China's biggest DRAM maker, Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT), is set to pocket up to 66.6 billion yuan (about 14.5 trillion won) with its listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on the 27th. A fourth major player backed by the capital markets has entered a DRAM arena that Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron have controlled by more than 90%.
CXMT effectively wrapped up its STAR Market initial public offering by disclosing its public offering results on the 21st. The offer price was set at 8.66 yuan per share, and the proceeds before exercising the overallotment option were confirmed at 57.9 billion yuan (about 12.6 trillion won). Its market capitalization after listing comes to 579.2 billion yuan (about 126 trillion won). It is Asia's biggest IPO this year and the largest-ever semiconductor IPO in mainland China. Retail subscriptions drew orders more than 200 times the available shares. The institutional subscription ratio was about 570 to 1. In the final payment, the amount of canceled subscriptions was just 0.086% of total allocations.
In the 1980s, dozens of companies competed in the DRAM industry, but after massive capital expenditures and repeated downturns, it has been whittled down to a big three of Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron. According to market researcher Omdia, the three companies' DRAM revenue shares in 2025 were 33.96%, 34.48% and 23.41%, totaling 91.85%. CXMT posted 7.67% in the fourth quarter of 2025, ranking fourth globally behind them. Besides CXMT, existing listed names such as Taiwan's Nanya and Winbond are in the market, but people in the industry said CXMT is effectively the only new DRAM maker that has grown to a scale that can sway global supply and prices. For this reason, some assessed that CXMT's IPO could be the last major DRAM IPO since the rise of the big three.
Founded in 2016, CXMT climbed to fourth in the world in a decade on the back of support from the Chinese government and state funds. In 2019, CXMT became the first mainland Chinese company to mass-produce its self-designed DDR4, and it has since expanded its lineup to DDR5 and LPDDR5. Revenue surged each year from 9.1 billion yuan in 2023 to 24.2 billion yuan in 2024 and 61.8 billion yuan in 2025. Net results swung from a loss of 19.2 billion yuan in 2023 to a profit of 7.1 billion yuan in 2025. First-quarter 2026 revenue was 50.8 billion yuan, up 719% from a year earlier. Net profit also came in at 33.0 billion yuan. Reuters, citing experts, said AI server companies snapped up high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server DRAM, driving up prices even for commodity products, and CXMT seized the opening.
CXMT had relied on liquidity (funds) from government and bank loans, but with this listing it has secured capital-market tools such as equity offerings and corporate bonds. CXMT allocated about half of the IPO proceeds, or 29.5 billion yuan, to production line upgrades (7.5 billion yuan), DRAM technology advancement (13.0 billion yuan), and next-generation DRAM research and development (9.0 billion yuan). People in the industry said if CXMT expands its facilities in Hefei, Beijing and Shanghai, its monthly wafer capacity—an essential material for integrated circuits—would likely double from around 300,000 to about 600,000.
Overseas investors who find it hard to take part directly in a mainland IPO flocked to stocks around CXMT. In Hong Kong trading, China International Capital Corp. (CICC), a bookrunner for the IPO, and CSC Financial rose about 15% and 12%, respectively, over the past three months, far outpacing the Hang Seng Index, which fell nearly 5%. The Star 50 Index, focused on Hong Kong-listed Chinese semiconductor shares, climbed 37% in the same period. Shares of corporations that supply some equipment and materials to CXMT nearly doubled. Crypto firm Trade.X even rolled out a perpetual futures product linked to CXMT's share price. Morgan Stanley said, "CXMT's listing could shift some funds from overseas exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix into Chinese semiconductor stocks."
Even so, experts said CXMT is unlikely to compete on equal footing right away with Samsung Electronics, SK hynix and Micron in the higher value-added HBM market. In particular, CXMT is known to lag the big three corporations by a significant margin in advanced process technology and Production yield, HBM design and packaging, and certification with major AI customers. In the near term, CXMT is more likely to expand share first in DDR5 and LPDDR5 used in China's servers, smartphones and PCs.
A higher offer valuation than rivals and U.S. restrictions could also work against CXMT. Based on projected 2025 results, the price-earnings ratio (PER) applied to this offering comes to 308.92 times. That far exceeds the industry average of 76.32 times as well as the 134.62 times average of comparable companies. On top of that, the United States has placed CXMT on the Ministry of National Defense-designated list of Chinese military companies and is strictly excluding companies that had a transaction with them from government tenders. There is also a chance the United States will further block exports of advanced chipmaking equipment to China. Zhao Wei Yak, CEO of Singapore's Gao Capital, told Bloomberg, "Memory stocks have risen a lot, and if you think the sector will keep going up, you can just buy leaders like SK hynix or Samsung."