China Semiconductor Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-authors: Sophie Winslow | Last updated: August 31, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
China produced 484.28 billion integrated circuits in 2025 and imported 591.70 billion more, paying 3,035.5 billion yuan for them. Through July 2026 the country’s chip export value has nearly doubled year on year while unit volume rose 6.2 percent. According to Axis Intelligence Research, that gap is the whole story.
Quick Answer
China’s integrated circuit output reached 484.28 billion units in 2025, up 10.9 percent, per the National Bureau of Statistics. Its 2025 chip import bill was 3,035.5 billion yuan, roughly 425.0 billion US dollars at the official annual average rate of 7.1429. According to Axis Intelligence Research, domestic production covered 66.7 percent of China’s apparent chip consumption on a unit basis in 2025, up 2.4 percentage points from 2024. The 2026 export surge is priced, not produced.
Key Findings
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, China’s chip import bill of 361.84 billion US dollars for January to July 2026 was 2.08 times its crude oil import bill of 173.94 billion US dollars over the same seven months, per General Administration of Customs data published August 10, 2026.
- China’s integrated circuit exports rose 99.5 percent by value but only 6.2 percent by unit volume in January to July 2026, according to the General Administration of Customs of China.
- According to Axis Intelligence Research’s China Silicon Value Gap, the ratio of China’s average imported chip price to its average exported chip price fell to 0.97 in January to July 2026 from 1.25 a year earlier, the first reading below parity in the series.
- China’s semiconductor equipment purchases were 49.3 billion US dollars in 2025, down 0.5 percent, while global billings rose 15 percent to 135.1 billion US dollars, per SEMI; according to Axis Intelligence Research, China’s share of world equipment spending therefore fell from 42.3 percent to 36.5 percent.
- SMIC spent 8.1 billion US dollars on capital expenditure in 2025 against revenue of 9,326.8 million US dollars, a capex-to-revenue ratio of 86.8 percent, per the company’s February 10, 2026 results release.
How Many Chips Does China Actually Produce?
Chinese integrated circuit output was 484.28 billion units in 2025, a 10.9 percent increase over 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China. The prior year the same series showed 451.42 billion units.
That is a unit count, and the unit is doing a lot of work. A power management chip and a leading-edge processor both count as one piece. The number tells you how many devices came off lines inside China. It tells you nothing about what those devices are worth or who owns the fabs that made them.
| Year | IC output (bn units) | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 451.42 | +22.2% | NBS Statistical Communique 2024 |
| 2025 | 484.28 | +10.9% | NBS Statistical Communique 2025 |
The rest of the electronics floor moved with it. Value added for manufacture of computers, communication equipment and other electronic equipment grew 10.6 percent in 2025. Server output reached 5.970 million units, up 12.6 percent. Industrial robot output hit 773,000 sets. Mobile phone output went the other way, down 5.8 percent to 1,541.24 million units, which is the demand signal underneath a lot of China’s mature-node capacity.
National capacity utilisation across industrial enterprises above the designated size was 74.4 percent in 2025. That is the denominator worth holding onto. Chip lines are running hot inside an industrial base that is not. The same two-speed split on the American factory floor is tracked in Axis Intelligence Research’s US manufacturing statistics.
Sophie Winslow, Industrial Technology: Twenty-two percent growth in 2024, eleven percent in 2025. Read that as a build-out normalising rather than stalling. You cannot compound 22 percent unit growth off a base of 451 billion pieces indefinitely, and nobody planning capacity expected to. The number I would watch is not output growth. It is what the pieces are worth when they leave the country, which is where the customs data earns its keep.
Source: Axis Intelligence Research — CC BY 4.0
Why Did China’s Chip Export Value Nearly Double in 2026?
Between January and July 2026, China exported 211.84 billion integrated circuits worth 216.02 billion US dollars, per the General Administration of Customs of China. Export value rose 99.5 percent year on year. Export volume rose 6.2 percent.
Those two numbers cannot both describe a production story. A 6.2 percent volume increase paired with a 99.5 percent value increase is a price event.
The China Silicon Value Gap (CSVG™)
CSVG™ is an original Axis Intelligence Research metric. It is defined as:
CSVG™ = (average declared customs unit value of imported ICs) ÷ (average declared customs unit value of exported ICs), over a matched reporting period.
A reading above 1.00 means China is buying chips that are, on average, declared at a higher value per unit than the chips it ships out. A reading of 1.00 is parity. Below 1.00 means the average exported chip carries the higher declared value.
