According to ChainCatcher, market research firm Counterpoint Research said in its latest report released today that Chinese memory chip maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) now holds a 9% share of the global DRAM market by bit shipments.
Counterpoint expects that figure to reach 11% by 2028. On a revenue basis, the report puts the 2028 share at 9%.
The report said CXMT is shifting from an industry “challenger” to a “strategic player.” Its longer-term target is to reach a 20% share of bit shipments and a 15% share of revenue by 2035.
A 15% to 17% threshold remains the key hurdle
Counterpoint said CXMT must cross a global market-share red line of 15% to 17%—roughly one-sixth of the market—if it wants to establish a firm footing in the global memory business and break into the ranks of the “big three” DRAM suppliers.
The report linked that threshold to past industry experience. It said Taiwan’s DRAM makers saw their market share fall below 15% in 2008, leaving them unable to secure the large sums needed to develop next-generation fabs. Their share then dropped all the way to around 3% at the edge of the market. On that basis, Counterpoint described 15% as the core survival line for CXMT’s medium- and long-term sustainability and its ability to fund its own growth.
Capacity expansion and technology push
To move past that line, CXMT is accelerating capacity expansion with newly raised funds. The company plans to double capacity by 2030 and triple it by 2035.
The report added that although CXMT faces external pressure including U.S. export controls on equipment and barriers to entering the global supply chain, those limits could also act as a catalyst. Counterpoint said they may force faster in-house innovation in frontier technologies such as vertical channel transistor, or VCT, and wafer-on-wafer bonding, helping narrow the gap with industry leaders.