Soitec Annual Sales Surpass Estimates Despite Chip Market Weakness - Global Banking & Finance Review

French semiconductor materials supplier Soitec reported annual sales of €891 million in fiscal year 2025, surpassing the market consensus of €584 million, despite ongoing customer inventory correction... Read original →

Soitec’s earnings outperformance amid a slumping semiconductor market stems from structural demand for Photonics-SOI and POI substrates in AI optical interconnects. This is forcing foundries like GlobalFoundries and STMicroelectronics to accelerate SOI-compatible photonics processes below 45nm. Geopolitically, French industrial policy and EU Chips Act subsidies reduce Soitec’s expansion risks, though U.S.-China tech curbs may constrain shipments to advanced packaging clients in Taiwan, China. Rivals Shin-Etsu and SUMCO lack Soitec’s Smart Cut™ IP moat and will likely pivot to SiC for power devices instead. Over the next 18 months, as co-packaged optics (CPO) adoption in AI clusters crosses 20%, Soitec transitions from a substrate vendor to an enabler of optical compute architectures—making its 15% Q1 FY27 revenue guidance a leading indicator of a structural inflection, not a cyclical bounce.