Share price surges 511.75% year-to-date! Leading copper-clad laminate maker Kingboard Holdings: Not explicitly betting on the AI sector

Source: Time Weekly Authors: Yuan Jiawei, Zhao Peng

Compared to its closing price on December 31, 2025, Kingboard Holdings' share price has risen by 511.75% since the start of 2026.

On June 16, Kingboard Holdings (002636.SZ), a leading copper-clad laminate (CCL) manufacturer, continued its strong performance, closing at RMB 101.49 per share, up 4.26%, after hitting an intraday high of RMB 102.90 per share.

On June 15, the PCB sector index (BK0877) kept rising and closed up 8.17% at 4,800.44 points, setting another all-time high. Of the 152 listed companies in the sector, 26 hit their daily trading limits—the largest single-day涨停 rally in the sector this year.

Following three consecutive trading days with cumulative closing price deviations reaching 20%, Kingboard Holdings issued a stock trading anomaly announcement after market close on June 15. According to Shenzhen Stock Exchange data, this marks the seventh such announcement from the company this year.

The announcement stated that since April, the company's share price has risen by 223.65%. Its latest forward P/E ratio stands at 136.54x, compared to the industry average of 61.72x. The significant valuation premium suggests overheated market sentiment and irrational speculation, raising the risk of a sharp price correction.

Image source: Tonghuashun

Notably, the announcement also clarified that Jin'an Guoji’s primary customers are PCB manufacturers, and the company has not identified any applications in AI servers or computing power infrastructure. Its high-frequency, high-speed copper-clad laminate (CCL) products remain in the laboratory development and customer sampling phase and have not yet generated revenue.

In an interview with Time Weekly, a representative from Jin'an Guoji stated: 'Our ongoing private placement involves several components, and we do not rule out directions like AI servers and computing power. Yesterday’s stock price volatility notice mentioned no current applications in those areas—but regarding future possibilities, we simply cannot make projections at this stage.'

Core CCL Business Experiences Breakout Growth

Founded in October 2000 and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in November 2011, Jin'an Guoji specializes in the research, development, production, and sales of copper-clad laminates (CCL), a foundational material in the electronics industry. Its product portfolio includes general-purpose FR-4, CEM-3 series CCLs, specialty-performance CCLs, aluminum-based CCLs, and prepregs, which are widely used in home appliances, computers, lighting, automotive, and telecommunications sectors. The company primarily serves small and medium-sized enterprises.

As early as 2023, the CCL market faced dual pressures from weak demand and intensified competition, resulting in an operating loss for Jin'an Guoji. The company reported a net loss attributable to shareholders of RMB 78.81 million for the full year, a 190.48% decline compared to the prior year. As market conditions gradually improved, Jin'an Guoji returned to profitability in 2024, achieving a significant earnings rebound thereafter.

For the full year 2025, Jin'an Guoji reported total revenue of RMB 4.48 billion, up 10.67% year-over-year. Net profit attributable to shareholders soared to RMB 301 million from RMB 37.06 million in the same period last year, representing a remarkable 711.54% year-over-year increase. Adjusted net profit also turned positive, reaching RMB 266 million.

By business segment, in 2025, Jin'an Guoji generated RMB 4.312 billion in revenue from electronic components manufacturing, a 12.66% increase from 2024. The contribution of CCL operations to total revenue rose to 91.98%, up from 88.49% in 2024. In terms of production volume, the company manufactured 59.3379 million CCL sheets in 2025, an 8.10% year-over-year increase, and sold 59.5244 million sheets, up 7.87% year-over-year, maintaining a high production-to-sales ratio.

Benefiting continuously from the concentrated boom in the PCB industry's cyclical upswing, Golden Dragon Holding delivered an impressive performance in the first quarter of 2026: total revenue reached RMB 1.26 billion, up 31.36% year-over-year; net profit attributable to shareholders surged 763.91% year-over-year to RMB 202 million—already exceeding two-thirds of the company’s full-year 2025 profit in just one quarter.

In Q1 2026, Golden Dragon Holding’s gross profit margin jumped to 26.44%, a 145.45% year-over-year increase, while its net profit margin reached 16.00%, soaring 537.43% year-over-year, narrowing the gap with industry leader Shengyi Technology (SHA: 600183).

The global PCB market size is projected to grow more than fivefold over the next three years.

It’s not just Golden Dragon Holding—since April, multiple leading CCL manufacturers have issued a flurry of price increase notices, signaling steadily improving profitability across the CCL sector.

Copper Clad Laminate (CCL), short for Copper Clad Laminate, is the core base material for printed circuit boards (PCBs), accounting for approximately 27%–40% of total PCB costs. Golden Dragon Holding’s earnings surge exemplifies the broader upswing currently sweeping the entire PCB supply chain—a rally primarily driven by surging AI computing demand.

As NVIDIA’s next-generation AI rack architectures, such as Rubin Ultra and Kyber, gradually emerge, PCBs—once a relatively 'behind-the-scenes' foundational component—are now becoming one of the most closely watched critical elements in the AI computing supply chain. The bill of materials (BOM) cost for NVIDIA’s VR200 NVL72 rack has risen by approximately 95% compared to the GB300, reaching USD 7.803 million, with PCB value surging 233% year-over-year to USD 1.167 million from USD 351,000—making it the fastest-growing non-memory component category.

Morgan Stanley forecasts that the global AI optical module PCB market will expand from USD 620 million in 2025 to USD 3.77 billion by 2028—a more than fivefold increase over three years, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 83%, significantly outpacing the optical module market’s 60% CAGR during the same period. On June 15, Golden Dragon Holding disclosed a revised prospectus for its private placement of A-shares, revealing that the proceeds will fund a new CCL production capacity of 40 million square meters per year—an approximately 51% expansion relative to its 2025 capacity—and stated that absorption of this additional capacity will primarily rely on overall CCL industry growth and rising customer demand for new products.

CITIC Securities believes that against the backdrop of strengthening underlying demand and persistently rising raw material prices, the CCL industry is poised for multiple rounds of above-normal price hikes, with profit margins holding potential for a 10-percentage-point improvement. The firm remains bullish on accelerating profit realization in the traditional CCL sector going forward.

However, Golden Dragon Holding has repeatedly flagged risks in its announcements. The latest notice explicitly clarifies that recent online rumors claiming the company’s products have been certified for inclusion in NVIDIA’s or Huawei’s supply chains are entirely false.

A representative from Golden Dragon Holding stated, 'Our capacity expansion includes both general-purpose CCL and CCL with specialized performance specifications. As an upstream base material supplier, we don’t dictate end-use applications—downstream customers ultimately determine which fields these products serve based on their own requirements.'

Furthermore, Jin'an Guoji warned that the copper-clad laminate industry in which the company operates is influenced by multiple factors, including industrial policies, customer demand, and production capacity supply. Significant changes in the macroeconomic environment, market supply-demand dynamics, competitive landscape, or raw material prices could lead to volatility in the company's future operating performance. If the company's new product development fails to meet expectations, its market competitiveness may weaken, adversely affecting its earnings growth.

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