Jiangbolong has landed in a rare spot in the capital markets: the same equity is being tested by three very different prices in less than a month.
On Sept. 4, the company fixed its H-share offer price at HK$236 per share and planned a Sept. 8 listing on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. On the same day, its A-shares closed at RMB 347. Using the Sept. 4 RMB-HKD midpoint, HK$236 converts to about RMB 204, leaving the H-share price at roughly a 40% discount to the A-share close.
The pricing gap stands out even more because Jiangbolong had just completed an A-share private placement worth about RMB 3.7 billion one month earlier.
In August, the company issued 6.6071 million shares to 21 investors at RMB 560 per share, raising around RMB 3.7 billion. That offer price was about 45% above the A-share closing price of RMB 386.60 on the day the placement document was disclosed. By Sept. 4, the A-share price had fallen to RMB 347. On that basis, investors that took part in the placement were facing a paper loss of nearly 38%.
The debate over valuation has become even sharper because Jiangbolong also posted a first-half report that surprised the market.
For the first six months of 2026, the company reported revenue of RMB 24.088 billion, up 136.26% year over year. Net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 10.577 billion, up 71,528.66%. Net profit attributable to shareholders excluding non-recurring items was RMB 10.047 billion, up more than 310 times.
That leaves investors with a difficult contrast to reconcile. Earnings are exploding. The H-share price is being set at a steep discount to the A-share market. Investors who subscribed to the August placement at RMB 560 per share are now, based on the Sept. 4 close, sitting on sizable mark-to-market losses.
A different path in memory products
Over the past decade, China’s semiconductor industry has changed in visible ways. In its earlier stages, many domestic companies were concentrated in chip design and packaging and testing. In memory, Chinese firms spent years competing against global giants such as Samsung, SK hynix and Micron.
The memory chip business has a defining characteristic: it is not an industry where a company secures its position with one product alone. Supply chain accumulation, customer qualification and scale all matter over a long period.
Jiangbolong chose a route that differs from the traditional memory majors. Rather than challenging wafer manufacturers such as Samsung or SK hynix head-on, it moved into memory product design, solution development, brand operations and channel capabilities.
According to its listing materials, Jiangbolong owns brands including FORESEE and Lexar. Its portfolio covers embedded storage, mobile storage, solid-state drives and memory modules. FORESEE mainly targets enterprise clients, while Lexar is more focused on the consumer market.
That makes Jiangbolong, in practical terms, a memory products company. It does not manufacture NAND Flash or DRAM wafers. Instead, it procures upstream chips and turns standardized memory components into products for different use cases through controller design, firmware algorithms, packaging and testing, and product-level solutions.
The advantage of that model is clear: it does not require the kind of massive capital expenditure carried by wafer fabs. The limitation is just as clear. Pricing power in the broader supply chain still sits upstream.
When memory prices rise, module makers can benefit from inventory appreciation and higher product pricing. When the cycle turns, inventory risk and margin pressure move through the chain quickly. That is one reason the memory business is often treated as one of the most cyclical segments in semiconductors.
The sector has already gone through a full cycle in recent years. Global memory prices fell sharply in 2022 and 2023, pushing the industry into a downturn. With demand from AI servers, high-performance computing and smart vehicles growing, the sector is now entering a new upcycle. Jiangbolong is operating right at that turn.
Beyond the headline profit figures
Jiangbolong’s financial statements are central to the renewed interest in the stock.
If the income statement is viewed in isolation, the first-half numbers leave little room for criticism. Revenue came in at RMB 24.088 billion. Net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 10.577 billion. First-half profit alone topped RMB 10 billion.
In the same period a year earlier, net profit attributable to shareholders was only RMB 14.7663 million.
A move from less than RMB 15 million in profit to more than RMB 10 billion within a year is not ordinary growth. It looks much more like a full cyclical earnings release.
That pattern is common in semiconductor cycle names. During an upcycle, profit growth can outpace revenue growth by a wide margin. During a downturn, profit can also vanish quickly.
So the market’s main question is not simply how much Jiangbolong earned this year. It is whether that level of profitability can hold. That is the key to understanding the company’s valuation.
Jiangbolong sits in the semiconductor memory business, where price cycles are one of the biggest drivers. In weak periods, product prices fall, manufacturers cut inventory and the whole chain faces earnings pressure. When demand from areas such as AI servers rises and supply-demand dynamics shift, memory prices can move up quickly. Companies holding inventory then gain strong earnings elasticity.
Jiangbolong has exactly that operating profile.
The company is not centered on wafer manufacturing. Its business spans research and development, design, packaging and testing, modules and brands built around memory products. That means it can benefit when memory prices rise, but it is also exposed to the inventory risk that comes with price swings.
For that reason, the balance sheet may matter even more than the income statement when profits look this strong.
As of June 30, 2026, Jiangbolong’s inventory stood at about RMB 25.777 billion. In other words, the company earned RMB 10.577 billion in the first half while carrying more than RMB 25 billion of inventory on its books.
That figure is not automatically negative, nor can it be read as a standalone risk signal. If memory prices continue to rise, the inventory may keep turning into revenue and profit. If the cycle reverses, the logic flips. High-cost inventory may then become an impairment burden.
That is why looking at Jiangbolong through net profit alone is incomplete. Profit, inventory and memory pricing need to be watched together. Their interaction is where the company’s earnings elasticity comes from.
It also helps explain why the A-share market may be willing to grant a higher valuation while Hong Kong investors could be more cautious. If the RMB 10.577 billion profit is treated as proof of long-term competitiveness, the stock can be valued more like a growth name. If a large part of that profit is seen as inventory spread created by rising memory prices, the market is more likely to price it as a cyclical stock.
Hong Kong has seen this pattern before. From chip manufacturing to panels and consumer-electronics supply chains, many cyclical companies entered the market near the top of an industry upswing and later saw valuations normalize as conditions cooled.
Three market prices, one valuation question
Jiangbolong’s Hong Kong listing is only one side of the story. The RMB 3.7 billion A-share private placement completed a month earlier is the other.
There is nothing especially unusual about the transaction itself. The unusual part is the price. On the day the placement report was disclosed, Jiangbolong’s A-shares closed at RMB 386.60, while participating institutions agreed to buy in at RMB 560, a premium of about 45%.
By Sept. 4, the A-share price had dropped further to RMB 347.
That means funds that entered at RMB 560 one month earlier were left, based on the Sept. 4 close, with a mark-to-market value of only about 60% of cost. Against the RMB 3.7 billion raised, the implied market value would be around RMB 2.3 billion, which points to a paper loss of nearly RMB 1.4 billion.
That figure is only a floating gain-or-loss calculation based on the secondary-market close. It does not mean those institutions have realized a loss, and it cannot be used to infer their eventual exit price. Still, it is enough to show why the market is focused on Jiangbolong’s pricing.
The company is being tested by three different market prices at once:
- In August, institutions were willing to buy at RMB 560.
- On Sept. 4, the A-share market was willing to pay RMB 347.
- On Sept. 8, investors entering through Hong Kong could participate at a price equivalent to about RMB 204.
If RMB 560 represented a price for the future and RMB 347 reflected the present, then RMB 204 looks more like a direct question from the market: once A-share sentiment, the memory-cycle premium and the AI narrative are stripped out, what is Jiangbolong actually worth?
This article was originally published by the WeChat public account Alpha Workshop Research Institute, with Beichen named as the author.