PER, EPS, PBR and BPS are calculated in-house from the last 4 quarters (2025Q3–2026Q2) · Dividend yield is based on ₩0 per share · Prices as of the 2026-10-02 close
Nextchip posted its first quarterly net profit in the fourth quarter of 2025, but the company has remained in the red on an annual basis for four straight years, and financial volatility persists as it reissued convertible bonds less than a year after emerging from full capital impairment.
Revenue rose for three straight years from KRW 12.87bn in 2022 to KRW 39.65bn in 2025, but operating losses persisted in every one of those four years.
Quarterly results have swung back and forth: near-breakeven in Q4 2025 (operating loss of KRW 0.04bn, net profit of KRW 1.25bn) was followed by a widened loss in Q1 2026 and a renewed narrowing in Q2 2026.
Nextchip fell into full capital impairment (-KRW 1.7bn) in the first half of 2025, then rebuilt equity to KRW 18.15bn through two rights offerings and a personal capital injection from the CEO in the second half.
In January 2026, the company signed a roughly KRW 7.1bn ISP technology licensing deal with a major domestic IT/semiconductor firm, structured with additional volume-linked royalty payments.
Starting in 2026, the technology-special-listing grace period expires, reactivating the risk of a management-issue (delisting-watch) designation tied to the pre-tax continuing-operations loss ratio requirement.
Nextchip is a fabless designer of automotive vision-processing semiconductors, built around three product lines: the Image Signal Processor (ISP) that corrects raw image-sensor signals, the AHD high-definition analog video transmission technology, and the APACHE series of SoCs for autonomous-driving perception.
According to one industry source, ISP accounts for roughly 75% of product revenue, the core of the mix, with AHD at about 23% and service revenue around 2%. ISP products are supplied to domestic and overseas automakers and commercial-vehicle customers including Hyundai Motor, Kia, and Scania.
Nextchip is described as effectively the only fabless firm in Korea that designs ISP, AHD, and ADAS SoC products in-house.
The APACHE ADAS SoC lineup has progressed through three generations—APACHE4, 5, and 6—with the latest APACHE6 embedding a neural processing unit (NPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) to perform AI-chip functions.
APACHE6 was unveiled at CES 2026, marking the company's first standalone booth showcasing an integrated vision platform.
Building on its automotive technology base, the company has expanded into robotics and drones, including a co-development project for collaborative-robot cameras, with revenue visibility expected from 2026.
More recently, Nextchip formalized an entry into the defense market with sensor-fusion solutions combining thermal-imaging processors and AI chips. Competitively, the company is said to be pursuing automaker qualification tests by positioning its pricing against larger global peers such as Nvidia and Mobileye.
| Quarter | Revenue | Operating profit | Op. margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025Q2 | ₩9.4B | -₩2.8B | −29.6% |
| 2025Q3 | ₩10B | -₩5.4B | −54.5% |
| 2025Q4 | ₩11.6B | -₩42,962,576 | −0.4% |
| 2026Q1 | ₩11.7B | -₩2.4B | −20.8% |
| 2026Q2 | ₩13.2B | -₩600M | −4.5% |
| Year | Revenue | Operating profit | Net income (parent) | Op. margin | ROE | Debt-to-equity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | ₩12.9B | -₩27.4B | -₩27.4B | −212.9% | −68.9% | 12.3% |
| 2023 | ₩16.2B | -₩22.5B | -₩26.7B | −139.4% | −91.0% | 138.3% |
| 2024 | ₩32.3B | -₩18.4B | -₩20.7B | −57.2% | −234.8% | 530.3% |
| 2025 | ₩39.7B | -₩12.9B | -₩16B | −32.6% | −87.9% | 221.0% |
Consolidated basis (financial statements including subsidiaries) · Final figures from DART filings · Net income attributable to owners of the parent · Data as of 2026-08-21
Consolidated revenue rose for four consecutive years from KRW 12.87bn in 2022 to KRW 16.15bn in 2023, KRW 32.25bn in 2024, and KRW 39.65bn in 2025. Operating losses narrowed steadily over the same period, from KRW 27.40bn to KRW 22.52bn, KRW 18.44bn, and KRW 12.94bn, respectively.
Net losses attributable to owners also shrank from KRW 27.43bn to KRW 26.70bn, KRW 20.69bn, and KRW 15.96bn.
On a quarterly basis, revenue of KRW 9.40bn with an operating loss of KRW 2.78bn and a net loss of KRW 4.54bn in Q2 2025 gave way to higher revenue of KRW 9.97bn in Q3, even as the operating loss widened to KRW 5.44bn.
