MORE CHALLENGES AWAIT:
The DRAM maker’s market share is forecast to reach 11%, but trade restrictions on its access to the best chipmaking tools remain a key problem
Shares of ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc (CXMT, 長鑫存儲), China’s largest maker of DRAM chips, shot skyward yesterday as they began trading in Shanghai in China’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) in recent years.CXMT’s shares surged 466 percent in their first day of trading. The company has become the most valuable one listed on a mainland Chinese exchange, with an estimated market capitalization of about 3.3 trillion yuan (US$487.74 billion). However, that is still smaller than those of South Korean and US memory chipmakers such as Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc and Micron Technology Inc.
An entrance to the ChangXin Memory Technologies factory in Beijing is pictured yesterday.
CXMT is among many chipmakers that have profited mightily from the boom in artificial intelligence (AI). Founded in 2016 in Hefei, Anhui Province, the company raised at least US$8.6 billion with the offering, priced at 8.66 yuan per share, in its listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Science and Technology Innovation Board.It was mainland China’s second-largest IPO after the US$22.1 billion share offering of Agricultural Bank of China Ltd (中國農民銀行) in Shanghai and Hong Kong in 2010.
