Silver Price Soars! Dikc Co., Ltd. Net Profit Down 176.8% Year-over-Year, Can Cross-Border Energy Storage Break Through the "Growing Revenue Without Growing Profit" Dilemma?

This article is from Times Weekly, authored by Yu Chen and Intern Cao Yu.

Image source: TuChong

On the evening of March 19, Dico Co., Ltd. (300842.SZ) released its 2025 annual report. During the reporting period, the company achieved operating revenue of 18.046 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.56%; net profit attributable to shareholders was a loss of 276 million yuan, a decrease of 176.80% compared to the previous year; and net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was 163 million yuan, down 62.78% year-on-year. The net cash flow from operating activities was 668 million yuan, a decrease of 28.88% year-on-year. The company’s revenue continued to grow, but profitability was significantly under pressure.

On a quarterly basis, Dico Co. achieved operating revenue of 5.322 billion yuan in the fourth quarter, the highest quarterly figure for the year. However, net profit attributable to shareholders was a loss of 306 million yuan, and losses in the third and fourth quarters directly dragged down the overall annual performance.

Image source: Dico Co. Annual Report

It is worth noting that, in response to performance fluctuations caused by soaring silver prices and intensified competition in the photovoltaic industry, Dico Co. is trying to break through the growth bottleneck of its single photovoltaic business by clearly positioning storage chips as its second main business, aiming to expand new sources of profit.

On March 20, Times Weekly reporters contacted Dico Co.'s securities department regarding questions about the annual report. The other party stated that they needed to send interview questions. However, the interview outline previously sent by the reporter to the company has not received a response.

Silver Price Surge Pressures Net Profit

Founded in 2010, Dico Co. became China’s first listed company specializing in conductive silver paste for photovoltaics and semiconductors in 2020. The company mainly engages in the research, development, production, and sales of high-performance electronic materials. Its main products are conductive pastes used for metallization in photovoltaic cells.

Times Weekly reviewed Dico Co.'s financial reports over the years and found that the company’s operating revenue has increased consecutively for five years since listing, from 1.582 billion yuan in 2020 to 18.046 billion yuan in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of over 12 times. However, net profit attributable to shareholders only exceeded 300 million yuan in 2023 and 2024, reaching 386 million yuan and 360 million yuan respectively. In 2025, the company recorded a net loss of 276 million yuan, turning from profit to loss.

Regarding the main reasons for the 2025 performance loss, Dico Co. stated that it was mainly due to non-recurring gains and losses, which impacted net profit attributable to shareholders by -440 million yuan. Since 2025, international silver prices have surged sharply to multi-year highs. According to a research report from Guotai Haitong Securities, the London spot silver price rose from $29.4 per ounce at the beginning of 2025 to $72.0, an increase of 144.8%.

In fact, silver powder, the main raw material for silver paste, accounts for over 95% of the cost of silver paste. Affected by the sharp rise in silver prices, the gross profit margin of photovoltaic materials for Dico Co. in 2025 was only 8.57%, down 2.05 percentage points year-on-year. Throughout 2025, Dico Co. sold 1,829.16 tons of photovoltaic conductive pastes, a decrease of 10.23% compared to the previous year.

Against this backdrop, “silver-free” technology has become a high-frequency keyword in the photovoltaic industry. Major companies are accelerating their technological layout to alleviate cost pressures and improve profitability.

Recently, a CTO of a listed photovoltaic company told Times Weekly: “For the energy industry, we aim to provide low-cost energy. When using high-priced materials, sustainable development becomes a challenge. In recent years, photovoltaic companies have been working on de-silvering or reducing silver content. Because each company adopts different technical routes, the production effects may vary slightly.”

Dico Co. is also accelerating the deployment of low-silver and silver-free conductive pastes. During investment and communication activities, the company stated that compared to traditional silver pastes, high-copper pastes have obvious cost advantages. “Currently, high-copper pastes contain about 20% silver. Although the paste consumption per cell is slightly higher than pure silver pastes, the overall price is more competitive. Additionally, this product adopts a direct pricing model, and with technological advantages, it can maintain relatively high gross margins.”

In an investor exchange in January 2026, Dico Co. also indicated that the high-copper paste solution has achieved GW-level capacity at strategic customers. The company expects 2026 to be the year of large-scale mass production of high-copper pastes in the industry, with a positive market outlook.

Betting on Storage Chips for New Growth

“The evolution of silver-free photovoltaic technology is a double-edged sword for silver paste companies,” Wang Jian, an analyst at TrendForce, told Times Weekly on March 20. In the short to medium term, de-silvering technologies like 0BB have raised the technological threshold for pastes, creating opportunities for leading companies to “outperform” by leveraging technological premiums to achieve volume decline and profit increase. In the long term, if pure silver-free technologies such as copper electroplating reach mass production, the core market for photovoltaic silver pastes could collapse dramatically. To this end, leading companies are accelerating their technological entry into high-margin semiconductor and automotive electronic pastes, building a second growth curve resistant to industry cycles.

Dico Co. is also shifting its focus to the storage field, attempting to break through profitability difficulties through cross-industry layout. In 2025, the company’s storage chip business achieved operating revenue of 503 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 574.63%; gross profit margin reached 47.46%, an increase of 23.86 percentage points compared to the previous year. Dico Co. announced that in the fourth quarter of 2025, its storage chip business generated about 230 million yuan in revenue, nearly half of the annual storage revenue, with rapid growth.

The rapid growth of the storage business is backed by Dico Co.'s successive acquisitions. As early as September 2024, Dico Co. acquired a 51% stake in Shenzhen Yinmeng Holding Technology Co., Ltd., and in October 2025, it invested 300 million yuan to acquire a 62.5% stake in Jiangsu Jingkai Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Jiangsu Jingkai”).

Dongwu Securities research reports indicate that Jiangsu Jingkai specializes in storage chip packaging and testing manufacturing services, as well as storage wafer sorting and testing services. It has committed to net profits of no less than 1 million, 35 million, 48 million, and 61 million yuan from 2025 to 2028, respectively. The layout of Jingkai will help strengthen Dico Co.'s competitiveness in the storage business.

In the 2025 annual report, Dico Co. explicitly stated that it considers the storage business as its second main business. The company plans to increase storage chip shipments to 30-50 million units in 2026 and focus on AI-related products such as SoC-DRAM hybrid packages, CXL, and LPWDRAM (low-power high-bandwidth memory chips). The company said it will continue to increase capital and investment, aiming to become a leading third-party DRAM storage module enterprise in China within the next two to three years.

On March 20, during an investor communication, a question was raised about how Dico Co. plans to ensure supply chain stability for its storage business. In response, a senior executive stated that the company relies on integrated capabilities from “application development design—wafer sorting—chip packaging and testing,” with diversified wafer procurement. By increasing direct procurement from manufacturers and multi-channel sourcing, the company effectively safeguards production needs.

However, whether the storage business can help Dico Co. escape the recurring issue of “growing revenue without increasing profit” remains to be seen.

As of the close on March 20, Dico Co. fell 3.74%, trading at 94.07 yuan per share, with a total market value of approximately 13.7 billion yuan.