十三倍看多長鑫科技？

Original Author: Su Yang

Original Editor: Xu Qingyang

Original Source: Tencent Tech

ChangXin's IPO has become the hottest topic in China's tech circle.

On July 27, the domestic DRAM leader ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) debuted on the STAR Market (Shanghai Stock Exchange's Sci-Tech Innovation Board) with an opening price of 49.50 yuan per share, surging over 470% from its issue price of 8.66 yuan. Simultaneously, with a market capitalization exceeding 3.6 trillion yuan, it surpassed Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to top the A-share market cap rankings, more than double the market cap of Kweichow Moutai, becoming the "King of A-shares."

As the only IDM enterprise in China capable of mass-producing DRAM, CXMT's net profit for the first half of the year has already surpassed 50 billion yuan. Its global market share has climbed from 3% to nearly 8%, carving out a niche in a market dominated by Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron for decades.

Alongside CXMT, a report from Nomura Securities has also garnered significant attention.

Before the market opened on July 27, international investment bank Nomura Securities (referred to as Nomura) released a report. In its initial coverage, it gave CXMT a "Buy" rating with a target price of 116 yuan. The estimated upside of over 12 times from the opening price thrust CXMT into the market spotlight. Nomura even described the industrial value of CXMT's DRAM chips as "the pearl on China's crown" in its report title.

Nomura's Research Report on CXMT

"A target price above 100 (yuan) implies a market cap of over 7 trillion yuan, which is quite aggressive," said an investor who has long followed China's semiconductor industry. "This possibility exists, but it requires exuberant market sentiment and would likely discount at least three years of future growth."

So, what is the underlying logic behind Nomura's 13x bullishness on CXMT, and how does it assess the risks for CXMT?

2027 Revenue Expected to Reach 560 Billion Yuan

According to data disclosed by CXMT in its IPO press release, the company expects to achieve revenue of 110 billion to 120 billion yuan in the first half of 2026, a year-on-year increase of 612.53% to 677.31%. It also expects net profit attributable to the parent company to reach 50 billion to 57 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2244.03% to 2544.19%.

Regarding the growth, CXMT stated, "In recent years, driven by factors such as the recovery of the storage industry, optimization of product structure, and the release of scale effects, the company's operating performance has achieved rapid growth."

Compared to CXMT's own performance estimates, Nomura's research report was more optimistic. According to its model projections, CXMT's revenue is expected to rapidly increase from 61.8 billion yuan in 2025 to 290.7 billion yuan in 2026, 560.8 billion yuan in 2027, and up to 773.3 billion yuan in 2028.

Nomura also expects CXMT's net profit attributable to the parent company to rise from less than 1.9 billion yuan to 130.3 billion yuan, 277.2 billion yuan, and 393.1 billion yuan in 2026, 2027, and 2028, respectively. The compound annual growth rate for both metrics is projected at 63% for revenue and 74% for net profit.

The underlying logic for CXMT's performance estimates centers on three dimensions: capacity expansion, technology upgrades, and price increases. The first two dimensions are strongly correlated with the use of proceeds from CXMT's prospectus.

Previously, CXMT disclosed in its prospectus that the funds raised would primarily be used for projects such as the technology upgrade of the memory wafer mass production line, DRAM memory technology upgrades, and research and development of next-generation dynamic random-access memory technologies, to further enhance advanced manufacturing capabilities and innovation levels.

It is noteworthy that the price increases are reflected in two main aspects: one is the rise in the average selling price per wafer due to technological upgrades; the other is the general price increase of memory chips driven by the ongoing super-cycle.

"Since the second half of 2025, the continuous rise in product prices has driven rapid improvements in gross profit margins and profit levels, leading to a turnaround from loss to profit in 2025," CXMT stated earlier in the overview section of its prospectus.

The structure of CXMT's product shipments is also upgrading.

In a previous response to a listing inquiry, CXMT disclosed that mobile terminal products form the core of its current revenue base. Smartphone manufacturers like Xiaomi, Transsion, Honor, vivo, and OPPO correspond to the LPDDR series of products. Cloud vendors like Alibaba and ByteDance mainly correspond to the DDR series of products.

The revenue contribution ratio from these two customer groups is roughly 9:1.

By May 17, 2026, revenue contributions from AI server-related products, represented by the DDR series, jumped to over 30%, but the mainstay remained the LPDDR series product line, accounting for over 66% of revenue.

During this phase of performance ramp-up, the moves of a heavyweight potential client, Apple, are particularly noteworthy.

According to a Financial Times report, Apple has begun testing CXMT's DRAM chips, aiming to use them in entry-level iPhones and other devices sold in the Chinese market. Concurrently, since around May or June, Apple has been lobbying the U.S. government to seek relevant permits.

If a cooperation between the two parties is finalized, CXMT could potentially take on a portion of Apple's global DRAM procurement. The significance of this order extends far beyond the sales revenue itself; it marks a shift for a supplier previously labeled a "domestic replacement" towards one recognized by mainstream global clients.

However, some institutions believe Apple is merely making small-volume purchases of CXMT's products, and may also be using the introduction of a new supply variable as leverage in negotiations with Samsung and SK Hynix.

Capacity Grabbed En Masse, Valuation Matches Twice That of Micron

Based on Nomura's target price of 116 yuan, and corresponding to an earnings per share of 5.8 yuan in 2028, CXMT's forward price-to-earnings (PE) ratio is approximately 20 times.

