(Yicai) Feb. 3 -- Cambricon Technologies denied a rumor that the Chinese artificial intelligence chipmaker has issued revenue guidance below market expectations for this year after the rumor triggered a sharp selloff in the company’s shares, saying investors should rely only on figures officially disclosed by the firm.

According to the online rumor, Cambricon recently held a small meeting where the Beijing-based company revealed it expects revenue of CNY20 billion (USD2.9 billion) for this year, significantly lower than expectations for CNY30 billion to CNY50 billion.

The information circulating on the internet is false, the Beijing-based company said in a statement released during the lunchtime trading break. “The company has never organized any such event recently and has not issued any annual or quarterly revenue guidance data. Please refer to the information publicly disclosed by the company for relevant information,” it said.

Cambricon’s shares [SHA: 688256] closed 9.2 percent lower at CNY1,128 (USD162.38) each in Shanghai today, after slumping by as much as 14.4 percent in the morning trading session.

On Jan. 30, Cambricon said it expected to have made a net profit of between CNY1.9 billion and CNY2.2 billion (USD273.8 million and 316.7 million) last year -- its first annual profit since incorporation in 2016. Revenue likely soared 411 percent to 496 percent to between CNY6 billion and CNY7 billion, it said.

The company said then that it had benefited from rising computing power demand across the AI industry. The firm’s competitive products helped it expand market presence, accelerate commercial deployment of AI uses, drive significant revenue growth, and put the business in the black, it said.

But on a quarterly basis Cambricon's earnings performance started to slow from the third quarter of last year, when net profit declined 17 percent to CNY567 million (USD81.7 million) from the second quarter, while revenue fell 2 percent to CNY1.7 billion.

For the fourth quarter, Cambricon expects net profit to have sunk by 4 percent to 57 percent to between CNY245 million and CNY545 million from the quarter before. Income was likely between CNY1.4 billion and CNY2.4 billion, ranging from a 19 percent drop to an increase of 38 percent.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev