China's A-share market saw surge in the number of companies with market value exceeding 100 billion yuan (about 14.77 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of 2026, with hard-tech firms becoming the dominant force.
In the first six months of this year, the number of A-share listed companies with a market capitalization of 100 billion yuan or more reached 206, setting a new all-time high.
Notably, the newly added companies have shifted from traditional sectors such as finance and petrochemicals toward hard-technology fields represented by optical modules, semiconductors, and AI servers.
Data show that the newly added companies with a market capitalization of 100 billion yuan or more had an average research and development investment of 4.018 billion yuan last year, and their average overseas revenue accounted for 28.3 percent of total revenue — both at relatively high levels within their respective sectors.
At the same time, fresh capital in the market has also been precisely channeled toward hard technology.
In the first half of the year, a total of 71 companies were listed on the A-share market, up 39.2 percent year on year, with total funds raised reaching 70.574 billion yuan, a sharp increase of 88.93 percent from a year earlier.
Among them, 36 companies were listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange, with funds raised surging 415 percent year on year, further highlighting the platform's role in financing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that use specialized and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products.
Eleven companies were listed on the sci-tech innovation board, also known as the STAR Market, with an average fund raised of 1.78 billion yuan, double that of the same period last year.
"The expansion of 100 billion-yuan market-cap companies listed on the A-share market and the active IPO market in the first half of the year essentially reflect the transition from old to new growth drivers in the Chinese market as manifested in the capital market. The high proportion of technology companies is fundamentally due to the market's pricing of tech firms shifting from focusing on short-term profits to focusing on their long-term position and strategic value in the global industrial chain. Meanwhile, the continuous reforms of the ChiNext and STAR Market have also built up a virtuous cycle linking technology, industry and finance, truly serving the high-quality transformation of the real economy," said Tian Lihui, council member of China Capital Market Society.
Hard-tech firms lead A-share market's surge in 100 billion-yuan market cap companies
