CXMT sees rising global DRAM market share

Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) strengthened its position as the world's fourth-largest DRAM supplier in the second quarter, raising its global market share to 10 percent and narrowing the gap with the industry's top three players.

Counterpoint Research said Samsung Electronics retained the top spot with a 38 percent global share, followed by SK Hynix at 25 percent and Micron Technology at 24 percent. The combined share of the three established market leaders fell to 87 percent from 94 percent a year earlier, as CXMT continued to gain prominence on the global stage.

The three established leaders have directed more capacity and research toward advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM), creating room in conventional dynamic random access memory (DRAM), said Guo Tao, a member of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence and a renowned AI expert.

HBM is a specialized, vertically stacked form of DRAM designed to provide the high bandwidth required by AI processors.

"But that is only a secondary tailwind, not the core reason," Guo said, adding that more decisive were CXMT's improving yields, capacity expansion and maturing DDR5 and LPDDR5 products, which strengthened supply stability and product consistency.

The senior expert also identified AI servers as the main driver of CXMT's growth as China has built up more computing infrastructure. The PC market recovered only moderately, while smartphone demand remained broadly stable.

The gains came as the global DRAM market expanded rapidly on strong demand linked to AI and data centers. Counterpoint said global DRAM market revenue surged 57 percent quarter-on-quarter and 385 percent year-on-year in the second quarter.

The interaction of scale, pricing and product improvement is clearest in CXMT's first-half results. Its revenue surged 874 percent year-on-year to 150.3 billion yuan ($22.36 billion), while net profit attributable to shareholders reached 77.6 billion yuan, compared with a 2.3-billion-yuan loss a year earlier.

For Guo, the turnaround carries particular weight in the DRAM sector, where heavy investment and fixed depreciation costs deepen losses during downturns.

"This full transition to profit in the core business and the cleaner profit mix show that its commercialization model works. It can now fund itself rather than depend on outside capital, greatly improving its resilience and survival prospects in any industry downturn," he said.

The financial gains have been accompanied by progress higher up the product ladder. The company said its LPDDR6 DRAM products have entered mass production and realized the world's earliest commercial use of LPDDR6 technology in a flagship smartphone. CXMT has also reportedly begun small-scale production of HBM3E, with Alibaba's T-Head and Cambricon evaluating the chips.

Even as CXMT advances into high-profile HBM, Guo said its near-term priority should remain conventional DRAM, where it can expand its global share and strengthen its role in China's push to replace imported memory chips.

"Commodity memory is the foundation of stable revenue and internal cash generation, and operating profit can continue to fund high-end HBM research," Guo said, adding that CXMT can increase investment in advanced memory as its technology, production capacity and customer base mature.

China's large electronics and server industries give CXMT a substantial home market and can help cushion swings in the global memory cycle, Guo said. Continued product upgrades and expansion into overseas markets would then allow the company to build on that domestic base and compete more broadly in the global DRAM sector.