Inputs and arithmetic, all from the GACC January to July tables:
| Period | Import value (USD m) | Import units (bn) | Import unit value | Export value (USD m) | Export units (bn) | Export unit value | CSVG™ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan-Jul 2025 | 228,601.1 | 337.22 | $0.6779 | 108,270.6 | 199.55 | $0.5426 | 1.25 |
| Jan-Jul 2026 | 361,842.4 | 364.75 | $0.9920 | 216,020.3 | 211.84 | $1.0197 | 0.97 |
Source: General Administration of Customs of China, Major Imports and Major Exports by Quantity and Value, Jul 2026 (in USD), published August 10, 2026. Ratio computed by Axis Intelligence Research.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, CSVG™ fell from 1.25 to 0.97 across those twelve months, and the January to July 2026 reading is the first below parity in the series Axis Intelligence Research has computed.
Two independent official tables agree on where the series started. Computed on the full-year yuan figures in the NBS communiques, CSVG™ reads 1.31 for 2024 and 1.24 for 2025. The customs USD tables put the January to July 2025 reading at 1.25. Two different currencies, two different collection systems, a spread of 0.01. That consistency is why the 2026 inversion is worth taking seriously as a measurement rather than an artefact.
What moved it: the average exported Chinese chip went from $0.5426 to $1.0197, an 87.9 percent increase in declared unit value. Imported chips rose 46.3 percent per unit over the same period. Both curves are memory-price curves. Neither is a node curve. The supply side of that price move sits with three memory producers, whose position Axis Intelligence Research documents in its Samsung statistics.
Sophie Winslow: I want to be exact about what this reading is and is not. CSVG™ crossing parity does not mean Chinese fabs started shipping leading-edge logic. It means the declared value of an average exported piece caught up with the declared value of an average imported piece during a memory price spike, in a trade flow where a large share of exports is processing trade: chips imported into China, packaged or tested at a domestic assembly house, then re-exported at gross value. Ask any operations manager what happens to a re-export line when input prices double. The declared value doubles. The line did the same work. What the reading does establish is that the composition of China’s chip trade has shifted far enough that the old shorthand of cheap out and expensive in no longer describes the flow. That shorthand had a long run. It is finished.
How Much Does China Spend on Importing Chips?
The 2025 full-year figure was 3,035.5 billion yuan for 591.70 billion imported units, per the NBS communique, up 10.7 percent by value. Converted at the official 2025 average rate of 7.1429 yuan per US dollar, that is roughly 425.0 billion US dollars. Exports of 1,444.2 billion yuan (about 202.2 billion US dollars) leave a net integrated circuit trade deficit of about 222.8 billion US dollars for the year.
For 2026 the customs data is more current and denominated directly in dollars. January to July 2026:
| Flow | Value (USD bn) | Units (bn) | YoY value | YoY units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IC imports | 361.84 | 364.75 | +58.3% | +8.2% |
| IC exports | 216.02 | 211.84 | +99.5% | +6.2% |
| Net deficit | 145.82 | , | +21.2% | , |
Source: General Administration of Customs of China, published August 10, 2026. Deficit computed by Axis Intelligence Research.
The export headline is the one that travels. The deficit is the one that matters. Even with exports nearly doubling, according to Axis Intelligence Research the net chip trade deficit widened 21.2 percent, from 120.33 billion to 145.82 billion US dollars, because imports grew from a base 2.1 times larger.
Set it against the commodity China is usually described as depending on. Crude petroleum imports were 173.94 billion US dollars over the same seven months. Chips cost 2.08 times as much. On the 2025 full-year yuan figures the ratio was 1.43. The gap is widening fast.
What Share of China’s Chip Demand Is Met Domestically?
Domestic Supply Coverage (DSC™)
DSC™ is an original Axis Intelligence Research metric measuring how much of China’s apparent chip consumption is met by units produced inside China.
DSC™ = domestic IC unit output ÷ apparent domestic IC consumption, where apparent consumption = output + imports − exports. Unit basis.
| Year | Output (bn) | Imports (bn) | Exports (bn) | Apparent consumption (bn) | DSC™ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 451.42 | 549.20 | 298.10 | 702.52 | 64.3% |
| 2025 | 484.28 | 591.70 | 349.50 | 726.48 | 66.7% |
Source: NBS Statistical Communiques 2024 and 2025. Ratio computed by Axis Intelligence Research.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, DSC™ rose 2.4 percentage points in 2025, to 66.7 percent.
