The world’s three dominant memory-chip makers may have opened a door they cannot easily close.
By steering factory capacity toward high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI servers, Samsung, SK hynix and Micron left PC, smartphone and industrial buyers short of chips. Chinese producers stepped in. This analysis of the 2024–2026 memory market argues that the resulting shift may survive the shortage that created it.
What happened
ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) lifted its share of global DRAM revenue from 7.6% in the first quarter of 2026 to 9.5% in the second, becoming the world’s fourth-largest supplier. The figures were reported by Herald Business from TrendForce data.
In NAND flash, a June estimate from Counterpoint Research put Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) at 13% in the first quarter of 2026, up from 8% a year earlier. An October update revised the comparison to 14% versus 9%, illustrating how market-share estimates can change as trackers update their data.
At the same time, Micron ended its 29-year-old Crucial consumer business, explicitly citing AI-driven data-centre demand and the need to support larger strategic customers. Conventional DRAM contract prices rose 45–50% in the final quarter of 2025 and another 93–98% in the first quarter of 2026, according to TrendForce.
Not the textbook story
This looks like a classic case of disruptive innovation, but the textbook version does not quite fit. In Clayton Christensen’s theory, incumbents abandon the low end because it is unprofitable. Here, they reduced attention to mainstream products even while legacy chips sold at record prices, because AI-oriented memory offered a more attractive use of constrained capacity.
The study calls this capacity-constrained disruption. Buyers were not over-served; they were rationed. In late 2024, some legacy CXMT DDR4 products were reportedly selling near half the prevailing market price. By mid-2026, selected CXMT DDR5 server modules were being quoted near or even above comparable Samsung products. Scarcity had changed the basis of competition.
Three forecasts
1. Qualification will outlast scarcity
The gains should persist where buyers have already qualified Chinese parts. Qualification is sticky while scarcity is not: once a component has passed validation, changing back adds cost and operational risk. Nikkei reporting summarised by TrendForce said HP, Asus and Acer had begun using limited volumes of CXMT DRAM in notebooks after qualification work completed around mid-2026.
2. The contest will centre on mainstream memory
Chinese makers are positioned to contest DDR5, LPDDR5X, server DRAM and NAND, but their contribution to HBM remains marginal for now. The Korea Times reports a technology gap of roughly three to four years, with export controls and low HBM yields limiting near-term competition in the most advanced AI-memory segment.
3. The decisive test arrives in 2027–2028
Major Korean capacity additions are due over the next two years. FN News reports that Samsung and SK hynix are targeting new capacity from 2027, while CXMT plans substantial additions in 2027 and 2028. If CXMT and YMTC hold their gains as supply expands and prices ease, the disruption is structural. If their share falls back, the shortage was a windfall.
The caveats
The incumbents are not suffering yet. Samsung’s DRAM revenue rose 63.4% in one quarter to US$60.98 billion in Q2 2026, according to TrendForce. Market-share figures are estimates from private research firms and can differ by methodology and reporting period.
The strategic risk is therefore not an immediate collapse in incumbent earnings. It is that a profitable retreat from mainstream capacity gives new suppliers the customers, qualification history and cash flow needed to move upward. The retreat feels like winning until the entrant reaches the tier the incumbent can no longer leave.
References and source notes
- TrendForce — Q4 2025 DRAM revenue and contract pricing
- TrendForce — Q1 2026 DRAM revenue and contract pricing
- TrendForce — Q2 2026 supplier revenue
- Herald Business — TrendForce data on CXMT’s Q2 2026 market share
- Counterpoint Research — Q1 2026 NAND market, June estimate
- Counterpoint Research — revised YMTC share, October update
- TrendForce News — Nikkei reporting on CXMT notebook qualification
- Asia Business Daily — legacy DDR4 pricing
- Reuters via Investing.com — mid-2026 CXMT server-memory pricing
- Micron — exit from the Crucial consumer business
- The Korea Times — CXMT’s technology position and expansion
- FN News — Korean memory-capacity expansion
Source note: Market-share and pricing figures are third-party estimates. Periods are stated explicitly because later revisions and different methodologies can produce different figures. “Capacity-constrained disruption” and the three forecasts are the author’s analytical synthesis.