Chinese Bitcoin miner and manufacturer of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining machines, Canaan, has reported an 82.1% YoY revenue decline to $56.8 million in Q4 2022, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Mar. 7. This represents a significant drop in revenue for the company, which sold 1.9 million terahash per second worth of computing power for Bitcoin mining during the quarter. However, this figure does not account for lower ASIC prices and represents a 75.8% decline from Q4 2021.
Despite the decline in revenue, Canaan’s mining revenue improved by 368.2% YoY to $10.46 million. Nangeng Zhang, Chairman and CEO of Canaan, said that the company had been “diligently improving and developing our mining business” to mitigate demand risks during the market downturn. This effort yielded more progress in early 2023, with 3.8 EH/s hash rate installed for mining as of the end of February. Accordingly, the company has made decisive investments in bolstering its production capacity and expanding its mining operations to more varied geographic regions that offer advantageous conditions.
However, the company’s net income swung to a $63.6 million loss in Q4 2022 compared to a profit of $182.0 million in Q4 2021. According to Jin Cheng, Chief Financial Officer of Canaan, the loss was due to inventory write-downs and research expenses related to its new fleet of ASICs. He said, “Considering very soft market demand and low selling price, we incurred an additional inventory write-down of RMB205.3 million, which also dampened our gross margin. In conjunction with one-time higher research and development expenses relating to the tape-out for our A13 series, our bottom line suffered losses during the quarter.”
For the full year, Canaan’s revenue decreased by 13.8% to $634.9 million, mainly due to better industry conditions in Q1 and Q2 2022. Despite the decline in revenue, the company has a strong balance sheet, with $706 million in total assets compared to $67 million in total liabilities.
Looking ahead, Canaan expects to face continued market challenges and volatility, but remains committed to developing its mining business and investing in new technology to drive long-term growth. The company’s recent investments in production capacity and geographic expansion suggest that it is well-positioned to capitalize on any future recovery in the Bitcoin market.
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