Amid the ongoing memory chip price surge, domestic memory chip giant ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has unveiled a staggering financial report. On May 17th, CXMT's updated IPO prospectus revealed that the company achieved revenue of 50.8 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, a 719.13% year-on-year increase. Its net profit attributable to shareholders reached 24.762 billion yuan, marking a massive 1688.30% growth compared to the same period last year.

The company forecasts revenue between 110 billion and 120 billion yuan for the first half of the year, representing a 612.53% to 677.31% year-on-year increase. Net profit is projected to be between 50 billion and 57 billion yuan, a substantial surge of 2244.03% to 2544.19%. Based on a simple extrapolation of the half-year performance, if CXMT maintains its current growth momentum, its annual net profit could potentially exceed 100 billion yuan.

Looking back to 2023, CXMT's net loss attributable to shareholders was as high as 16.34 billion yuan. In just over two years, the company's single-quarter profit has now offset the entire loss incurred in 2023. While this remarkable turnaround is undoubtedly driven by the super-cycle boom in the memory industry, what sets CXMT apart to emerge as a leader in this wave?

The market is particularly anticipating that as CXMT's IPO on the STAR Market progresses, this price surge could propel the company's valuation to a new level.

**Single-Quarter Profit Offsets Two Years of Losses**

Why has CXMT's first-quarter performance generated such excitement in the market? Firstly, the sheer magnitude of its net profit is significant. Ranking among over 5,000 A-share listed companies, CXMT's Q1 performance places it 13th in net profit, just behind Ping An Insurance and ahead of Industrial Bank.

Secondly, the dramatic reversal is key. After a net loss of 16.34 billion yuan in 2023 and a further loss of 7.14 billion yuan in 2024, the company turned a profit of 1.87 billion yuan for the full year 2025. Entering Q1 2026, net profit skyrocketed to 24.762 billion yuan. This means CXMT's profit from a single quarter has already covered the total losses from the preceding two years.

The core driver behind this performance is the sustained and rapid price increase of DRAM products. This, in turn, can be traced back to the global surge in computing power demand. What role does DRAM play in the AI computing wave?

The semiconductor memory market is broadly divided into volatile and non-volatile memory. DRAM and SRAM fall into the former category, while flash memory products like NAND Flash and NOR Flash are non-volatile. DRAM has long been the mainstream solution for computer and mobile phone memory, continuously evolving. Notably, the recently popular HBM is also a new type of DRAM-based memory.

Given DRAM's mainstream status, demand for it has surged alongside the AI boom. Third-party forecasts suggest that by 2026, server DRAM applications will account for over 50% of the market, with demand growth exceeding 40%.

Prices have also been climbing. Market data shows that since hitting a low in 2023, DRAM prices have been on a steep upward trajectory. South Korean customs data indicates that over the past month (as of May 10, 2026), the price of DRAM chips (excluding memory modules) alone reached $89,498 per kilogram, a 20.9% month-on-month increase and a staggering 497.4% year-on-year rise.

CXMT is the dominant domestic player in DRAM. Its prospectus states it is China's largest, most technologically advanced, and most comprehensively integrated DRAM company involved in R&D, design, and manufacturing. It has achieved mass production from its first to fourth-generation process technology platforms and has covered and iterated products from DDR4 and LPDDR4X to DDR5 and LPDDR5/5X.

According to Omdia data, based on shipment volume and sales, CXMT has become China's top and the world's fourth-largest DRAM manufacturer.

CXMT directly states in its prospectus that since the second half of 2025, global DRAM products have faced supply shortages, leading to a significant upward price trend. Within Q4 2025, the company's product prices continued to rise rapidly month-on-month, greatly boosting gross profit margins and allowing the company to achieve profitability ahead of earlier forecasts for the 2025 fiscal year.

