Technology stated at the performance briefing that the year-on-year decline in the company's revenue in the first quarter and the negative net profit attributable to shareholders were mainly due to the impact of factors such as exchange rate fluctuations and the price increase of storage products.
Lens Technology also said bluntly that the impact of factors such as exchange rate fluctuations and storage price increases on the industry and the company is continuing.
On the revenue side, due to the shortage and price increase of consumer-grade storage, the demand of some consumer electronics customers in the first quarter was revised down, and the corresponding businesses such as structural parts, functional modules, and complete machine assembly declined to varying degrees.
Coupled with the model iteration and design changes of some customers, the company's revenue in the first quarter decreased year-on-year, which was lower than the business plan at the beginning of the year.
On the profit side, it was mainly affected by the short-term sharp fluctuation of the exchange rate. The exchange rate in the first quarter of 2025 was about 7.2, while that in the same period of this year was about 6.9.
Although Lens Technology continues to control risks through foreign exchange derivatives, it cannot completely offset the impact. According to its rough estimate, the company was affected by exchange rate factors by about 500 million yuan in the first quarter compared with the same period last year.
In fact, the downward trend of Lens Technology's performance has already emerged last year. According to iFinD data, in the first three quarters of 2025, Lens Technology maintained positive year-on-year growth in operating revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders, but the situation took a sharp turn in the fourth quarter.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Lens Technology recorded a single-quarter operating revenue of 20.747 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.34%, and the net profit attributable to shareholders reached 1.175 billion yuan, a decrease of 6.23% compared with the same period of the previous year.
Dragged down by the performance of the fourth quarter, in 2025, although Lens Technology delivered a financial report with both revenue and net profit increasing, the growth rates of the company's revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders slowed down compared with the previous year.
The company's annual revenue growth rate dropped from 28.27% in 2024 to 6.46%, and the growth rate of net profit attributable to shareholders decreased by 9.07 percentage points to 10.87%.
From the perspective of revenue structure, the company's operating revenue is mainly composed of six sectors: smartphones and computers, intelligent vehicles and cockpit, smart head-mounted displays and smart wearables, other intelligent terminal products, and other business income.
Among them, smartphones and computer products contributed 61.184 billion yuan in revenue last year, accounting for 82.23% of the company's total operating revenue, a year-on-year increase of 5.94%. But the growth rate slowed down significantly compared with 28.63% in 2024.
As the second largest source of revenue for Lens Technology, intelligent vehicles and cockpit products are facing the dilemma of declining profitability. In 2025, this sector achieved operating revenue of 6.462 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.88%, with a gross profit margin of 7.22%, down 2.95 percentage points year-on-year.
In the same period, the operating revenue of smart head-mounted displays and smart wearables, other intelligent terminal products, and other businesses were 3.978 billion yuan, 1.051 billion yuan, and 1.734 billion yuan respectively, with the total revenue accounting for less than 10%, having limited impact on the company's performance.
The richest woman in Hunan with 93.6 billion yuan, how to alleviate "Apple dependence"?
As the richest woman in Hunan with a net worth of 93.6 billion yuan, Zhou Qunfei faces more challenges than those mentioned above. How to improve the high customer concentration of the company is also one of the problems that need to be solved urgently.
The financial report shows that in 2025, the total sales of the top five customers of Lens Technology reached 60.748 billion yuan, accounting for as high as 81.64% of the total annual sales. Among them, the sales revenue from the largest customer was 33.491 billion yuan, accounting for as high as 45.01%.
According to the Sina BUG column, this customer is none other than Apple, the American tech giant.
The origin of the partnership between Lens Technology and Apple can be traced back to 2006. According to media reports, at that time, the project leader of Apple led the team to "station" at Lens Technology, and the two sides jointly developed the full glass screen of the first-generation iPhone.
In early 2007, Lens Technology successfully passed Apple's supplier certification, and the two sides have since started a cooperation of many years.
Although the cooperation with Apple has boosted the rapid development of the company's performance, Lens Technology has also suffered from "Apple dependence".
According to iFinD data, in 2022, the proportion of sales revenue from the largest customer of Lens Technology once reached as high as 70.96%. Although this indicator has continued to decline since then, it still remains at a high level of over 40%.
Some analysts believe that Lens Technology's high dependence on Apple makes its performance highly linked to Apple's product cycle.
According to the Time Weekly, in 2016, affected by the lower-than-expected sales of the iPhone 6s series, the net profit attributable to shareholders of Lens Technology in that year decreased by 21.98% year-on-year.
In 2018, affected by the Qualcomm ban and the poor sales of iPhone XR, Lens Technology suffered its first single-quarter loss after its listing. It recorded a loss of 428 million yuan in net profit attributable to shareholders in the fourth quarter of that year, and the annual net profit decreased by 68.88% year-on-year.
In 2021, with the intensification of competition in Apple's supply chain and the slowdown of product iteration, the annual net profit attributable to shareholders of Lens Technology decreased by 57.72% year-on-year.
Liang Zhenpeng, an industrial economy observer, said, "In the context of the declining growth rate of the entire consumer electronics industry, it is inevitable that Lens Technology, which relies on Apple for nearly half of its revenue, will face sluggish main business growth."
Liang Zhenpeng also believes that "at least within this year, Lens Technology's performance will not be optimistic. It is expected that the company's performance in the second quarter will still decline. Although there may be some adjustments in the second half of the year, the company will still face obvious pressure throughout the year."
In fact, in the face of "Apple dependence", Lens Technology is also taking steps to make changes.
Last December, Lens Technology released an announcement stating that the company signed the "Equity Acquisition Intent Agreement" with LEU, SONG-SHOW in Hong Kong, China on the same day, intending to purchase 100% equity of PMG International Co., Ltd. (Peimeigao International Co., Ltd.) owned by him in cash and other legal ways.
Lei Cai Finance noticed that PMG International Co., Ltd. holds 95.1164% of the equity of Yuanshi Technology (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd., and the latter holds NVIDIA's RVL certification.
It is reported that this certification is the "gold standard for access" in the core hardware field of AI servers, focusing on key links such as liquid cooling heat dissipation and cabinet structural parts. The certification has a high threshold and a long cycle, which directly determines whether an enterprise can enter the global AI computing power supply chain.
Some analysts pointed out that through this acquisition, Lens Technology can enter NVIDIA's supply chain in a very short time, realizing the leap from traditional consumer electronics precision manufacturing to AI computing power infrastructure.
On July 8, Lens Technology stated on the interactive platform that the company has recently increased its capital in Yuanshi Technology, holding 14.2857% of its equity after the capital increase, and has completed the appointment of management, the change of registered capital and the industrial and commercial filing.
According to Lens Technology, Yuanshi Technology is the main developer of the new generation of server structural parts and liquid cooling modules for its customers. The Dongguan Songshan Lake Park has completed the capacity expansion, and is docking with leading domestic and foreign customers for factory audit.
In addition, in recent years, Lens Technology has also established long-term cooperative relationships with globally renowned enterprises such as Tesla, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Google, Meta, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen.
After this partnership with Intel, can Lens Technology achieve new performance breakthroughs? Lei Cai Finance will continue to pay attention.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Lei Cai Finance", written by Editor X, and authorized for release by 36Kr.