CXMT passes Tencent as China's most valuable listed company
· TexaHub · Semiconductors, Regional Tech Ecosystems, Geopolitics & Tech
Seventeen days after its Shanghai debut, DRAM maker CXMT is valued above Tencent, a shift that says as much about AI-era memory pricing as about China's chip ambitions.
The crossover
ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) became China's most valuable company on 13 August, with a market capitalisation of $524 billion against Tencent's $511 billion, according to Tom's Hardware [1]. CXMT's own shares fell 1.2% on the day; the switch happened because Tencent fell further after reporting second-quarter capital expenditure up 176% to RMB 52.8 billion and negative free cash flow of RMB 13.8 billion [1]. Tencent is itself a CXMT customer, with a $3 billion server DRAM agreement signed in June [1].
The stock has moved fast. CXMT closed its first day on Shanghai's STAR Market on 27 July at 49 yuan, roughly 466% above its 8.66 yuan offer price, after raising 57.92 billion yuan ($8.6 billion) in Asia's largest IPO of 2026 [2]. The debut coincided with a broader chip selloff: on 28 July South Korea's Kospi closed down nearly 11% and the US semiconductor index fell as much as 6%, with Fortune citing CXMT's listing and a report of Chinese immersion DUV lithography production among the worries [4].
What supports the valuation
CXMT swung to a first-quarter operating profit of 35.43 billion yuan from a 2.83 billion yuan loss a year earlier, helped by rising DRAM prices during the memory shortage, and server products grew from 8.4% of revenue in 2024 to 26.5% in 2025 [1]. It held 7.67% of global DRAM sales in 2025, according to its prospectus [1]. Reuters has reported the company is considering a sixth fab in Beijing's Yizhuang district, and that total capacity could exceed 600,000 wafers per month if all announced projects proceed [3].
The constraints are equally clear. CXMT lacks access to EUV lithography [1], its prospectus contains no dedicated HBM project, and SemiAnalysis estimates its DDR5 cost per bit at more than 30% above Samsung, SK hynix and Micron [2]. Only 6.73% of its enlarged share capital was tradable at listing, with the lock-up expiring on 27 January 2027 [2]. Analysts are far apart: Nomura's price target is 116 yuan, while Morningstar's fair value estimate is 14.90 yuan [1].
Our read
A thin free float and a memory upcycle can inflate any valuation, so the ranking itself says little about long-term value. More telling is the direction of money: investors are rewarding the supplier of AI memory while penalising a buyer for spending heavily on AI infrastructure. For China's chip ecosystem, CXMT now has the capital to expand commodity DRAM quickly; whether it can move up to leading-edge products without EUV tools is the open question.
Sources
[1] Memory maker CXMT overtakes Tencent to become China's most valuable company 17 days after its IPO — now worth $524 billion — Tom's Hardware, 13 Aug 2026
[2] Chinese memory maker CXMT posts blistering 466% leap in Shanghai IPO — bulk of spending to be focused on DRAM production, no HBM in sight — Tom's Hardware, 27 Jul 2026
[3] China's CXMT targets 30% DRAM memory market share by 2030 with sixth mega-fab — future plans bottlenecked by access to advanced chipmaking tools — Tom's Hardware, 5 Aug 2026
[4] 'A lot of panic around the AI investment': How a chip slump is driving the Nasdaq toward correction — Fortune, 28 Jul 2026