Scope of this reading. DSC™ counts pieces, not value or capability. NBS output includes every fab operating on Chinese soil regardless of who owns it, so foreign-operated capacity inside China is counted as Chinese production. Two-thirds unit coverage and two-thirds value coverage are different claims, and only the first is supported here. Anyone quoting DSC™ as a self-sufficiency rate in the ownership or technology sense is quoting it wrong.
That distinction is the reason the metric is worth publishing rather than another round percentage. A unit-coverage ratio computed the same way every year, from one official series, tells you the direction of substitution at the mature end of the market. It does not tell you who can make an advanced processor, and it is not designed to.
How Much Semiconductor Equipment Is China Buying?
Chinese purchases of semiconductor manufacturing equipment were 49.3 billion US dollars in 2025, down 0.5 percent year on year, per SEMI. Global billings over the same year rose 15 percent to 135.1 billion US dollars.
| Region | 2025 billings (USD bn) | Change |
|---|---|---|
| China | 49.3 | −0.5% |
| Taiwan | 31.5 | +90% |
| South Korea | 25.8 | +26% |
| North America | 10.9 | −20% |
| Japan | 9.5 | +22% |
| Europe | 2.9 | −41% |
Source: SEMI, Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics, April 7, 2026.
China remained the largest single buyer. It also lost ground. According to Axis Intelligence Research, China’s share of global equipment spending fell from 42.3 percent in 2024 to 36.5 percent in 2025, computed as 49.3 ÷ 135.1 against an implied 2024 China spend of 49.55 billion (49.3 ÷ 0.995) over global billings of 117.1 billion.
Flat spending in a market growing 15 percent is a share loss whether or not anyone announces it. Taiwan alone added roughly 15 billion dollars of tool purchases in a year when China added nothing.
Customs data shows a matching pattern one layer down in the tool chain. China imported 40,346 machine tools worth 3,250.0 million US dollars in January to July 2026, with import value down 4.8 percent year on year against a 3.6 percent rise in units. Against that, hi-tech product imports overall reached 644,860.7 million US dollars, up 42.6 percent. The money is going into chips, not into the machines that make them. For the subsidy-driven counterpart in the United States, see Axis Intelligence Research’s CHIPS Act statistics. Axis Intelligence Research tracks the plant-level side of this on the Semiconductor Fab Investment Tracker.
How Big Is SMIC and How Fast Is It Growing?
SMIC reported unaudited 2025 revenue of 9,326.8 million US dollars against 8,029.9 million in 2024, a 16.2 percent increase, with profit attributable to owners of 685.1 million US dollars, up 39.1 percent, per the company’s fourth quarter results release of February 10, 2026.
| Metric | 2025 | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $9,326.8m | +16.2% YoY |
| Profit attributable to owners | $685.1m | +39.1% YoY |
| Gross margin | 21.0% | +3.0 pp |
| Capital expenditure | $8.1bn | Guided roughly flat for 2026 |
| Monthly capacity (year end) | 1,059k 8-inch equivalent | +111k on 2024 |
| Wafer shipments | 9.7m | 8-inch equivalent |
| Capacity utilisation | 93.5% | +8 pp |
Source: SMIC, unaudited Q4 and full-year 2025 results, February 10, 2026.
Three ratios from that table are worth computing. According to Axis Intelligence Research, SMIC’s capital expenditure equalled 86.8 percent of its revenue in 2025 (8,100 ÷ 9,326.8). Its 8.1 billion dollars represented 16.4 percent of all semiconductor equipment purchased in China that year. And revenue per wafer shipped was about 962 US dollars (9,326.8m ÷ 9.7m).
Sophie Winslow: Eighty-seven cents of capex for every dollar of revenue, in a year the company earned a 21 percent gross margin and shipped at 93.5 percent utilisation. That is not a company optimising a return. That is a company being funded to hold a position. Monthly capacity grew 11.7 percent, 111,000 wafers on a base of 948,000, and utilisation still climbed eight points, which means demand absorbed the additions as fast as they came online. The interesting question is what happens to that 962 dollars per wafer when the memory cycle turns and the domestic substitution orders normalise. Capex commitments do not normalise on the same schedule.
Is China Gaining or Losing Share of the Global Chip Market?
Global semiconductor sales reached 791.7 billion US dollars in 2025, up 25.6 percent from 630.5 billion, per the Semiconductor Industry Association. Sales into the China regional market grew 17.3 percent.
