Korean chip industry alarmed as CXMT and YMTC gain memory market share

Why it matters: Memory chips are a commodity business where scale and cost decide who makes money, so a shift in market share quickly hits the profits of the established players. Samsung and SK Hynix have long dominated global DRAM and NAND supply, and China's state-backed push into chips has made storage one of the sectors where local firms have advanced fastest. How the Korean giants respond, especially in premium products like HBM used for AI, shapes prices and supply for the wider electronics industry.

Chinese memory chip makers ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT, 长鑫存储) and Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC, 长江存储) are expanding fast enough to worry South Korea's semiconductor industry, according to Tencent News.

A report from Samil PwC, a Korean consulting firm, advised Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to sharpen cost competitiveness in general-purpose memory chips while putting more money into advanced areas such as HBM, or high-bandwidth memory, to protect profit margins.

The report follows market-share data from Counterpoint Research showing the shift, the article said. CXMT's share of the DRAM market has doubled, while YMTC has climbed to third place globally in NAND flash.

HBM is the high-end memory used in AI accelerators, a segment where Korean suppliers currently hold a strong position and earn higher margins than on standard chips.