Sunny Optical Half-Year Report: Mobile Phone Profit Falls RMB 280 Million, Robotics Doubles

Sunny Optics recently released its 2026 interim report. In the first half, Sunny Optics posted revenue of about 21.906 billion yuan, up 11.5% year on year, and gross profit of about 4.269 billion yuan, up 9.6%.

By business segment, the mobile phone business remained the largest revenue source, contributing 13.149 billion yuan, though it slipped 0.8% year on year. The global smartphone market remains weak, with second-quarter shipments falling 6% to 11% year on year, while upstream component price increases further squeezed demand.

Fortunately, Sunny Optics raised the average selling price of camera modules by increasing the share of high-end products, offsetting the impact of lower shipments and stabilizing overall revenue. However, segment profit fell from about 1.9 billion yuan to about 1.615 billion yuan, a decrease of about 285 million yuan — the largest negative item on the income statement.

Filling that gap was the "other products" segment. Revenue there surged from about 2.143 billion yuan to about 4.039 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 90%, with a gross margin as high as 34.4%, far above the 12.3% of the mobile phone business.

The company said the growth mainly came from robotics, smart imaging and other pan-IoT products. Lawn-mowing robots and warehouse automation robot projects have entered mass production and won multiple new projects for complete machines and system solutions; high-end microscopy instruments made breakthroughs in AI medical scenarios; and semiconductor wafer defect inspection equipment gained recognition from leading customers. Other products' share of gross profit contribution jumped from 18.2% to 32.6%, making them the most important source of profit growth.

Meanwhile, the automotive products segment, the second-largest pillar, performed steadily, with revenue of 3.762 billion yuan, up 10.6% year on year, and segment profit holding at a high level of about 1.139 billion yuan, close to 70% of the mobile phone segment. 8-megapixel ADAS cameras won new design wins from several leading automakers, 17-megapixel products entered mass production, and the number of cameras per vehicle continues to rise with the penetration of L2+ intelligent driving, keeping the automotive optics market expanding.

From a profit-mix perspective, the handset segment's share has fallen from about 66% to about 56%, while automotive and other products together account for nearly 50%. Sunny Optical is shifting from a "handset optics leader" to a diversified precision optics platform.

XR product revenue reached RMB 956 million, up 11% year on year. The scale is still small, but the direction is clear. With AI and consumer hardware converging deeply, smart glasses are entering a period of rapid growth, and the company has built end-to-end capabilities spanning basic optical components to integrated hardware-and-software systems.

Overseas markets also deserve attention. North American revenue doubled year on year, European growth exceeded 40%, and China's share of revenue fell from 71.9% to 68.9%. Overseas markets are becoming a key growth engine.

On earnings quality, the group's overall gross margin edged down 0.3 percentage points to 19.5%, mainly due to pricing pressure in the handset business. However, financing costs fell about 32.8%, freeing up RMB 80 million in financial headroom, while the operating expense ratio dropped from 12.3% to 11.0%, with R&D and administrative spending well controlled.

That said, the global minimum tax rules have added structural tax burdens, lifting the effective tax rate from 7.6% to 11.5%. This incremental cost will persist going forward.

Compared with peers, Largan Precision and Genius Electronic Optical remain heavily dependent on handset lens orders, whereas Sunny Optical's differentiation lies in using diversified businesses to hedge handset cyclicality. Handset profit fell by nearly RMB 300 million, but automotive held a profit base of RMB 1.1 billion, and the near-doubling of other products contributed a larger gross profit increase.

Management maintained its guidance for full-year revenue and net profit growth of at least 7%, while sharply raising the final dividend payout, underscoring confidence in the transformation. From smartphone lenses to an optics platform, Sunny Optical's profit restructuring may only just be beginning.