China's YMTC is world's third-largest NAND flash manufacturer
Chinese NAND flash for SSDs now accounts for 14 percent of global shipments. YMTC thus overtakes Micron.
(Image: Andreas Wodrich / heise medien)
Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) slips from 6th to 3rd place on the list of the world’s largest NAND flash manufacturers. Based on the amount of storage shipped, YMTC chips achieved around 14 percent market share in the second quarter of 2026. This places the Chinese manufacturer just ahead of Kioxia (rounded also 14 percent) and Micron (13 percent). YMTC’s production has increased by 22 percent within a year.
The market observer Counterpoint Research comes to this conclusion. This marks a milestone: YMTC is now the world’s largest pure NAND flash manufacturer. Only Samsung and SK Hynix (including its subsidiary Solidigm) produce more, but both also manufacture DRAM for DDR5 modules, High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), and more.
Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron have recently focused on DRAM because its prices were the first to rise rapidly. Now, the margins for both types of memory are enormous – sometimes exceeding 80 percent.
(Image: Counterpoint Research)
Enterprise SSDs consume most chips
Most NAND flash now ends up in enterprise SSDs for servers and data centers. Counterpoint cites a 48 percent “eSSD” share. The remaining 52 percent is divided among various other classes: including SSDs for desktop PCs, notebooks, and edge systems, entertainment devices like TVs, memory cards, and USB sticks. Client SSDs with YMTC chips are individually available in Germany.
Market observers estimate that enterprise SSDs will break the 50 percent mark by the end of the year. Because demand, especially in AI data centers, is so high, prices for PC and notebook models are also rising enormously.
Catching up on chip prices
In terms of revenue, YMTC is currently in 5th place, thus still behind Micron and ahead of Sandisk (with 11 percent market share by unit volume). More precise figures are not in the report, but these are differences of a few percentage points. Chinese memory manufacturers are dealing with high prices; cheap components are not available in China either.
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The latest revenue figures come from Taiwanese market observer Trendforce for the first quarter of 2026. Samsung alone had $13.5 billion in NAND flash, SK Hynix including its subsidiary Solidigm had $7.5 billion, and Kioxia, Micron, and Sandisk each had almost six billion. YMTC’s calculated revenue was just under four billion US dollars. Since then, however, prices have risen sharply.
YMTC is currently preparing for its IPO. Once completed, the company will have to publish regular business reports. These will soon provide a more precise insight into its finances. Chinese DRAM manufacturer CXMT recently completed its IPO.
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