Profits at China's large industrial companies rose 14.4% in September from a year earlier, as demand linked to artificial intelligence sent earnings at electronics makers soaring, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday.

The jump followed a 4.2% gain in August and was the fastest since June, Investing.com reported. It brought profits for the first nine months to 6.03 trillion yuan, up 15.5%, a touch slower than the 15.7% pace through August that the bureau reported a month earlier. The figures cover companies with annual revenue of at least 20 million yuan.

For investors in Asia, the split inside the numbers matters more than the total. Most of the momentum came from chips, components and the metals that feed them, while industries that sell to Chinese households kept losing ground.

The comparison with last year is demanding. Profits surged 21.6% in September 2025 but rose only 3.2% across the first nine months of that year, RTTNews reported at the time. Investing.com noted that industrial profits shrank for three straight years before recovering in 2025.

China's Electronics Makers Double Their Profits

Profits in the electronics industry doubled from a year earlier in January through September and accounted for 9.6 percentage points of the 15.5% increase, Xinhua reported. The bureau's tables put the rise for makers of computers, communication and other electronic equipment at 103.8%, to 985.19 billion yuan. Makers of specialized electronic materials earned 220% more, and producers of semiconductor discrete devices 51.7% more.

Optical fiber manufacturers posted a 570% jump in profits and optical cable makers 110%, according to Global Times.

High-tech manufacturing as a whole earned 52% more than a year earlier, beating the industrial average by 36.5 percentage points. Its share of total industrial profits rose to 25.5%, up 6.2 points, Xinhua said.

Yu Weining, a statistician at the bureau, said profits “grew at a brisk pace in the first nine months,” China Daily reported. Yu credited demand for AI computing power and advanced memory products for much of the gain.

Upstream producers did well too. Raw materials manufacturers lifted profits 44.9%, adding 5.9 points to the nine-month increase, according to Global Times, and the bureau's data showed nonferrous metal smelters earning 79.7% more.

Factories Selling to Households Fall Behind

CNBC described a widening divide, according to a summary of its report by Ukrainian news site UA.News. AI and robotics are growing far faster than clothing, cars and furniture. Miners, chipmakers and raw material suppliers have gained from the AI boom and from commodity prices pushed up by the war in Iran, while makers of finished goods face higher input costs and sluggish domestic demand. Investing.com also said consumer-oriented sectors continued to lag.

The bureau's detailed tables for the first nine months show how wide the gap has grown. Automakers' profits fell 22.8%, food processors' 17.3% and ferrous metal smelters', the steel industry, 73.3%. Non-metallic mineral products dropped 46.9%, and utilities 14.3%.

Mining profits rose 38.2% over the same period, led by a 57.0% gain at coal miners. Oil and gas extraction rose 21.3%, and petroleum and coal processors swung from a loss to a profit.

By ownership, profits at state-controlled companies rose 13.1% in the nine months and at private companies 8.7%. Foreign-invested firms, a group that includes companies funded from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, managed 0.5%.

Sheana Yue, a senior economist at Oxford Economics, said investment in high-tech manufacturing and capacity use in electronics were holding up, but broader investment and factory utilization remained subdued, UA.News reported, citing CNBC. She called household demand the weak link, pointing to the property downturn.

Others see the gains spreading. Tian Yun, a Beijing-based economist, told Global Times that “innovation is spreading beyond industry giants to smaller component manufacturers.” Hu Qimu, a professor at Huaqiao University's Maritime Silk Road Institute, said high-tech manufacturing, integrated circuits and AI were likely to keep growing relatively fast.

What It Means for Asia's Suppliers

China's trade figures tell a similar story. Exports of integrated circuits rose 99.1% in the first nine months, electric vehicles 72.3% and lithium-ion batteries 36.4%, Global Times reported, citing customs data. The same factory strength helped China's economy beat forecasts in the third quarter.

For chip and component suppliers elsewhere in the region, fatter margins at Chinese electronics makers are a tailwind. Hu said higher earnings leave companies with more money for research and expansion, spending that can reach equipment and materials vendors across Asia.

Commodity exporters face a mixed picture. Chinese producers of nonferrous metals such as copper and aluminum are earning far more, and coal miners' profits rose 57%. Steelmakers and building materials producers, by contrast, were still posting steep profit declines, a weak spot for suppliers of steelmaking raw materials. Regional currency markets have drawn a similar line, separating chip exporters from oil importers.

The open question is whether the windfall turns into new capacity. Investment in high-tech manufacturing rose just 4% in the first three quarters, earlier bureau data showed, according to Global Times, against a 52% jump in the sector's profits.