A 330% increase in one year! Probe card faucet TechnoProbe promoted to the brightest dark horse in the European AI hardware chain

The Zhitong Finance App learned that an Italian company has quietly become one of the targets of the most astonishing increase in the European artificial intelligence wave with its key empowerment in the Nvidia (NVDA.US) chip manufacturing process. Technoprobe SpA (THNBY.US), which is held by a billionaire family and has more than 3,000 employees, has surged more than 330% over the past year. The stock was only included in the European benchmark Stoxx 600 index in March of this year. Although there has been a correction from the high point of other chip stocks in recent months, as of now, the increase in 2026 is the fifth highest in the index.

The company's core business is probe cards — a key device that performs functional tests before the chip is delivered for use. The range of applications ranges from smartphones to Nvidia AI accelerators. With the large-scale deployment of data center computing power infrastructure, demand for advanced semiconductor processes exploded, and demand for supporting test equipment surged at the same time, becoming the core engine driving upward stock prices.

Ken Hui, director of Bakewell Alpha Fund, said, “Probe cards are one of the fastest growing sub-tracks in the AI hardware supply chain. The complexity of AI chips continues to rise, and the test time is extended, directly driving the usage demand for probe cards.”

In the past, when chip designs were relatively simple, the probe card market became more competitive. But today, increasingly complex architectures — such as the Nvidia Blackwell series, which combines two silicon wafers in a single package — require significant increases in test accuracy, which is exactly what Technoprobe excels at in the high-end field.

Bank of America analyst Oliver Wong's team pointed out last month that Technoprobe is expected to maintain a majority share in Nvidia's graphics processor (GPU) testing session and is listed as the preferred target for European small and medium capitalization stocks. Analysts believe that the industry dividends are not limited to Nvidia: the continued increase in test complexity for memory chips, customized logic chips, etc., is expected to maintain a pattern of short supply for a long time.

Strong demand was fully reflected in the financial report. In May of this year, Technoprobe raised its 2027 performance guidelines and is expected to reach the revised target one year ahead of schedule. On that day, the stock price recorded the biggest single-day increase in history of 32%. The company expects an EBITDA margin of around 45%, far exceeding last year's 32% level.

There is also no shortage of technical factors behind the rapid rise. The share's circulation is extremely limited, and the public shareholding ratio is less than one-fifth of the total share capital. The founder family, the Crippa family, holds more than half of the shares, while the two major supply chain partners Teradyne (Teradyne) and Advantest (Advantest) together hold 15% of the company's shares.

At the valuation level, rising market expectations have pushed the stock price to a high range since listing in 2022. Technoprobe's current price-earnings ratio (TTM) is about 58 times the expected profit for the next year, which is significantly higher than its three-year average and 43 times that of its US counterpart FormFactor.

Bellenberg analyst Giovanni Selvetti pointed out that in the next financial report scheduled to be released in August, the market focus will focus on the company's capacity expansion plan scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2027. Currently, the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) testing business accounts for a small share of revenue. The key is whether the company can obtain certification from major memory chip manufacturers as soon as possible. Selvetti rated the stock “neutral” and believes that the current valuation “fully reflects” the positive.

Adam Montanaro, investment manager at Montanaro Asset Management, is more optimistic; the funds he manages hold Technoprobe positions. He said that although valuations based on one-year forward-looking profits may seem expensive, analysts' profit forecasts still have room for improvement, and it is easy to underestimate the company's growth potential in the next few years based on simple valuation indicators alone. “They are expanding production capacity at a very rapid pace,” he added. “Demand for high-end probe cards is extremely strong, and the expansion continues to accelerate.”