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Seats are limited, so act quickly. Let us join together for the appointment with sustainability! [Click to register] Source: Caijing Magazine. Cxmt Corporation's earnings elasticity will depend more on the pace of capacity ramp-up and product mix optimization. If the launch of high value-added products accelerates, it could bring additional earnings growth; if consumer demand remains weak, profit upside will be limited. Cxmt Corporation (688825.SH), whose market value ranks first on the A-share market, recently disclosed its third-quarter 2026 earnings forecast. Cxmt Corporation expects revenue for the first three quarters of 2026 to be approximately 265 billion yuan to 270 billion yuan, an increase of more than 7 times year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders to be approximately 131 billion yuan to 132.5 billion yuan, an increase of more than 25 times year-on-year. Based on these figures, in the first three quarters of 2026, Cxmt Corporation's average monthly profit is expected to exceed 14.5 billion yuan, with average daily profit of about 480 million yuan.
On a quarterly basis, in the third quarter of 2026, Cxmt Corporation's revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders increased by about 15.25%-20.28% and 1.04%-3.88% quarter-on-quarter, respectively, a sharp pullback from the quarter-on-quarter growth rates in the second quarter.
"The deep pullback in Cxmt Corporation's revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders quarter-on-quarter growth in the third quarter was mainly because the slope of global DRAM (dynamic random access memory) price increases significantly converged, while the company's current capacity is already close to a stage ceiling and is difficult to release quickly in the short term. The incremental volume cannot offset the fading dividend from price increases, which in turn caused profit growth at the quarter-on-quarter level to fall back to the single-digit range," Miao Tianyi, managing partner of Puzhuo Capital, told Caijing. At the same time, PC (personal computer), smartphone, and other consumer electronics terminals are approaching their threshold for bearing continuously rising storage costs. End customers are actively controlling inventory and slowing procurement, further compressing room for product price increases. Although overall industry supply and demand remain tight, the marginal pull effect of prices on profits has clearly weakened.
In the secondary market, affected by factors such as renewed expectations for interest rates, storage sector stock prices at home and abroad have both pulled back. On October 16, Cxmt Corporation closed with a total market value of 3.06 trillion yuan, evaporating more than 1 trillion yuan from its post-listing high of 4.2 trillion yuan. Amid the stock price pullback, Cxmt Corporation plans to repurchase company shares with 1 billion yuan to 2 billion yuan of its own or self-raised funds. Looking ahead, many institutions remain optimistic about Cxmt Corporation's investment value. CITIC Securities stated that Cxmt Corporation is positioned in two core main lines at the same time, AI (artificial intelligence) storage and domestic substitution, and its technology, capacity, and product structure continue to upgrade, with broad growth space. It continues to be optimistic about the company's investment value.
Net Profit in the First Three Quarters Exceeded 100 Billion Yuan
On the evening of October 16, domestic DRAM leader Cxmt Corporation disclosed its 2026 first three quarters earnings forecast. The company expects revenue of approximately 265 billion yuan to 270 billion yuan, compared with 32.084 billion yuan in the same period last year, an increase of 7.26 times to 7.42 times year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of approximately 131 billion yuan to 132.5 billion yuan, compared with a loss of 5.28 billion yuan in the same period last year, an increase of 25.81 times to 26.09 times year-on-year.
Cxmt Corporation stated that since the second half of 2025, AI computing power demand has grown rapidly, the global DRAM industry's prosperity has improved, products are in short supply, and prices have risen sharply. "The company has advanced capacity construction, product research and development, and process technology improvement, further increasing unit wafer output and capacity utilization, and the company's scale effects continue to emerge." Although performance has maintained rapid growth, the company's quarter-on-quarter growth rate is declining. By quarter, in the third quarter of 2026, Cxmt Corporation's revenue was approximately 114.69 billion yuan to 119.69 billion yuan, up about 15.25%-20.28% quarter-on-quarter, a sharp pullback from the 95.89% quarter-on-quarter growth in the second quarter; in the third quarter, the company's net profit attributable to shareholders was 53.395 billion yuan to 54.895 billion yuan, up about 1.04%-3.88% quarter-on-quarter, also a deep pullback from the 1.13 times quarter-on-quarter increase in the second quarter.
Among the three international storage giants, Micron Technology (MU.O), which has already disclosed the latest quarterly data, shows the same performance trend. Wind data shows that Micron Technology's revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 (May 29, 2026 to September 3) were approximately 367.7 billion yuan and 255.6 billion yuan, respectively, up about 30% and 33% quarter-on-quarter, compared with increases of 71% and 102% in the third quarter (February 27, 2026 to May 28). Revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders quarter-on-quarter growth also declined, but still maintained relatively high growth.
In Miao Tianyi's view, in this round of the storage upcycle, Micron Technology has maintained high quarter-on-quarter growth in revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders, mainly benefiting from large-scale shipments of high value-added storage products such as HBM (high bandwidth memory), combined with a recovery in prices of ordinary DRAM and NAND chips forming a performance resonance. By contrast, Cxmt Corporation's current product structure is still mainly ordinary DRAM and has not been able to obtain the high gross margin dividend of the HBM track. "But at the same time, it should be noted that customer certification, production line debugging, HBM technology research and development, and yield ramp-up in the storage industry inherently require long cycles. Cxmt Corporation's current primary goal is to first consolidate its market share and profit foundation in general-purpose DRAM. Only after HBM-related technologies gradually land will it have the opportunity to further open up profit space and narrow the earnings elasticity gap with international storage giants."
