In the first year of succession, dividends totaled 5.48 billion, and Cao Hui did not disappoint Cao Dewang.

How does Cao Hui continue the strategy of his predecessors to achieve new performance highs?

This high-growth performance is both the “aftershock” of the Cao Dewang era’s long-term accumulation and the “new achievement” of Cao Hui’s strategic efforts after taking office.

Produced by | Reading Business Era

Edited by | Li Xiaoyan

If dividends are the “touchstone” for assessing a company’s quality, then Fuyao Glass’s performance in 2025 undoubtedly provides a compelling answer — the company’s revenue and net profit have achieved double-digit high growth, while proposing a dividend of 3.132 billion yuan to all shareholders, with total annual dividends reaching 5.48 billion yuan, setting a new historical high. This sincerity coincides with a critical juncture in the power transition at Fuyao — in October 2025, Cao Hui officially took over the position of chairman of Fuyao Glass from his father, Cao Dewang, becoming the new helmsman of this global automotive glass leader.

Therefore, this high-growth performance is both the “aftershock” of the Cao Dewang era’s long-term accumulation and the “new achievement” of Cao Hui’s strategic efforts after taking office.

Cao Hui’s term began in October 2025, which means the annual performance’s “fundamental base” was largely locked in during the first three quarters. However, his influence was not limited to the last three months; rather, it spanned the entire year’s performance finish and the strategic orientation for future development, forming a positive connection of “the previous generation lays the stage, and the next generation performs.”

In the first three quarters of 2025, Fuyao Glass achieved revenue of 33.3 billion yuan and net profit of 7.064 billion yuan, representing year-on-year growth of 17.62% and 28.93%, respectively, with the framework for high annual growth already established. This accumulation is not coincidental but rather the inevitable result of Cao Dewang’s decades-long strategic layout: in terms of cost control, the company’s silicon sand self-sufficiency rate reached 95%, and float glass self-sufficiency rate exceeded 90%, with raw material costs 15%-20% lower than peers, creating an unshakable cost moat; in terms of product structure, the advance layout of high-value-added products such as skylights, AR-HUDs, and dimmable glass gradually upgraded products and injected sustained momentum into revenue growth; in terms of market layout, the globalization strategy is steadily advancing, with capacity utilization rates at global production bases maintaining above 85%, and overseas markets have become significant growth engines for the company.

It can be said that what Cao Dewang left to Cao Hui is a solid fundamental company with clear growth logic and outstanding core competitiveness, which is also the core premise for the 2025 annual report to achieve simultaneous growth in volume and profit.

Despite the limited time in office, Cao Hui’s impact on the 2025 performance is still clearly discernible. Contrary to market concerns about “strategic upheaval,” Cao Hui’s core idea is to optimize and upgrade based on the inheritance of Cao Dewang’s core management philosophy while aligning with industry trends, allowing for precise strategic orientation and efficient execution, making Fuyao Glass’s growth more resilient and sustainable.

From the perspective of corporate governance, Cao Hui has achieved a smooth transition for the management team, with no core personnel changes, effectively ensuring steady progress in operations during the fourth quarter, achieving a quarterly revenue of 12.487 billion yuan and net profit of 2.248 billion yuan, with steady quarter-on-quarter and high year-on-year growth, successfully maintaining the annual growth target.

In terms of strategic focus, Cao Hui further reinforced the core position of high-value-added products, clearly identifying products such as skylights, AR-HUDs, and dimmable glass as development priorities right after taking office, increasing promotional efforts and capacity investment. Data shows that in 2025, high-value-added products accounted for more than 53.94% of Fuyao Glass’s sales, a year-on-year increase of 5.44 percentage points, directly driving the automotive glass gross profit margin up to 31.32%, a year-on-year increase of 1.17 percentage points. Meanwhile, he accurately grasped the development trend of the new energy vehicle industry, deepening cooperation with leading new energy vehicle companies such as BYD, Huawei, Wenjie, and Xiaomi, continuously securing ample orders, making automotive glass for new energy vehicles a major force for revenue growth. This is both a continuation of Cao Dewang’s strategy of “binding high-quality customers” and a precise adaptation to industry trends, further consolidating the company’s leading position in the new energy sector.

In terms of future planning, Cao Hui’s promotion of digital and intelligent transformation has also laid important groundwork for Fuyao Glass’s long-term growth. He proposed to deeply integrate AI into the entire process of research and development, production, and management, building a dual-track talent system of “business experts + AI application experts,” while increasing the recruitment of talents in fields such as master’s and doctoral programs, AI, and digitalization. In 2025, the number of R&D personnel in the company increased by 66.57% year-on-year, providing solid talent support for the transformation. Although these effects have not yet fully manifested in the 2025 annual report, they have injected new momentum into the growth of 2026.

In the chairman’s address in the 2025 annual report, Cao Hui also emphasized the core strategy of “dual-driven by digital and intelligent, second entrepreneurship,” defining the core path for Fuyao Glass’s development in 2026 and beyond.

The 5.4 billion yuan dividend is a realization of the past; while the new coordinates of “digital + intelligent” are defining the future’s elasticity. For this industry leader that has already proven itself, what is truly worth paying attention to may no longer be whether it is excellent, but rather how high it can push its performance in the new industrial cycle.

Personal opinion, for reference only.