Turns out China’s CXMT playing hardball on DRAM prices is actually good news for Samsung, SK Hynix (and by extension Micron) – not the threat people expected.Apple was eyeing CXMT as a cheap alternative source for mobile DRAM like LPDDR5X to cut costs on the next iPhones and gadgets.
But CXMT flat-out refused further discounts and is sticking to prices the same as or higher than Samsung and SK. Apple, usually the big buyer that can force prices down, just got stonewalled.Why? Chinese giants like Huawei and Xiaomi have already snapped up most of CXMT’s output with expensive long-term deals.
They’re pushing hard for domestic supply because of the ongoing US sanctions, so CXMT doesn’t need Apple’s business at a cut-price rate.That old Apple trick of dangling cheap Chinese parts to squeeze better deals out of the big suppliers has stopped working.
At the same time the major memory makers have shifted loads of capacity over to high-value AI stuff like HBM. Commodity DRAM (DDR5, LPDDR5X) is tighter, prices are climbing, and the usual cheap workaround has vanished.CXMT soaking up the China-side commodity demand means Samsung and SK are off the hook for flooding the market with low-margin chips. They’re free to pour everything into premium AI memory – HBM4, LPCAMM2, enterprise SSDs and the rest.
With commodity prices held up by CXMT and the Big Three owning the high-end, their pricing power and margins look set to get even stronger in the second half.
