The Chip Equipment Maker That Quietly Turned $1,000 Into $11,280 in a Decade

3 weeks ago 11

William Temple

Thu, December 18, 2025 astatine 7:49 AM CST 4 min read

An expansive, yellow-lit semiconductor manufacturing cleanroom with workers successful achromatic full-body cleanable suits. Rows of precocious concern instrumentality and overhead automated worldly handling systems, 1 labeled 'SK hynix VO93', enactment the facility, emphasizing a high-tech, controlled accumulation environment.

Applied Materials generated a 1,028% instrumentality implicit 10 years versus 220% for the S&P 500.
Fiscal 2025 gross deed a grounds $28.37B but Q4 missed estimates and declined 3% twelvemonth implicit year.
The banal trades astatine 30x net aft pulling backmost 10% from October highs adjacent $276.
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Applied Materials has been 1 of the semiconductor industry's quietest occurrence stories. While investors obsessed implicit chipmakers, this instrumentality supplier positioned itself astatine the halfway of each large exertion displacement successful manufacturing. The result? A decennary of bonzer returns driven by secular trends astir didn't spot coming.

The company's translation accelerated arsenic unreality computing, mobile devices, and AI created insatiable request for precocious semiconductors. Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) doesn't marque chips. It makes the machines that marque chips possible, selling instrumentality and services to fabrication facilities worldwide.

That positioning proved powerful. As chipmakers raced to physique cutting-edge fabs for 7nm, 5nm, and present 3nm processes, Applied Materials supplied the captious tools. The institution extended its pb successful logic, DRAM, and precocious packaging technologies portion competitors struggled to support gait with rapidly evolving manufacturing requirements.

CEO Gary Dickerson has consistently emphasized the company's absorption connected "the highest worth exertion inflections successful the fastest increasing areas of the market." That strategy delivered six consecutive years of maturation done fiscal 2025, culminating successful grounds yearly gross of $28.37 cardinal (up 4% twelvemonth implicit year) and non-GAAP EPS of $9.42 (up 9%).

10-Year Return

Initial Investment: $1,000
Current Value: $11,280
Total Return: 1,028%
Annualized Return: 27.4%
S&P 500 (same period): $3,200 (220%)

5-Year Return

Initial Investment: $1,000
Current Value: $2,850
Total Return: 185%
Annualized Return: 23.3%
S&P 500 (same period): $1,850 (85%)

1-Year Return

Initial Investment: $1,000
Current Value: $1,105
Total Return: 10.5%
S&P 500 (same period): $1,280 (28%)

The 10-year show crushed the marketplace by astir 5x, turning $1,000 into implicit $11,000. Even the five-year model delivered 185% returns, much than doubling the S&P 500. The caller twelvemonth shows humble gains arsenic the banal pulled backmost from October highs adjacent $276, presently trading astir $248.