Surges 466% on Market Debut... Instantly Becomes China's Top Company by Market Capitalization

[Anchor]

Here is the global DRAM semiconductor market share for the first quarter of this year. South Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix accounted for 38% and 29%, respectively, followed by Micron of the United States at 22%. While the three major memory semiconductor giants dominate the market, what stands out here is the remarkable growth of China's CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies). Focusing primarily on legacy DRAM, CXMT has expanded its market share from just 3% a year ago to 8%. Riding the wave of the semiconductor super cycle, CXMT went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange today, instantly claiming the number one spot in market capitalization on the Chinese mainland.

Beijing Correspondent Choi Go-un reports.

[Reporter]

[3, 2, 1, It is listed!]

CXMT, China's largest DRAM semiconductor company, saw its stock price skyrocket to about five times its initial public offering price of 8.66 yuan right from the market opening.

Although it surged up to 55 yuan at one point during the session, it cooled off slightly in the afternoon and closed up 466% at 49 yuan.

Based on the closing price, its market capitalization reached 711.7 trillion won in South Korean currency, easily vaulting it to the top position in the Chinese mainland.

Until recently, CXMT was struggling with deficits.

However, while leading global companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix focused on high-bandwidth memory (HBM), CXMT aggressively targeted the standard legacy DRAM market by leveraging cost-effectiveness.

[Kim Yang-pang, Senior Researcher at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade: Since HBM yields such high profitability, we inevitably have to be somewhat negligent toward the rest of the market. In situations like this, it is truly a golden opportunity for Chinese companies.]

Of course, experts generally agree that its technological level still lags behind.

[Park Soon-hyun, Head of Wealth Management Products at Standard Chartered Bank Korea: Because CXMT cannot use EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) lithography equipment, it fundamentally cannot make chips smaller. After making them small, they need to be well-crafted without generating heat regardless of the equipment they go into, and in that regard, they are still quite far behind South Korea.]

Some evaluations also suggest that the stock price surged excessively because only about 6% of the total shares were available for trading in the early stages of listing due to mandatory lock-up periods.

CXMT plans to channel the 12.5 trillion won raised through this initial public offering into upgrading its DRAM process technology.

While it may be difficult for them to immediately threaten Samsung or SK Hynix in the memory market, it is clear that they have emerged as a disruptive fourth player.

(Photo courtesy of Yang A-ta | Video Editing: Chae Chul-ho)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.