Toread Group (300005.SZ) released a stellar H1 2026 performance forecast: net profit attributable to shareholders is expected to be 46-56 million yuan, up 128.92%-178.69% YoY, with non-recurring net profit surging 166.58%-211.01%. The core driver is not the traditional outdoor business but the chip segment initiated since 2021.
Chip Business: From M&A Integration to Profit Release
In Q1 2026, chip revenue hit 179 million yuan, up 206.92% YoY, accounting for 36.09% of total revenue. One quarter's chip revenue nearly matched the full-year 2025 figure, far outpacing outdoor growth. This rapid scale-up stems from strategic acquisitions and integration of five chip firms, including Shanghai Tongtu and Shenzhen Betterlife, consolidated from January 2026.
Betterlife holds a top market share in fingerprint recognition chips, with touch chips in multiple leading notebook supply chains. Tongtu focuses on image and video processing, with core IP licensed to over 20 medium-to-large chip firms. The integration is not just financial consolidation but a complete chain from underlying tech to end products.
Tech Commercialization: Smart Exoskeleton Validates Full Chain
Toread's self-developed smart exoskeleton Crest C3, weighing only 1.8 kg with a 10:1 thrust-to-weight ratio, is now on sale. It uses proprietary low-power touch and motion-sensing chips, selling over 100 units in a single day during Tmall's 618 promotion. From main control chips to gait algorithms, all are self-controlled, commercializing the 'sensing-interaction-display-full-stack compression' tech matrix. The chip landscape is shifting from 'building blocks' to 'system building', with chips driving outdoor product innovation and outdoor scenarios feeding back chip R&D.
Policy Resonance and Industry Trends
On July 13, the State Council issued the '15th Five-Year Plan for Expanding Consumption', prioritizing sports, AI-integrated consumption, smart wearables, and health silver consumption. Toread, as an A-share company covering both outdoor and semiconductors, aligns precisely. Outdoor Q1 revenue was 315 million yuan, up 8.02% YoY, covering mountaineering, hiking, skiing, trail running, and camping.
On the chip side, Tongtu's full-stack large model compression technology is key. It optimizes input data, model intermediates, and trillion-parameter weights, significantly reducing edge AI device computing and storage requirements without retraining. As the global AI focus shifts from training to inference, core bottlenecks move from compute scale to memory bandwidth and communication latency, where Tongtu's approach fits perfectly.
In June, Tongtu partnered with a domestic automotive AI chip leader and signed a memorandum with global semiconductor platform GNS. Industry estimates show China's edge AI market growing from 600 billion yuan in 2026 to 2.1 trillion yuan by 2030, with Tongtu's compression tech applicable to personal devices, smart spaces, vehicles, industrial IoT, humanoid robots, and AR/VR wearables.
Brand Heritage and Synergy
Toread's 27-year legacy supports its dual strategy. Since 2009, it has supplied China's polar expeditions for 17 consecutive years, provided suits and sleeping bags for Shenzhou 12-23 space missions, and participated in spacesuit standard setting. In January, it partnered with Beijing Transporter Aerospace Technology to deepen the 'aerospace + outdoor' ecosystem.
Extreme environment testing from poles to space translates into civilian product competitiveness. Outdoor provides stable cash flow, chips contribute growth elasticity, and compression technology links the entire chain—a triple drive positioning Toread in a rare niche for the edge AI era.