Performance Of The Four Major IC Distributors Revealed: Who Has The Advantage Under The AI ​​Feast?

The recovery of the semiconductor industry is not an all-out prosperity, but a profound change led by AI. The financial reports of leading supply chain companies have become the best window to observe this trend.The latest financial reports of the world's four major electronic component distribution giants - Arrow Electronics, Avnet, Wenye Technology and Dalianda Holdings - jointly confirm a clear trend: the semiconductor industry has definitely entered a structural recovery cycle driven by AI, and distributors in different regions and with different positions have shown completely different competitive advantages in this AI feast.

The latest data from the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) shows that global semiconductor sales reached US$189.2 billion in the third quarter of 2025, a year-on-year increase of 21.3%, maintaining strong growth for several consecutive quarters.This macro trend has been micro-confirmed in the performance of the four leading distributors. With the explosion of AI-related demand, industry differentiation has become increasingly obvious.

Performance of the Big Four: AI dominates high growth in the Asia-Pacific region, with regional advantages highlighted

The financial report data of the four leading companies outline a differentiated picture of industry recovery: AI-related demand has become the strongest growth engine, directly driving the rapid growth of the performance of the two Asia-Pacific distributors Wenye Technology and Dalianda Holdings. Among them, Wenye Technology has performed particularly well with its precise AI track layout. As the leading distributors in Europe and the United States, Arrow Electronics and Avnet's performance more reflects the overall recovery pace of the global semiconductor industry, with steady growth but a relatively slow growth rate.

Wenye Technology's revenue in the third quarter was NT$328.934 billion, a year-on-year increase of 26%. Operating profit increased by 36% to NT$5.66 billion, achieving significant breakthroughs in both revenue and profit.Wen Ye made it clear at the performance briefing that the industry situation will gradually become clearer in the second half of the year, and AI-related demand will continue to heat up, becoming the core driving force for performance growth. From the perspective of business structure, the performance of data center and server-related businesses is particularly impressive. This business has increased by 40% compared with 2024, and its revenue share has increased to 41.2%. In the fourth quarter, the year-on-year growth of data center and server business was as high as 77%, fully benefiting from the AI infrastructure expansion plan of cloud service providers.The company predicts that the investment momentum in AI infrastructure will continue in the future, and the demand for AI semiconductors will maintain a strong growth trend in 2026. Its full-year revenue in 2025 also exceeded the NT$1 trillion mark for the first time, approximately NT$1.18 trillion, a year-on-year increase of approximately 22.8%, setting a new annual revenue record.

In its performance briefing, Dalianda Holdings clearly attributed its profit growth to the rapid development of generative AI. The AI wave has driven iterative upgrades of AI and traditional servers, power supplies, PCs, NB and memory products, becoming the core driver of profit growth.Its revenue in the third quarter was NT$244.467 billion, a slight decrease of 5.6% year-on-year. However, excluding the impact of exchange rates, revenue in this quarter has reached a record high in a single quarter. It is worth noting that the company's operating profit exceeded the NT$5 billion mark for the first time, reaching NT$5.35 billion, a year-on-year increase of 37.8%, setting a record high. The substantial improvement in profitability highlights its core advantages in the AI-related supply chain.

As for the two major distributors in Europe and the United States, Arrow Electronics' third-quarter revenue was US$7.713 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13%, a solid growth.The company's CEO pointed out: Both business units contributed to solid revenue and earnings per share, and its enterprise computing solutions business sales increased by 15%, becoming an important force driving performance.In contrast, Avnet's growth is more moderate, with revenue in the third quarter of US$5.899 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%. Avnet's CEO said: Although uncertainty continues to affect the market, it remains optimistic about increasingly positive signs of recovery. Its growth mainly relies on the steady recovery of the local industrial market in the Americas and the moderate recovery of the Asian consumer market.

Broken down, Avnet's Asian consumer market and Arrow Electronics' American industrial and enterprise market both achieved positive growth, indicating that the semiconductor recovery is global and cross-sector, but there are obvious differences in growth rates.From a cyclical perspective, the current recovery is in line with the industry's compound cycle characteristics: first driven by demand recovery and sales growth, and then gradually achieving a comprehensive restoration of pricing capabilities and profit margins. The outbreak of AI-related businesses is accelerating this repair process.

