O-Film's New Board Secretary Draws Attention

A topic of ongoing chatter in financial circles lately:

Back on August 5, O-Film announced that Zhou Liang, the company's board secretary, had resigned from the post due to a work adjustment, and would continue to serve as a director and vice general manager of the company.

The same day, the company appointed Li Yin as vice general manager and board secretary. Related reports also labeled her a "post-90s beauty board secretary."

Over the past month or so, industry attention on this

As a listed company, O-Film has recently been in the spotlight for two things: the public opinion incident in August, and the traffic generated by this attractive board secretary.

Public information shows that Li Yin was born in October 1991, earned her bachelor's degree from Fudan University and her postgraduate degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and has obtained the board secretary qualification certificate of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Previously, she served as deputy general manager and board secretary at Xiangfenghua and Kexin Technology.

This resume says at least two things.

First, she is no newcomer to the capital markets. The core of the board secretary role is translating the company's operating language into public information that the market can understand and regulators can verify.

Having held positions at two listed companies means she has some experience with disclosure, shareholder communication and the regulatory cadence.

Second, she has both an academic background and experience at a listed technology manufacturing company. O-Film has a complex supply chain and large-scale manufacturing system, so a board secretary cannot understand only the capital markets; she must also speak the language of R&D, procurement, customers and factories.

Her past resume can only prove she is qualified to sit in this seat; it cannot automatically prove she can solve O-Film's current problems.

A board secretary is not the company's "spokesperson," still less a catalyst for its share price.

The value of the role lies in explaining the real state of the business clearly and connecting long-term strategy with short-term results.

For O-Film, what outsiders care about is how the losses are narrowing, how the business is transforming, and how disclosure can be made more meaningful.

O-Film has faced mounting pressure this year

O-Film reported full-year 2025 revenue of RMB 22.150 billion, up 8.38% year on year, but net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was just RMB 41.6342 million, and the company posted a loss of RMB 29.8877 million after excluding non-recurring gains and losses. Revenue is still growing, but profits have become razor-thin.

In the first half of 2026, the company reported revenue of 7.841 billion yuan, down 20.29% year on year, and a net loss attributable to shareholders of 444 million yuan.

In other words, the company barely broke even for all of last year, but posted a more visible loss in the first half of this year.

The company explained in its earnings preview that the main reasons included rising memory chip prices, weakening downstream end-market demand, and some customers cutting production and shipment plans, which reduced the company's order volume in phases and lowered gross margins in its core business.

At the same time, the company faces significant pressure in the capital markets.

Meanwhile, government subsidies declined year on year and profit attributable to minority shareholders increased year on year, also weighing on profit.

These explanations are fairly typical. O-Film sits in the middle of the consumer electronics supply chain, with large revenue but profit margins that are not entirely within its own control.

When upstream prices rise, costs hit the books first; when downstream demand weakens, orders change first; and manufacturers must also bear fixed costs such as equipment, personnel, R&D and production line utilization.

When orders are stable, scale can spread out costs. When orders suddenly drop, scale can also become a burden.

More notably, this is not the first time O-Film's profitability has come under pressure. From 2020 to 2025, the company's net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company, excluding non-recurring items, was negative for several consecutive years. For investors, this is not a one-off fluctuation in a single quarter or year, but a long-term question of how manufacturing scale translates into stable profits.

Smartphone business remains the foundation; automotive business still needs watching

O-Film's business is not limited to a single area, covering mainly smartphones, smart vehicles and new fields.

The smartphone business includes camera modules, optical lenses, fingerprint recognition and 3D ToF products. The company has built up technical expertise in high-pixel camera modules, periscope telephoto lenses and ultrasonic under-display fingerprint sensors, along with mature mass-production capabilities.

But the handset industry has entered a phase of competition for a saturated market.

Citing IDC data, Reuters reported that China's smartphone shipments fell 4.3% year over year to 66 million units in the second quarter of 2026, with a 4.2% decline in the first half, marking a fifth consecutive quarter of contraction. Rising prices for memory chips and components also dampened consumers' appetite for upgrades.

For suppliers like O-Film, a declining handset market means more than fewer modules sold; it also brings customer price pressure, shifts in product mix and lower production line utilization.

High-end lenses and premium camera modules may improve average selling prices, but whether they can reach sufficient scale still depends on actual volume ramp-ups by end-market brands.

Smart vehicles are a key focus for O-Film as it seeks a second growth curve. The company has built positions in the driving domain, body domain and cockpit domain, with products extending from automotive lenses and cameras to domain controllers and smart cockpit vision systems.

The upside in this direction is indeed greater. Automotive intelligence will increase the number of cameras and also boost demand for products such as visual perception, in-cabin monitoring and electronic rearview mirrors.

But the automotive business follows its own timeline: from customer design wins to project validation, then to mass production and cash collection, the cycle is often lengthy. The market may assign a valuation first, but financial results ultimately have to wait for revenue and profit to materialize.

New areas include handheld smart imaging devices, smart door locks, endoscopes, VR and AR, helping to spread the risk of relying on a single end market. But more business does not necessarily mean more profit; the key is whether the company can move from "having orders" to "having gross margin."

What can this board secretary bring to O-Film?

Market expectations for a new board secretary are often reduced to a simple question: "Can they talk the share price up?" This is actually a misunderstanding of the role.

For O-Film, Li Yin's more realistic tasks may come down to four.

First, explain the company's complex business structure clearly. Mobile phones, automotive and the new areas are each at different stages of development and cannot all be covered by a single "growth" narrative.

Investors need to know which businesses contribute revenue, which contribute profit, and which are still in the investment phase.

Second, break down the causes of the loss: how much came from rising memory chip prices, how much from lower orders, how much from changes in product mix, and how much from reduced subsidies and non-controlling interests.

Only with that clarity can the market judge whether this is a short-term fluctuation or a problem with the profit model.

Third, improve the quality of investor relations responses. The board secretary's role is not to help the company dodge questions, but to help it build a stable, consistent and verifiable communication mechanism.

For manufacturers, real orders, customer design wins, capacity utilization, R&D spending and cash flow are often more convincing than a grand strategic statement.

Fourth, help the company build a more distinctive capital market narrative. In the past, Ofilm was seen by the market mainly as a smartphone camera module supplier.

Whether it can become an intelligent vision solutions company in the future cannot rest on a new slogan alone; it must be proven through volume growth in the automotive business, profits from new fields, and improvements in overall gross margin and cash flow.

Final Word

A young woman joining the senior management of a listed company is worth recognizing, and worth being scrutinized normally. Her age and image can attract attention, but they will not automatically deliver results.

Capital markets can give newcomers time, but they will not wait indefinitely for explanations.

What Ofilm needs most right now is not a prettier story, but a steadier financial report. The mobile business must hold the line on cash flow and profit, the automotive business must prove that its design wins can reach mass production, and the new fields must prove that the investment can pay off.

If the company can deliver on these things one by one, every communication from the board secretary will carry more weight.

Conversely, if revenue keeps falling and non-recurring adjusted profit stays negative, even the most impressive résumé will remain just a résumé.

The real significance of this personnel change lies not in the "beautiful board secretary" label, but in whether O-Film can use the new investor-relations window to clearly explain its operating pressures, steadily execute its transformation, and restore profitability.

For a listed manufacturer, the most convincing public relations is always the next healthier financial report.

       Original title : "Dilraba of the Board Secretaries" Lands! O-Film Draws Attention Again