In Q4, revenue reached KRW 11.62bn with the operating loss narrowing sharply to KRW 0.04bn, and net income turned positive at KRW 1.25bn—the company's first quarterly net profit.
However, Q1 2026 reverted to an operating loss of KRW 2.43bn and a net loss of KRW 3.68bn on revenue of KRW 11.67bn, suggesting the Q4 profit may have included one-off factors.
Q2 2026 showed renewed improvement, with revenue rising to KRW 13.21bn while the operating loss narrowed to KRW 0.59bn and the net loss to KRW 0.71bn.
Over the trailing four quarters (Q3 2025 through Q2 2026), the cumulative net loss attributable to owners totaled roughly KRW 9.85bn, indicating the annual bottom line remains in a loss-narrowing phase rather than a confirmed turnaround.
The automotive vision-processing semiconductor industry is seen as being in a phase of structural demand expansion driven by advancing ADAS functionality and tightening regulation.
One brokerage research note projected that the number of cameras per vehicle would grow from five in 2017 to ten in 2023 and to twenty-four by 2026. Industry observers point to the European Union's General Safety Regulation II (GSR II) and the U.S.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) tightening rules as factors supporting expanded in-vehicle camera adoption.
As autonomous-driving perception relies increasingly on cameras, ISP has become an essential component; unit prices remain in the single-digit-dollar range, but the number of units and vehicle models applying them continues to grow.
In terms of competitive positioning, large global fabless players such as Nvidia and Mobileye dominate the ADAS SoC market, while Nextchip is said to pursue niche customer segments by emphasizing lower pricing and low-power design.
However, automotive semiconductors typically require several years for qualification and vendor selection, meaning new-customer wins take considerable time to show up in financial results.
The company itself notes in its business report that, because the vision-processing chip segment receives confirmed purchase orders only one to two weeks before shipment, order backlog at any given point carries little meaningful signal—an information asymmetry that makes it difficult for outsiders to gauge the size of the pipeline.
The company is pursuing expansion beyond automotive markets centered on APACHE6. The APACHE6 platform reportedly integrates BlackBerry's QNX operating system to meet the stricter safety and security standards of European automakers.
In robotics, Nextchip co-developed a collaborative-robot camera in 2025, and management expects revenue visibility to emerge from 2026.
In defense, the company has formalized plans to target surveillance and specialized-equipment markets in night and adverse-weather conditions using sensor-fusion solutions that combine thermal-imaging processors with AI chips.
In January 2026, it signed an ISP technology licensing agreement with a major domestic IT/semiconductor firm worth roughly KRW 7.1bn (USD 4.8 million), structured with staged milestone payments through the end of 2028 plus additional royalties tied to product sales volume.
On the financing side, the company issued a new three-year, second-series convertible bond in July 2026 with a conversion price of KRW 2,491, with the conversion request period beginning July 22, 2027.
Because the pre-tax continuing-operations loss ratio requirement for management-issue designation is reapplied without exemption starting in 2026, whether the company can sustain profitability on a quarterly and annual basis going forward will directly affect compliance with this requirement.
Having gone through full capital impairment in the first half of 2025 before rebuilding equity through two rights offerings, Nextchip tends to trade at a notable premium to net asset value in the market.
This premium can be interpreted as partly reflecting expectations around the attempted shift to quarterly profitability and the APACHE6, defense, and robotics pipeline.
However, annual results have remained in the red for four consecutive years, and quarterly results have alternated between profit and loss, suggesting that sustaining this premium would require a confirmed recovery in earnings over coming quarters and years.
The company currently pays no dividend, so dividend-related metrics carry limited relevance. Because valuation assessments can shift depending on timing and reference basis, investors may wish to track quarterly earnings releases alongside disclosures related to the management-issue designation requirement.
PER, EPS, PBR and BPS are all calculated in-house (the same method as Naver and Toss) · Dividend yield = cash dividend per share from DART filings (supplemented by KRX) ÷ current price · As of 2026-08-21
Revenue grew for three consecutive years from KRW 12.87bn in 2022 to KRW 39.65bn in 2025, with operating losses narrowing each year over the same period. In Q4 2025, the operating loss shrank to just KRW 0.04bn and net income turned positive, marking the first quarterly profit. Q2 2026 continued this improvement attempt, with revenue rising to KRW 13.21bn and losses narrowing again.
In January 2026, the company signed a roughly KRW 7.1bn ISP technology licensing agreement with a major domestic IT/semiconductor firm, with additional royalties tied to future product sales volume.
Its non-automotive pipeline is also broadening, including a collaborative-robot camera co-development project and a formalized entry into the defense market. These moves can be interpreted as an attempt to reduce reliance on the automotive sector and diversify revenue sources.
