IQE has a dedicated substrate manufacturing division. It produces InP substrates in-house through its subsidiaries, Wafer Technology Ltd (UK) and Galaxy Compound Semiconductors (USA). But it alsi sources from AXTI and sumitomo
I am pretty confident that we will be looking back thinking how this could have been 5p.
I was once in a stock that was 0.03 and its currently 1.10 and looking to goto 4, look up RML
I had a few like that like serve robotics and qmco, in the moment you'll feel like its never going to go up and next day your up 15x.
The common element is always a Complexity of their solutions and the other part is UK always lags US trends. Considering IQE peers in the US have done a 10x, it won't be long until IQE will be the gem left over
Until a few weeks back I was the same, but now am buying with the confidence that IQE has a moat that would take decades for a new player to develop, when the demand is now!
Capacity Leadership: IQE and its primary Japanese competitor, Sumitomo (Showa Denko), together control roughly 30% to 35% of the world's total InP epitaxy production capacity.
Niche Dominance: IQE maintains a much higher dominant share—historically cited as high as 90%—in specific sub-segments such as VCSEL (Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser) epitaxy for consumer electronics.
I think the story here is InP and specialising Epitaxy for high frequency applications like wireless, photonics and power is the only available option for the AI future.
Look at AXTI and Navitas which are Peers of IQE , they done 10-15x.
The accolade here is Lumentum relationship which is a pioneer in this tech alongside Coherent , which are driving the photonics revolution.
I am confident this will do way beyond the 3x people here say because if you compare the financials to companies like Navitas, we're more or less the same .
Don't forget the vertical into XFAB, this is the same GaN power for Nvidia as Navitas
I personally think the delay is based on the upcoming fed rate cut, and Atome is waiting to lock in a lower base rate on its debt financing, no different to when you refinance a mortgage.