Chinese chipmaker CXMT's sales soar almost 10-fold amid memory crunch

CXMT Corp.'s first-half revenue leapt almost 10-fold while profit surged, reflecting a rush for AI hardware that's made the memory chipmaker China's most valuable business. 

The Hefei-based company's revenue expanded to 150.3 billion yuan ($22.4 billion) in the first six months, more than double the sales it raked in across all of 2025. It posted a profit of 77.6 billion yuan, versus a loss a year earlier.

 The impressive earnings emerged a month after CXMT pulled off China's second biggest initial public offering in Shanghai, eventually raising 66.6 billion yuan with an overallotment option. The company is the fourth-biggest maker of DRAM in the world, and it's seen demand and prices for its products skyrocket with the advent of artificial intelligence and the hardware-hungry data centers used to power it.

 

 CXMT attributed its stellar growth to a global constraint in DRAM supplies, a trend it said will continue in the second half. The company said its next-generation LPDDR6 memory product, which can be used in smartphones and tablets, has been delivered to clients for validation and is now on track for mass production.

 CXMT's stock has kept rising since its debut, and the company has now overtaken Tencent Holdings Ltd. to become China's largest by market capitalization, marking a paradigm shift in the country's tech landscape. Even so, the chipmaker trades at a significant discount to global peers, according to Goldman Sachs, which calculates its current valuation at about 10 times estimated 2027 earnings. That multiple is based on forecasts for net income to more than double to 361 billion yuan in 2027 from an estimated 161 billion yuan this year.

 

The results show sharp growth acceleration for the Chinese memory chipmaker that had until recently incurred hefty losses competing in a market for commodity products. CXMT now benefits from the same acute shortage of memory that's fired up the valuations of Samsung Electronics Co., SK Hynix Inc. and Micron Technology Inc. All those companies are prioritizing the production of high-end memory required to make AI accelerators by the likes of Nvidia Corp. 

 As China's best alternative to those international suppliers, CXMT has become a symbol of the country's effort to reduce reliance on foreign technology. Founded by US-trained chip veteran Zhu Yiming, CXMT is also working on developing its own high-bandwidth memory, the advanced class of semiconductor used in AI accelerators, though it made no mention of its progress in the field in the earnings release on Friday. 

 The company has said it will use the IPO proceeds to fund capacity expansion and try catch up with larger rivals. Already, it ramped up its spending level in the first half. 

 Its research spending rose 87% to 6.86 billion yuan. The company also grew its research and development team by 61% year-over-year to nearly 7,500 people.

 In a sign of CXMT's growing clout, Apple Inc. is said to be in talks to purchase its memory chips, alongside fellow Chinese supplier Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. That would be for use in Apple devices sold in China, Bloomberg News reported in July. The discussions have raised alarms in Washington, with a group of US senators urging Apple to drop its attempt to rely on Chinese suppliers.

 The company was recently blacklisted by the US Department of Defense, a move CXMT on Friday said won't impact its day-to-day operation.