LEENO Industrial

Leeno Industrial is a Busan-based KOSDAQ company that develops and manufactures its own-brand semiconductor test probe pins (LEENO Pin) and the IC test sockets that house them.

A test socket is a consumable part that fixes a packaged chip onto test equipment and connects it electrically for final defect screening, and as chip sizes grow and advanced packaging spreads, both the test time required per chip and socket difficulty are rising. The product mix is heavily socket-weighted.

LS Securities calculated that 2Q26 IC test socket revenue was KRW 102.4bn, or 71.5% of total revenue, with LEENO Pin revenue at KRW 31.9bn (report dated Aug 18, 2026). The company also runs a medical device segment, including probe components for ultrasound diagnostic devices built on its micro-machining know-how.

Its customer base sits at the final back-end test stage, and it is classified as a KOSDAQ materials-parts-equipment supplier delivering LEENO Pin and IC test sockets to global names such as TSMC, NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics.

The customer mix is shifting: Qualcomm's share of revenue fell from 28% to 22% in 2025, while Apple and TSMC combined rose from 26% to 33%, with Apple-related revenue up 63% and TSMC-related revenue up 80% (ChosunBiz, April 2026).

A structure of capturing early development-stage demand from roughly 1,000 customers and carrying it into mass production is the core of the business model.

Competitors cited include ISC of Korea and Yamaichi and Yokowo of Japan, and the industry describes it as a crowded field where the top player holds only around 15%.

The annual trend shows a clear cycle. Revenue fell more than 20% from KRW 322.4bn with operating profit of KRW 136.6bn in 2022 to KRW 255.6bn and KRW 114.4bn in 2023, recovered to KRW 278.2bn and KRW 124.2bn in 2024, and reached a record KRW 372.5bn and KRW 177.0bn in 2025.

Notably, the operating margin held in the 40s throughout - 42.4% in 2022, 44.8% in 2023, 44.6% in 2024 and 47.5% in 2025 - even in the down year. For 2025, net profit attributable to owners was KRW 152.0bn while operating cash flow of KRW 179.5bn exceeded operating profit, so cash generation tracked earnings.

The balance sheet carried KRW 731.2bn of equity against KRW 60.7bn of liabilities at end-2025, a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.3% and effectively near-debt-free. Quarterly results are highly seasonal.

From KRW 112.5bn revenue and KRW 53.4bn operating profit in 2Q25, results eased to KRW 96.8bn and KRW 48.3bn in 3Q25 and KRW 84.8bn and KRW 40.4bn in 4Q25, then moved through KRW 99.8bn and KRW 47.3bn in 1Q26 before jumping to KRW 143.2bn and KRW 73.5bn in 2Q26.

The 2Q26 operating margin of 51.3% was the highest of the past five quarters, and net profit attributable to owners of KRW 65.9bn grew faster than operating profit, suggesting a non-operating contribution (no separate company disclosure of the cause was confirmed).

Summing the last four quarters (3Q25 to 2Q26) gives roughly KRW 424.6bn of revenue and KRW 209.5bn of operating profit, already above the full-year 2025 figures, though with the seasonal peak for mobile test socket demand concentrated in the second quarter, a sequential decline from the third quarter was flagged as possible (Meritz Securities, August 2026).

Test sockets are a small share of semiconductor manufacturing cost but a consumable part that directly affects yield.

Industry estimates put the global test socket market at about KRW 3tn growing 5-6% a year, and a researcher at the Korea IR Council noted that the market has contracted only three times in 25 years - the dot-com bust, the global financial crisis, and the 2023 semiconductor downcycle.

The demand base is broadening beyond mobile. The widening of test socket applications into high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and network and communications chips is cited as the key change.

As AI chips advance and demand for ultra-fine pitch capability grows, the share of high-value, higher-priced units is rising, lifting average selling prices and profitability together.

Supply arrangements are also changing: the long-term agreement format common in HBM and AI accelerator markets is spreading into test sockets, with multi-year contract-based supply increasing.

By product type, pogo-type sockets are the mainstream at roughly 60-70% or more of the global market, while the silicone rubber type that ISC focuses on sits at 15-20% but is gaining share. The competitive field is not comfortable.

Leeno's global test socket share was reported at about 12% in 2025, slightly down from roughly 14% a year earlier, while ISC is understood to have lifted its share from single digits to around 10% over the same period.

The most firmly established fact is the capacity expansion.

The company is building a new plant at Busan Eco Delta City with about KRW 200bn of investment, relocating and expanding its existing Mieum Industrial Complex site and consolidating scattered production lines; the new plant is roughly twice the size of the old one, targets start-up in 2H26, and comes with about 200 planned new hires.

Once fully operational, capacity was reported to expand from around KRW 450bn to about KRW 950bn (ChosunBiz, April 2026).

LS Securities argued that the large-scale expansion and plant relocation planned for the fourth quarter should be read not merely as volume growth but as an extension of global customers' IC test socket R&D activity (July 2026). The near-term variable, by contrast, is labor relations.

With the strike running close to a month, the company escalated its emergency management system to stage two and moved about 100 of its 150 office staff onto the production floor, yet was reported to be forgoing a significant portion of global customer orders because it could not meet delivery dates for core products (Kookje Shinmun, Aug 16, 2026).

LS Securities judged that customer orders are unlikely to shift to other suppliers given Leeno's socket competitiveness, but flagged that prolonged disruption could inevitably delay supply and that labor-related costs could rise through the bargaining process. Brokerage estimates have been cut.

LS Securities projected 3Q26 revenue of KRW 101.6bn, up 4.9% year on year, while Meritz Securities forecast third-quarter operating profit of KRW 56.0bn and fourth-quarter profit of KRW 51.7bn, up 16% and 28% year on year respectively, expecting new applications beyond mobile to cushion second-half results (reported Aug 30, 2026).

In short, the second half is a period in which both the expansion timetable and the strike impact land in the income statement at once.