Growing at 17.3 percent inside a market growing 25.6 percent means China’s share of world chip sales fell in 2025. Logic products (301.9 billion) and memory (223.1 billion) carried the global increase, and both are categories where the AI build-out concentrated demand in Taiwan, Korea and the Americas rather than in China. Axis Intelligence Research sizes the accelerator side of that demand in its Nvidia Blackwell statistics.
So the picture holds two things at once. China’s domestic unit coverage improved. Its share of global chip revenue, its share of global equipment spending, and its position in the value-dense segments all moved the other way. Those are not contradictory readings. They are what mature-node substitution looks like while the value of the industry migrates to nodes and packages China cannot yet reach at scale. Axis Intelligence Research covers the value-side concentration in its semiconductor market statistics and the capacity build in semiconductor manufacturing statistics.
What Do US Export Controls Currently Restrict?
The regulatory position carries a live expiry date. On September 29, 2025 the Bureau of Industry and Security issued a rule extending Entity List and Military End-User restrictions automatically to any entity at least 50 percent owned by one or more listed parties, announced by the Department of Commerce as closing a loophole in restricted-party screening.
That expansion is currently suspended. Under a final rule published in the Federal Register, the amendments were stayed effective November 10, 2025 and the suspension is set to end November 9, 2026 absent a further extension.
For anyone modelling Chinese fab supply chains, that date is the single most consequential scheduled event in the dataset. It is roughly ten weeks out from this publication.
Axis Intelligence Research does not project what happens on November 9. The rule text states the stay and states the expiry. Everything past that is negotiation, and negotiation is not data.
Methodology
Collection. Every figure in this report was retrieved from a primary source document during the production session on August 31, 2026. Annual Chinese production and trade data come from the National Bureau of Statistics Statistical Communiques for 2024 and 2025. Monthly cumulative trade data come from the General Administration of Customs of China preliminary release tables for July 2026, published August 10, 2026, in US dollars. Company data comes from SMIC’s own results release. Equipment data comes from SEMI’s Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics announcement. Global market data comes from the Semiconductor Industry Association. Regulatory status comes from the Federal Register and BIS. No aggregator, tracker site or secondary compilation was used as the source of any figure.
Unit conventions. NBS reports integrated circuits in hundred-million pieces and trade values in hundred-million yuan; these are converted to billions and to billions of yuan respectively by simple division, with the original figure recorded in the CSV method note. GACC reports in USD millions and hundred-million pieces. Yuan-to-dollar conversions for 2025 use the official NBS annual average rate of 7.1429; 2024 conversions use 7.1217. Rates are not applied across years.
CSVG™ formula. CSVG™ = (IC import value ÷ IC import units) ÷ (IC export value ÷ IC export units), computed over a matched reporting period in a single currency. January to July readings use GACC USD tables. Full-year readings use NBS yuan tables. Readings from the two bases are reported separately and never averaged, because the periods and collection systems differ.
DSC™ formula. DSC™ = output ÷ (output + imports − exports), on units. Both inputs come from the same NBS communique for each year.
What these readings do not capture. Neither metric distinguishes chips by node, function or value density. Neither adjusts for processing trade, in which imported chips are packaged or tested in China and re-exported at gross declared value; this inflates both sides of the export figure and is a known feature of Chinese customs classification rather than a defect in it. NBS output counts all fabs on Chinese soil irrespective of ownership. Customs declared values are transaction values at the border and move with market prices, which is precisely what the 2026 readings are detecting.
Series length. CSVG™ has four readings and DSC™ has two. No earlier readings have been computed and none are back-filled. Where a percentage change is stated, it is between the readings shown and nothing further is claimed about the period before them.
Refused calculation. Axis Intelligence Research does not combine SIA regional sales (a revenue series covering the China market as defined by WSTS) with NBS output (a unit series covering production on Chinese territory) into a single self-sufficiency figure. The two series measure different objects on different bases, and merging them produces a number with no defensible meaning. They are reported side by side instead.
About This Dataset
This dataset covers Chinese integrated circuit production, trade, foundry operations and equipment purchasing from calendar 2024 through July 2026, assembled from Chinese national statistics, Chinese customs preliminary releases, company results and industry association reporting. It is built for journalists, supply chain analysts, policy researchers and investors who need the underlying figures with their sources attached.
98 rows. 8 distinct primary source documents. Every prose figure in this report exists as a CSV row carrying source organisation, source document, source URL, retrieval date, primary-source flag and, for computed rows, the arithmetic used.
