CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies)

Semiconductors · Memory Chips · China Tech

IPO

CXMT shares surge 466% on Shanghai debut, market cap tops Intel's

A tiny free float, not just AI demand, is amplifying the wild price swings behind China's new memory champion.

• ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) shares surged roughly 466% on their July 27, 2026 debut on Shanghai's STAR Market, after the company raised at least $8.6 billion (57.9 billion yuan) in Asia's largest IPO of 2026.
• Founded in 2016 in Hefei, CXMT is China's largest maker of DRAM memory chips, holding about an 8% share of the global RAM market as of June 2026.
• The rally pushed CXMT's market cap to roughly 3.3 trillion yuan (more than $487 billion), overtaking Intel and ICBC to become the most valuable company on a mainland Chinese exchange, though still smaller than Samsung, SK Hynix or Micron.
• Only 6.73% of CXMT's shares are freely tradable, a thin float that helped drive the stock from a low of 38.11 yuan to a high of 55.03 yuan on debut day.
• CXMT's revenue jumped more than 700% year-on-year to 50.8 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) in early 2026 as a global AI-driven memory shortage sent chip prices soaring.
• Apple reportedly sought U.S. government permission to buy CXMT memory despite a Pentagon blacklist, while Dell, HP, Lenovo and Asus are said to be exploring its chips, even though CXMT trails Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron by roughly a generation.
• CXMT's debut turns a state-backed DRAM maker into a proxy for China's chip self-sufficiency drive under U.S. export controls, but its razor-thin free float raises questions about how much of the valuation reflects genuine demand versus scarcity-driven speculation.