The number of cameras per vehicle is projected to rise from five in 2017 to twenty-four by 2026, with ADAS advancement cited as a structural driver of camera demand across the industry. Tightening regulations such as the EU's GSR II and the U.S. NHTSA rules also support this trend.
Nextchip has reinforced its integrated vision-platform strategy by unveiling APACHE6 in a standalone booth at CES 2026.
The company recorded operating and net losses every year from 2022 through 2025, and equity fell to -KRW 1.7bn in the first half of 2025, triggering full capital impairment. To escape this, the company conducted three rights offerings and a personal capital injection from its CEO within a single year.
In July 2026, it issued another convertible bond just six months after fully redeeming the prior one, underscoring a recurring funding burden.
The grace period on the pre-tax continuing-operations loss ratio requirement granted to technology-special-listed companies applied only through 2024, and from 2026 the criterion—triggering management-issue status if the loss ratio exceeds 50% in two of three fiscal years—is reapplied.
Observers have noted that 2023 and 2024 loss ratios may have already met this threshold, making confirmed 2025 and 2026 results decisive for the determination. If this criterion is met, it could weigh on investor confidence and liquidity.
After turning to a net profit in Q4 2025, both the operating loss and net loss widened again in Q1 2026, suggesting the profitable quarter may have been a one-off.
The company states in its business report that order backlog for the vision-processing chip segment carries little meaningful signal given its shipment structure, making it difficult for outside observers to gauge the future revenue pipeline.
Whether a large-scale mass-production contract for APACHE6 with a major automaker will be formalized also remains unconfirmed.
The history of full capital impairment and repeated rights offerings and convertible bond issuances can be read as a signal that the company's internal cash-generation capacity remains insufficient.
The second-series convertible bond issued in July 2026, with a conversion price of KRW 2,491 and a three-year maturity, represents a future dilution factor. If additional funding is required, there is a risk of repeated shareholder dilution or deteriorating financing terms.
With the technology-special-listing grace period ending, the pre-tax continuing-operations loss ratio requirement is reapplied from 2026. Since past loss ratios may have already met the threshold, whether the company is designated a management issue could hinge on confirmed 2025 and 2026 results. A management-issue designation could worsen trading conditions, including restrictions on margin trading.
The ADAS SoC market is led by well-capitalized global players such as Nvidia and Mobileye, leaving uncertainty over whether Nextchip's price and low-power positioning alone can secure a sustained flow of large automaker contracts.
Because automotive semiconductor qualification and adoption typically take several years, it is difficult to predict when new-customer wins will show up in results. New businesses in robotics, drones, and defense also remain at an early stage, with uncertain timing for revenue contribution.
The Q3 2026 earnings release will show whether the loss-narrowing trend from Q2 continues or reverses again as it did in Q1.
The confirmed 2026 annual results and the pre-tax continuing-operations loss ratio will provide the final basis for assessing whether the management-issue designation criteria are met.
It will be important to confirm whether a formal disclosure emerges regarding a large-scale mass-production contract for APACHE6, unveiled at CES 2026, with a global automaker or Tier-1 supplier.
This is when the conversion request period for the second-series convertible bond issued in July 2026 begins, a point at which the actual volume of conversion requests and resulting share dilution can be checked.
Continued monitoring is needed to see whether the robotics, drone, and defense businesses begin to generate visible, sizeable revenue from 2026 as the company has targeted.
Nextchip showed an improving trajectory from 2022 through 2025, with revenue rising and operating losses narrowing every year, culminating in its first quarterly net profit in Q4 2025.
However, as seen in the return to a wider loss in Q1 2026, the swings in quarterly performance are still ongoing, and the company has yet to escape four straight years of annual losses.
On the financial side, after suffering full capital impairment in the first half of 2025, equity was rebuilt through two rights offerings, but the reissuance of a convertible bond in July 2026 again highlighted funding pressure.
Since the grace period on the pre-tax continuing-operations loss ratio requirement for management-issue designation ends in 2026, confirmed future results remain a variable directly tied to continued listing.
On the business side, positive signals include an expanding pipeline beyond the stable ISP/AHD revenue base—spanning the APACHE6 SoC, robotics, drones, and defense—along with a large licensing contract already secured.
Still, the timing and scale of revenue contribution from these new businesses, as well as whether the management-issue risk will be resolved, remain unconfirmed factors that will need to be verified through future disclosures.
Overall, the company can be characterized as being in a transitional phase where financial stabilization and business diversification efforts are proceeding in parallel.
Report written 2026-09-05 · Data as of 2026-09-04
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