Financial data shows the company's gross margin on main operations improved from -2.19% in 2023 to 41.02% in 2025. From 2023 to 2025, overall production capacity and output grew rapidly, with capacity utilization rates of 87.06%, 92.46%, and 95.73% respectively for each period.

"As one of the key competitors in the global DRAM market, the company is expected to continue benefiting from the wave of global computing power demand growth. Profitability is projected to further improve, and accumulated unrecovered losses will gradually be offset," CXMT stated.

**Aiming for a Trillion-Yuan Valuation**

A strong foundation is crucial. Beyond overall industry demand, CXMT's performance surge is also closely tied to its product strategy—specifically, its early adoption of DDR5.

As a new generation of DDR memory chips, DDR5, with its higher bandwidth and lower power consumption, is rapidly replacing DDR4 in mid-to-high-end markets. CXMT launched and quickly commercialized its DDR5 and LPDDR5X products in 2024 and 2025. In 2025, revenue from the DDR series accounted for 31.87% of total revenue, a significant increase from 13.26% the previous year. CXMT expects the sales proportion of the more advanced DDR5 and LPDDR5/5X to rise rapidly in 2026.

"Undoubtedly, CXMT's profits come from memory chip sales. Currently, during the peak of AI infrastructure deployment, demand for HBM from major tech firms has increased. Memory manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have shifted half their capacity to HBM production, significantly reducing capacity for general consumer-grade memory, leading to a fivefold price increase. CXMT is the only domestic company capable of mass-producing high-frequency memory chips, creating a supply shortage and rapidly boosting its profits with the fivefold price hike. Therefore, such strong profits were largely expected," noted Pan Helin, a renowned economist and member of the MIIT's Expert Committee on Information and Communication Economy.

Simultaneously, CXMT's collaboration with leading industry clients has further stabilized order supply and product shipments. Its end customers reportedly include Alibaba Cloud, ByteDance, Tencent, Lenovo, Xiaomi, Transsion, Honor, OPPO, and Vivo.

With surging demand for AI servers, cloud providers like ByteDance, Tencent, and Alibaba have seen a parallel spike in demand for high-end memory chips, making CXMT a natural beneficiary of this wave of cloud infrastructure investment.

CXMT previously stated that on one hand, supply tightness in the mobile terminal sector persists, and with its long-term stable relationships with major clients, it expects to further increase market share. On the other hand, the server sector is showing significant growth driven by AI computing demand. The company has achieved mass production of DDR5 products, successfully completed validation and batch delivery for core clients, and received high recognition for product performance and service quality, laying a solid foundation for market expansion in 2026.

Bolstered by its performance, CXMT's IPO is attracting significant market attention. According to the prospectus, CXMT plans to raise 29.5 billion yuan, potentially making it the second-largest IPO by fundraising size in the history of the STAR Market, following SMIC's 53.2 billion yuan offering.

Several industry insiders believe that if CXMT lists on the STAR Market, its valuation could reach the trillion-yuan level. "Assuming this year's net profit is around 100 billion yuan, with a reasonable P/E ratio of 20-25 times, combined with industry momentum, it's highly likely to target a trillion-yuan market capitalization post-listing," said Zhang Xiaorong, President of the DeepTech Research Institute.

Pan Helin also suggested the company's valuation could exceed one trillion yuan, as it is China's sole manufacturer of high-frequency DDR memory chips. However, he added that maintaining a high valuation long-term depends on how long the memory shortage persists. "To my knowledge, many memory manufacturers have already begun to replenish capacity. This capacity could be restored in about two years, potentially leading DDR4-5 into a downward cycle."

Compared to international leaders, CXMT still lags in the more advanced HBM sector. Public information shows that SK Hynix has mass-produced HBM3E/HBM4, while CXMT did not list HBM as a primary product in its prospectus.

"It will be difficult for CXMT to enter the HBM track in the short term. Once Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron replenish their consumer-grade memory capacity, it could easily trigger a new downward cycle in the memory chip market," Pan Helin commented.