Economic News
Chipmaker CXMT is cleared for Chinese Mainland's biggest IPO in four years 2026-05-28
Chengxin Memory Technology has won the Shanghai Stock Exchange's approval for its initial public offering, setting up China’s leading producer of dynamic random-access memory chips for what will be the Chinese mainland’s biggest listing since 2022.
CXMT has been given the green light to list on the Nasdaq-style Star Market, the bourse said on May 27. The Hefei-based chipmaker plans to issue 10.6 billion shares to raise CNY29.5 billion (USD4.4 billion), which would also rank as the second-largest IPO on the Star Market.
China Mobile's "homecoming" listing in January 2022 was the biggest mainland IPO in the past four years, raising CNY56 billion.
CXMT’s planned fundraising is modest relative to firm’s long-term capital needs, Yang Haiyan, chief electronics sector analyst at SWS Research, told Yicai. While CXMT targets nearly CNY30 billion, a single wafer fabrication plant typically costs hundreds of billions of yuan, Yang pointed out.
CXMT ranks first for DRAM production capacity in China and fourth worldwide, though it still trails the industry’s top three players, according to its prospectus.
As a leading domestic DRAM maker, CXMT’s listing will support growth across the upstream equipment, materials, and packaging segments, as well as downstream memory-related industries, Yang said.
CXMT’s expansion will create sustained and sizeable demand for semiconductor equipment and materials, encouraging suppliers to speed up product validation and hasten large-scale deployment, Yang said. It is also expected to deepen ties between domestic wafer fabs, midstream packaging and testing firms, and downstream memory module makers, while enabling greater flexibility in responding to market demand, he pointed out.
Global DRAM prices have skyrocketed on booming demand from the artificial intelligence industry and data centers, with their share of a computing rack’s value doubling to about 20 percent from less than 10 percent last year, Yang noted. As AI applications continue to scale and commercialize, the DRAM market is likely to remain tight in the years ahead, he added.
CXMT swung to a CNY1.9 billion (USD280.3 million) net profit last year, after losing CNY7.1 billion in 2024 and CNY16.3 billion in 2023, according to the prospectus. Revenue soared 156 percent to CNY61.8 billion in 2025.
For the first quarter of this year, profit topped CNY33 billion, with nearly CNY24.8 billion attributable to shareholders of the parent company. Revenue skyrocketed more than eightfold year on year to CNY50.8 billion.
The earnings recovery reflects ongoing growth in global demand for computing power, a persistent supply shortage in the DRAM market, and rising prices.
Source: Yicai Global
