Shares of Chinese memory chip manufacturer CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies, 长鑫科技, ticker 688825) ended their first day of trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's STAR Market on July 27, 2026, with a gain of 465.82% — the closing price was 49 yuan per share compared to 8.66 yuan at the IPO.
After the trading session, the company's market capitalization reached over 3.2 trillion yuan (approximately $473–488 billion), making CXMT the most valuable company by market capitalization in mainland China. During the morning session, the figure reached 3.65–3.66 trillion yuan.
At the IPO issue price, the company was valued at approximately $85.5 billion (about 579 billion yuan). The start date of trading is confirmed by the official listing notice from the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Industry Profit Multiples Soar
CXMT's debut coincided with the publication of industry-wide statistics. According to data from China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the profits of major integrated circuit manufacturers in the first half of 2026 grew by 2,579.5% year-on-year.
The same NBS report indicates that profits of China's overall electronics industry increased by 96.9% year-on-year in the first half of 2026. The country's integrated circuit output during this period reached about 280 billion units, which is 23.1% higher than a year earlier.
Individual market players are also recording profit growth:
Shenzhen Longsys Electronics (江波龙) in a preliminary report published on July 3, 2026, expects net profit attributable to shareholders in the range of 9.2 to 11 billion yuan — an increase of 62,204%–74,394% compared to the same period last year.
GigaDevice Semiconductor (兆易创新) in a report published on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange website on July 9, 2026, forecasts net profit of approximately 6.9 billion yuan, corresponding to growth of about 1,099% year-on-year.
Behind the Sharp Profit Growth
This growth is explained by several reasons. The main one is the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence across all sectors of the economy and the resulting sharp increase in demand for computing power.
It is precisely the AI boom that has triggered massive construction of data centers and servers worldwide. Major global memory manufacturers — Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron — have redirected a significant portion of their capacity towards HBM memory with higher profitability for AI accelerators. This has led to a shortage of conventional DRAM (DDR5, LPDDR), which is used in general-purpose servers, personal computers, smartphones, and automobiles. Contract prices for DRAM rose 90–95% quarter-on-quarter in Q1 2026 and another 50–60% in Q2.
Chinese manufacturers, including CXMT, found themselves in a favorable position. The company — the largest domestic DRAM producer and the fourth largest globally by volume — increased shipments precisely in the segment of conventional memory, which had become scarce, signed long-term contracts with major clients like ByteDance and Tencent, and expanded production capacity. According to its own forecasts, the company's revenue for the first half of 2026 should be 110–120 billion yuan, with net profit of 50–57 billion yuan.
An additional effect came from a low base of comparison: in the first half of 2025, the memory industry was at the bottom of the cycle, and profits for many companies were minimal or negative. Government support also played a role — Chinese companies received priority access to the domestic AI infrastructure market, and restrictions on importing advanced memory from abroad boosted demand for domestic products.
The combination of global demand for AI solutions, the redirection of global giants' production capacity towards HBM, a significant increase in standard DRAM prices, and the low base from the previous year created unique conditions for record-breaking growth in the financial indicators of Chinese integrated circuit manufacturers. Further developments will depend on the industry's ability to maintain high rates of capacity expansion and adapt to the changing requirements of the global market.
AI Perspective
From the perspective of machine data analysis, CXMT's financial triumph coexists with a less visible constraint — U.S. export controls on advanced lithographic and manufacturing equipment. Western experts note that the company plays a key role in China's technology strategy precisely against the backdrop of these restrictions, and access to advanced equipment for producing HBM memory remains closed to it.
This duality resembles the situation in Japan's semiconductor industry in the 1980s, when rapid commercial growth was accompanied by increasing external political pressure. CXMT's future trajectory will depend not only on global DRAM demand but also on the Chinese industry's ability to replace imported equipment with its own developments.
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