Download: china-semiconductor-statistics-2026.csv
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You may copy, adapt and redistribute this data in any medium for any purpose, provided you credit Axis Intelligence Research and link to axis-intelligence.com/china-semiconductor-statistics/.
Cite This Research
APA Axis Intelligence Research, & Winslow, S. (2026). China semiconductor statistics 2026: Production, trade, investment and the silicon value gap [Data set]. Axis Intelligence Research. https://axis-intelligence.com/china-semiconductor-statistics/
MLA Axis Intelligence Research, and Sophie Winslow. “China Semiconductor Statistics 2026: Production, Trade, Investment and the Silicon Value Gap.” Axis Intelligence Research, 31 Aug. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/china-semiconductor-statistics/.
Chicago Axis Intelligence Research, and Sophie Winslow. 2026. “China Semiconductor Statistics 2026: Production, Trade, Investment and the Silicon Value Gap.” Axis Intelligence Research. August 31, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/china-semiconductor-statistics/.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does China’s official integrated circuit output figure include fabs owned by foreign companies?
Yes. The National Bureau of Statistics series measures production by industrial enterprises above the designated size operating on Chinese territory, without separating them by ownership. Any foreign-operated wafer fab producing inside China contributes to the 484.28 billion unit figure for 2025. This is why the figure supports claims about where chips are made and not claims about who controls the capacity that makes them.
Why did China’s chip export value nearly double in 2026 when unit volume rose only 6 percent?
Because the mix and the prices moved, not the output. Between January and July 2026 export value rose 99.5 percent while units rose 6.2 percent, per China customs. According to Axis Intelligence Research, that implies an 87.9 percent increase in the average declared value of an exported chip, from $0.5426 to $1.0197. Memory pricing and processing-trade re-exports, where the declared value tracks the price of the imported input, account for the shape of that move.
What share of the chips China consumes are produced inside China?
According to Axis Intelligence Research’s Domestic Supply Coverage reading, 66.7 percent in 2025 on a unit basis, up from 64.3 percent in 2024. Apparent consumption of 726.48 billion units is computed as output of 484.28 billion plus imports of 591.70 billion minus exports of 349.50 billion. The figure counts pieces, so it should not be read as a share of value or as an indicator of node capability.
Does China now spend more importing chips than importing oil?
Yes, by a widening margin. Integrated circuit imports were 361.84 billion US dollars in January to July 2026 against 173.94 billion for crude petroleum, a ratio of 2.08 to 1, per China customs. On 2025 full-year yuan figures the ratio was 1.43 to 1.
Did China’s semiconductor equipment spending fall in 2025?
Marginally in absolute terms and sharply in relative terms. SEMI reports Chinese billings of 49.3 billion US dollars, down 0.5 percent, while global billings rose 15 percent to 135.1 billion. According to Axis Intelligence Research, China’s share of world equipment spending fell from 42.3 percent to 36.5 percent as a result.
How much capacity did SMIC add in 2025, and what did it cost?
SMIC ended 2025 with monthly capacity of 1,059,000 standard logic 8-inch equivalent wafers, an increase of about 111,000 on the previous year end, against capital expenditure of 8.1 billion US dollars. According to Axis Intelligence Research, that capex equalled 86.8 percent of the company’s 9,326.8 million dollar revenue and 16.4 percent of all semiconductor equipment purchased in China during 2025.
Does processing trade distort China’s chip trade statistics?
It shapes them rather than distorts them, and any serious reading has to account for it. Chips imported into China for packaging or testing and then re-exported are recorded at gross declared value on both legs. That inflates export totals relative to domestically designed and fabricated content, and it is the main reason a doubling of export value does not indicate a doubling of Chinese silicon capability.
What changes for chip supply chains on November 9, 2026?
That is the stated expiry of the one-year suspension of the BIS Affiliates Rule, which would otherwise extend Entity List and Military End-User restrictions to entities at least 50 percent owned by listed parties. The Federal Register final rule stays the amendments from November 10, 2025 until November 9, 2026 absent a further extension. Whether the suspension lapses, extends or is superseded is not determinable from the rule text.
Is China gaining share of the global semiconductor market?
No, on the most recent full-year data. Sales into the China market grew 17.3 percent in 2025 while global sales grew 25.6 percent to 791.7 billion US dollars, per the Semiconductor Industry Association, which means China’s share of world chip revenue declined even as its domestic unit output rose 10.9 percent.