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China’s domestic semiconductor equipment suppliers posted record 2025 revenues as local fabs kept expanding capacity and sourcing around tighter export controls, according to a recent Tom’s Hardware report that drew on Nikkei Asia data. Naura, AMEC, ACM Research and Piotech all benefited, even as Chinese fabs continued to buy large volumes of overseas equipment routed through Singapore and Malaysia.

Chinese chip tool makers gain scale

Naura, the broadest of the group, reported 27.14 billion yuan in revenue in the first three quarters of 2025, up from 6.05 billion yuan for all of 2020. AMEC’s revenue over the same period rose to more than five times its 2020 base, while Piotech’s 2025 revenue was roughly 13 times its 2020 total. The rise reflects several years of state-backed capacity expansion at companies such as YMTC, CXMT and SMIC, and a policy push to replace imported wafer-fab equipment wherever domestic alternatives are good enough.

Chinese chip tool makers still face margin pressure

The catch is that scale is not the same thing as pricing power. Needham analyst Charles Shi told Nikkei Asia that margins are coming under pressure as domestic suppliers compete harder for share inside China. In other words, the market is growing, but it is also becoming more crowded, especially in deposition, etch and related process steps where local vendors have become more credible.

Imports are shifting, not disappearing

Chinese customs recorded just $2 billion of direct US-origin chipmaking equipment shipments in 2025, down more than 34% year on year and the lowest annual total since 2017. Yet imports from Singapore rose to $5.7 billion and those from Malaysia to $3.4 billion, showing that sourcing routes have changed rather than vanished. Meanwhile, Applied Materials, Lam Research and KLA still booked nearly $19 billion in combined China sales in their 2025 fiscal reporting periods, while ASML said China accounted for 29.1% of its 2025 revenue.

The bigger picture is that China remains the centre of gravity for equipment spending, as previously reported by eeNews Europe when China dominated semiconductor manufacturing equipment spend. So the latest numbers do not point to decoupling in any clean sense. They point to a more awkward market in which foreign toolmakers still have deep exposure to China, while Chinese chip tool makers are getting bigger, tougher and increasingly harder to ignore.

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