The market remains optimistic about Cxmt Corporation's earnings growth. Miao Tianyi told Caijing that against the backdrop that general-purpose DRAM contract prices are still expected to maintain a slight quarter-on-quarter increase, Cxmt Corporation's profitability in the fourth quarter is highly likely to remain at a high plateau, but it will be difficult to replicate the ultra-high quarter-on-quarter growth rate of the second quarter. Earnings elasticity will depend more on the pace of capacity ramp-up and product mix optimization. If high value-added products such as HBM land faster, they are expected to bring additional earnings growth; conversely, if consumer demand remains weak, profit upside will be further limited.
Southwest Securities believes that looking ahead, Cxmt Corporation is actively expanding production with funds raised from its listing and promoting iteration of higher-generation products, gradually narrowing the process gap with overseas leaders. By actively positioning in mid- to high-end products to seize the domestic market, there is broad space for domestic substitution, and the long-term growth path is clear.
Market Value Evaporated by More Than 1 Trillion Yuan
While releasing its third-quarter earnings forecast, Cxmt Corporation also disclosed a repurchase announcement. On October 16, Cxmt Corporation received a letter from company chairman Zhu Yiming, "Letter Regarding the Proposal for Cxmt Corporation Group Co., Ltd. to Repurchase Company Shares." The company plans to repurchase company shares with 1 billion yuan to 2 billion yuan of its own or self-raised funds, with the repurchase price not higher than 150% of the average trading price of the company's shares in the 30 trading days before the board of directors approves the repurchase plan resolution. The repurchased shares are intended to be used for employee equity incentives/employee stock ownership plans or to reduce the company's registered capital.
Behind the repurchase is a collective pullback in storage stock prices. From September 30 to October 16, Cxmt Corporation's stock price fell 18.96%. On October 16, the company closed at 45.02 yuan per share, with a total market value of 3.06 trillion yuan, evaporating more than 1 trillion yuan from its post-listing high of 4.2 trillion yuan, but still ranking first on the A-share market value list. During the same period, the stock prices of the three international storage giants all pulled back by more than 17%, among which SK Hynix (000660.KS) fell 27.93%, the largest decline.
"This round of Cxmt Corporation's stock price pullback is the result of multiple factors resonating: valuation digestion, cycle expectation gaming, and capital rebalancing. After the company's listing, the stock price rose considerably in the earlier period, accumulating a large number of profit-taking positions at high levels, with strong demand for realization," a market participant told Caijing. At the same time, the market has begun to trade storage cycle expectations in advance, worrying that subsequent capacity expansion by overseas storage giants will gradually improve the tight supply situation. Combined with weak consumer demand, investors worry that this round of storage price increases is gradually reaching its latter half, and the valuation side is the first to price in the cycle. "Recently, global storage chip stock prices have seen increased volatility, and performance since October has been significantly weaker than other sectors. In addition to disturbances from macroeconomic factors (fluctuating and rising crude oil prices, renewed inflation and interest rate expectations), the industry has also become more focused on the progress of Cxmt Corporation's 4F² technology." CITIC Securities pointed out that the main reason is market concern that if Chinese domestic wafer fabs achieve an effective technological breakthrough in the high gross margin server DDR5 (DDR refers to double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory) market, the narrative logic of overseas giants maintaining super-high pricing power through monopolizing capacity will be shaken.
Since 2026, Cxmt Corporation has made progress in both architecture and products. On October 10, at the Fourth Integrated Chips and Chiplets Conference, Cxmt Corporation introduced key progress in the research and development of its 4F² architecture and planned to launch a new generation of DDR5 RDIMM (registered dual inline memory module) products integrating the above technology by the end of 2026. 4F² means the theoretical cell area occupies only the square of 4 times the minimum feature size. A brokerage said that as of October 2026, commercial DRAM products from original manufacturers at home and abroad are still based on the 6F² architecture. Under the same feature size, the theoretical area of a 4F² cell is two-thirds that of 6F², which is expected to increase storage array density. "Cxmt Corporation's 4F² architecture is expected to further narrow the gap with overseas advanced process levels." In CITIC Securities' view, from the perspective of industry progress, DRAM technology is still mainly based on the 6F² cell structure, and the implementation of 4F² technology depends on the progress of Samsung Electronics and Cxmt Corporation. At present, 4F² technology is still in the early verification stage, and it is still necessary to observe the company's yield, output, gross margin, downstream customer certification, and other indicators in this field. Its impact on the short- to medium-term storage industry is relatively small.
On the product side, Cxmt Corporation has also made progress. On September 20, 2026, at the 2026 World Manufacturing Convention, the company announced that its fifth-generation process technology platform had officially entered mass production and simultaneously exhibited large-capacity LPDDR5X (LPDDR refers to low power double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory) products built on the platform. Cxmt Corporation said that mass production of the fifth-generation process technology platform will help the company further enrich its product matrix, enhance core competitiveness, and consolidate market position. "As of September 21, 2026, the company's mass-produced products based on the fifth-generation process technology platform have not yet formed large-scale sales and will not have a major impact on the company's operating performance in the short term." A brokerage said that with yield improvement and the gradual penetration of new architectures and new process platforms into the product matrix, Cxmt Corporation's output capacity per storage wafer is expected to increase. Combined with improved back-end measurement and module assembly capabilities, this will help dilute unit bit costs and lay the foundation for the research, development, and industrialization of high-end products such as DDR6, LPDDR6, and HBM.
Editor in charge | Zhang Shengting
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