Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics Co Ltd

Hugging Face's new Microduck robot, launched Thursday, has sold over 10,000 units, generating more than $4 million in revenue, and is powered by a chip from Shanghai-listed Rockchip that uses ARM technology. The $399 robot, made by Hugging Face's French subsidiary Pollen Robotics, has seen delivery times pushed past the initial Christmas 2026 promise due to high demand. Rockchip's RK3566 chip, which incorporates ARM-licensed tech, is a key vendor for on-device AI, though analysts note it lacks compute resources for complex edge AI. Rockchip reported a 40% year-on-year increase in first-half operating revenue to 2.88 billion yuan ($428 million), with net profit excluding one-time items up over 60%. The Microduck, weighing 1.76 pounds, is both a toy and development platform, and is the second robot from Pollen Robotics, which Hugging Face acquired last year. Just before its release, The Information reported Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, though neither company commented. Other startups like Zeroth and Mondo Robotics are also launching similar personal robots at premium prices.

Rockchip released its 2026 interim report, with net profit attributable to the parent company of 859 million yuan, up 61.73% from the same period last year. Total operating revenue was 2.877 billion yuan, up 40.60% year on year, marking three consecutive years of growth. Net cash inflow from operating activities was 800 million yuan, up 12.99% year on year. The latest gross margin was 45.79%, up 3.50 percentage points from the same period last year. The latest return on equity was 17.45%, up 4.03 percentage points year on year. Diluted earnings per share were 2.04 yuan, up 60.63% year on year.

Rockchip will use August 13 as the record date for its 2025 annual equity distribution, with the ex-dividend and ex-rights date on August 14. According to the implementation announcement released by the company on August 10, the cash dividend is 1.20 yuan per share before tax. Rockchip is a constituent of the Dividend Quality Index, which selects 50 securities with consecutive cash dividends, relatively high dividend payout ratios, and strong profitability. As of August 12, the index had a dividend yield of 2.89 percent over the past year. The Huaxia Dividend Quality ETF is the only exchange-traded fund tracking this index, and it also has Class A, Class C, and Class D feeder funds.

In early trading on July 24, the on-device AI concept was active, with Bocom Integrated Circuit surging to its daily limit up, while Actions Technology, Amlogic, and Rockchip were among the top gainers. On the news front, the Cyberspace Administration of China recently released the filing information for seven generative AI services designed for mobile on-device use. Related features from seven leading handset makers—Xiaomi, Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Apple, Samsung, and Nubia—have all passed official compliance reviews. A research note from Soochow Securities analyzed that competition in mobile AI is shifting from feature stacking to a system-level agent phase. As on-device AI evolves toward multimodal perception and system-level intelligent agents, on-device and cloud collaboration is expected to become the main path, continuously driving upgrades in computing power, storage, connectivity, power consumption, and heat dissipation for smartphones, AI glasses, and wearables. On-device hardware is likely to enter a new upgrade cycle. A Huatai Securities research note argued that the connectivity dividend of the 5G era drove volume and price increases for components like radio frequency, and AI terminal innovation may replicate this upgrade path, reshaping the value of chips, storage, heat dissipation, batteries, and radio frequency components.