"Over 100 billion in profit supporting a market cap of 2 trillion yuan is reasonable," Chen Qi, an investor who has long focused on the semiconductor industry, previously told Tencent Tech. A market cap of 2 trillion yuan corresponds to a 20x PE.

For comparison, Wall Street's estimate for Micron's PE for the 2026 calendar year is about 10 times, while SK Hynix's is only around 5 times. "Anything can happen when the semiconductor cycle arrives," Chen Qi said.

In Chen Qi's view, a 10x PE is reasonable, but a 20x PE is also within the realm of possibility. "CXMT's real opportunity lies in being on the opposite side of Samsung, Hynix, and Micron, representing China's storage industry finally getting a seat at the table."

Nomura's 20x PE for CXMT also has another layer of logic: Micron can be seen as the valuation anchor in the global DRAM field, with its historical forward PE average around 10x. However, the A-share semiconductor sector has historically traded at a valuation premium of 1 to 3 times over its US counterparts. Taking the midpoint of about 2 times, CXMT's PE would be 20x.

The core support for CXMT's valuation is that global storage demand is being exponentially expanded by AI, while the supply side, constrained by physical bottlenecks, cannot keep pace. Nomura estimates that even after accounting for a 60% compression effect from various storage efficiency technologies (i.e., a 40% impact), global storage demand will still grow over seven times between 2026 and 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate exceeding 60%.

Nomura even proposed a more extreme scenario: if AI robots operate autonomously without the limitation of human operating speed, the upper limit of demand would be solely determined by authorization boundaries, infrastructure capacity, and capital expenditure budgets.

But the pace of supply expansion lags significantly behind.

Nomura expects the compound annual growth rate for industry capacity expansion to be only 30% to 40%. CXMT's bit growth CAGR between 2026 and 2030 is estimated at about 40% to 45%, which, while higher than the industry average, is still clearly below the demand growth rate.

Furthermore, around the time of Nomura's report release, major chip companies in South Korea and the US initiated a new round of collaboration.

On July 24, US local time, Samsung Electronics and Broadcom signed a memorandum of understanding worth over $200 billion, covering high-end memory supply such as HBM4, 2-nanometer foundry services, and advanced packaging. Around the same time, SK Group and SK Hynix reached a long-term partnership intent with NVIDIA, exceeding $500 billion, aimed at joint development and stable supply of next-generation HBM.

For CXMT, the more focused the leading manufacturers become on HBM, the more pronounced the supply gap in the traditional DRAM market becomes. Nomura predicts that CXMT's share of the global DRAM market will increase from its current level of about 10% to 18% by the end of 2028.

Additionally, looking at the domestic Chinese market, there is ample room for the self-sufficiency rate to increase, providing a growth window for CXMT's performance.

According to WSTS data, China accounted for about 25% of the global DRAM consumption market in 2025. However, based on production revenue, the global share of domestic manufacturers was only about 10%, implying a self-sufficiency rate of roughly 30%. The substitution potential just within the Chinese market is substantial.

A Dual Examination Under the Spotlight

Despite the attractive prospects, Nomura also dedicates a considerable portion of its report to discussing risks.

Foremost among these is the embargo on key equipment and materials resulting from the US MATCH Act, including lithography, etching, and advanced photoresists. In the worst-case scenario, besides capacity expansion constraints, Nomura estimates that CXMT's revenue and net profit for 2027 and 2028 could shrink by approximately 13%-14% and 30%-33%, respectively.

These external risks heavily overlap with several weaknesses mentioned in CXMT's prospectus.

CXMT's prospectus highlights "geopolitical risks" associated with the Beijing-1260H Military Industry Entity List, as well as the risk of competing in a globally highly monopolized market. Most critically, it emphasizes the cyclical risk of the industry—the strong cyclical nature of the DRAM industry and the risk of significant performance fluctuations.

Currently, the industry is still within an upcycle or "super-cycle," but cracks are appearing in the market consensus regarding memory.

For instance, Micron's stock price hit a historical high of $1,255 on June 25, but within just three weeks fell to a low of $804, a peak-to-trough decline of 36%. SK Hynix experienced an even more drastic fluctuation; its stock price on the Korean exchange fell from a high of 2,987,000 won on June 25 to a low of 1,678,000 won, a drop of 43.8%. Its ADR surged 27% on July 14, only to fall back 9% the next day.

The aforementioned investor who closely monitors China's semiconductor industry told Tencent Tech that cyclicality ultimately comes down to basic supply and demand theory. "As long as the market is frenzied, companies will expand capacity indefinitely. But demand can halt abruptly at a certain inflection point. No market is an exception; memory is just a more extreme case."

This investor cited the example of Hua Hong (presumably referring to a company's history), which invested heavily in memory during the peak of the internet bubble in the 1990s, experienced a dramatic boom and bust, and eventually transitioned to logic chip foundry. This case underscores the impact of memory cyclicality. "Few other markets see prices rise 5-10 times in 1-2 years during a boom and then plummet by 90% over 1-2 years during a downturn. Since 1990, there have been at least 5 such cycles, roughly every 6 years – a very regular pattern."

Therefore, exercising strict financial discipline during the favorable upcycle and avoiding aggressive capacity expansion will be a crucial test of CXMT's long-term strategic wisdom.