Commonalities Revealed: Recovery is obviously structurally differentiated, and AI has become a core watershed

The performance of the four distributors jointly revealed a key phenomenon: this round of semiconductor recovery is not a general rise, but shows obvious echelon differentiation characteristics. The depth of AI-related business layout has become the core watershed to distinguish the growth potential of each enterprise, and the differences between the four echelons are clearly visible.

The first echelon: AI servers and peripheral hardware (power supply/storage) have the strongest growth.Dalianda Holdings directly benefited from the explosion in demand for AI servers, with its operating profit margin reaching 2.19% and a significant increase in profitability. Wenye Technology's high growth in the Asia-Pacific region was also mainly due to the demand for data centers and AI hardware. Its communications business increased by 46% year-on-year, and the chain related to AI infrastructure became the strongest growth line.

Second tier: Traditional servers/data centers maintain steady growth.Arrow Electronics' enterprise computing solutions business sales increased by 15%, clearly showing that demand for traditional IT infrastructure remains stable, becoming the ballast stone for industry recovery and supporting the steady improvement of its overall performance.

The third echelon: consumer electronics (PC/NB) recovers moderately.Wenye Technology grew by 9.9% in the Asian market, partly benefiting from the mild recovery of the PC/NB market. Its PC and peripheral business grew by 23% year-on-year. Dalianda also mentioned the need for iterative upgrades of PC/NB products in its results, which has become a supplementary force for performance growth, but the overall growth rate is not as fast as that of AI-related businesses.

The fourth tier: the industrial/automotive sector has a relatively moderate growth rate.From the perspective of regional performance, Arrow Electronics's component business in the Americas only grew by 4%, and Avnet's overall growth was relatively flat, partly reflecting the moderate recovery pace of the industrial and automotive markets. It is worth noting that Wenye Technology's automotive electronics business fell by 17% year-on-year, and its mobile phone business fell by 6% year-on-year, indicating that the traditional terminal field has not yet entered a strong recovery stage, in sharp contrast to the high growth in AI-related fields.

Risk warning: AI bubble, inventory pressure and geopolitical uncertainty

Although AI-driven growth momentum is strong, the financial reports of the four major distributors also reveal many risk signals, which require industry participants to be highly vigilant.The latest data shows that the growth momentum has changed slightly: Wenye Technology and Dalianda Holdings both experienced slight month-on-month revenue declines in October (monthly decreases of 5.97% and 6.4%). Although they still maintained strong year-on-year growth, and Wenye Technology's October revenue was the second highest in a single month, this fluctuation suggests that the market may experience normal seasonal corrections or short-term fluctuations under the main theme of strong growth driven by AI.

In addition, inventory issues still need to be focused on.Wenye Technology's inventory value increased significantly by 47% year-on-year. Although this increase reflects the company's optimistic expectations for future AI demand, it also hides the risk of inventory backlog. If future demand is less than expected, it may affect the company's profitability; Avnet and Arrow Electronics also experienced a month-on-month increase in inventory. The subsequent inventory digestion progress will become a key factor affecting the continued growth of their performance.

The uncertainty brought about by geopolitical factors cannot be ignored either.All four distributors mentioned the risks of geopolitics and trade policies in their financial reports. Dalianda Holdings had previously clearly pointed out that due to unclear status of tariffs and related terms, the visibility of orders in the second half of the year was unclear. It accurately pointed out the specific challenges of the macro environment to the industry, and it has also become an important variable restricting the continued growth of distributors' performance.

Conclusion: In the era of AI-led differentiation, what is the core competitiveness of distributors?

The structural recovery cycle of the semiconductor industry has been established, differentiation will become the new normal of the industry, and the growth gap between AI and non-AI applications will continue to expand.For distribution industry participants, keeping up with AI development trends, leveraging supply chain management expertise, and developing technological value-added services are the keys to gaining a foothold and seizing advantages in this cycle.

Specifically, Wenye Technology has gained strong growth momentum by relying on its in-depth layout of the AI supply chain in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on core tracks such as data centers and servers; Dalianda Holdings has relied on the improvement of profitability efficiency to achieve new high profits despite a slight decline in revenue, demonstrating strong cost control and supply chain integration capabilities; Arrow Electronics and Avnet have relied on their global layout advantages and the steady recovery of the local market to maintain steady growth.