H&SHigh Tech

HNS Hitech, founded in 1995, is an electronic materials specialist built on two business pillars, anisotropic conductive film (ACF) and crystal oscillators; it listed on KONEX in 2015 and moved to KOSDAQ in 2024.

The company's current production base traces back to its 2012 and 2013 acquisitions of ACF divisions from Exax and LG Innotek, which enabled domestic production and mass manufacturing capability.

Revenue is split roughly 72.6% from the materials division (ACF) and 27.4% from the electronics division (crystal oscillators and oscillators).

In ACF, the company holds the number one domestic market share and ranks third globally, and it leads the global market with over 60% share in ACF products for PCB and camera module applications.

As of the end of 2024, the company estimates its global ACF share at 10-15%, with 70-80% domestic share, and over 80% domestic share in LCD-centric markets.

However, in higher value-added segments such as OLED and micro-LED TVs, Japan's Dexerials has maintained a dominant position, while the company has secured roughly a 5% share of the domestic and overseas OLED market.

The company is pursuing a portfolio diversification strategy that layers OLED, micro-LED, mobile, automotive electronics, and semiconductor materials on top of its stable LCD-centered revenue base, with roughly 20% of its workforce dedicated to R&D and an R&D-to-sales ratio maintained at 5-8% over the past three years.

New business areas include non-conductive film (NCF) for semiconductors, optical adhesive materials (OCA/OCR), and special automotive display adhesive materials, the latter of which has completed development and received mass production approval from a domestic automaker.

Consolidated revenue for 2025 rose to KRW 81.9 billion from KRW 76.2 billion in 2024, but operating profit fell to KRW 9.7 billion from KRW 13.4 billion, and net income attributable to owners dropped sharply to KRW 8.9 billion from KRW 14.7 billion.

The operating margin has trended lower over multiple years, from 22.2% in 2022 to 17.3% in 2023, 17.6% in 2024, and 11.8% in 2025. Notably, 2023 net income of KRW 30.1 billion far exceeded that year's operating profit of KRW 14.0 billion, suggesting a meaningful one-off contribution from non-operating items.

On a quarterly basis, the company recorded an operating loss of KRW 0.75 billion and a net loss attributable to owners of KRW 2.0 billion in the second quarter of 2025, marking a trough, before rebounding to operating profit of KRW 4.2 billion and net profit of KRW 4.4 billion in the third quarter of 2025, followed by continued profitability through the fourth quarter of 2025 (operating profit KRW 1.9 billion, net profit KRW 2.9 billion), the first quarter of 2026 (operating profit KRW 3.1 billion, net profit KRW 3.6 billion), and the second quarter of 2026 (operating profit KRW 2.0 billion, net profit KRW 1.5 billion).

Over the trailing four quarters (third quarter of 2025 through second quarter of 2026), cumulative revenue reached roughly KRW 90.1 billion with net income attributable to owners of about KRW 12.4 billion, a clear departure from the loss recorded in the second quarter of 2025.

Regarding first-half 2026 results, the company said mobile camera module ACF materials and electronics-division products such as crystal oscillators showed balanced growth, which it described as a record first-half performance.

Still, the margin decline seen through 2025 was affected by cost pressures and shifting IT device demand, so whether the recent recovery translates into full-year profitability improvement requires further confirmation from second-half results.

ACF is a core material used to precisely bond display panels and circuits, and demand is expected to grow with the shift to OLED and advances in micro-LED technology, while growing vehicle electrification is expected to expand demand for crystal oscillators.

On the electronics-division side, the crystal oscillator market is expanding alongside 5G and IoT technology development, with strengthening autonomous driving and in-vehicle infotainment systems cited as factors supporting profitability.

The global ACF market remains an oligopoly long dominated by Japan's Dexerials, whose grip is especially pronounced in higher value-added segments such as OLED and micro-LED TVs.

HNS Hitech has established itself as a domestic leader in LCD-centered markets, but remains a relative latecomer with lower share in next-generation panel markets such as OLED.

More recently, semiconductor back-end packaging has emerged as an industry-wide focal point, with growing demand for advanced packaging tied to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) cited as a new opportunity for related materials companies.

Against this backdrop, the company continues efforts to extend its existing display and camera-module ACF technology into new materials for advanced semiconductor packaging, though this area appears to still be in an early stage of qualification and certification.

For 2026, the company has stated it is targeting record results since its founding, based on balanced growth across its ACF materials business and electronics business.

In the first half, ACF for mobile camera modules and crystal oscillator sales both grew, producing a record first-half performance, and the company expects ACF supply to expand further in the second half on the back of major new smartphone launches, projecting that sustained momentum could push annual revenue past KRW 100 billion.

To address higher value-added products, the company has been building new production lines using IPO proceeds and has completed equipment configuration for pattern-matching lines in cooperation with a domestic equipment maker.

On the technology front, at SID 2026 the company unveiled a pattern-matching film (PMF) and a solderable anisotropic polymer composite material, both introduced as materials applicable to next-generation advanced semiconductor packaging processes such as 2.5D/3D and system-in-package (SiP).

The company said it is building joint testing and mass-production collaboration frameworks with global manufacturers for solder NCF, hyper-even distribution film (HDF), and build-up film for ultra-precision semiconductor substrates.

Special automotive display adhesive materials have completed development and received mass-production approval from a domestic automaker, and whether this translates into revenue contribution is worth monitoring.

Most of these new materials and businesses remain in early customer qualification and initial mass-production stages, however, so the timing and scale of any actual revenue contribution will need further confirmation through future disclosures.