In a year ruled by RAM shortages, blighting everything from the best gaming laptops to the smartphone in your pocket, any sniff of a new competitor is good news.
ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is "China's only mass-market DRAM manufacturer at scale" in 2026 (Counterpoint) and has leapt from a 1% to 8% revenue share in the global DRAM market in Q2 (Counterpoint). As the "fastest growing" DRAM manufacturer across the world, giants SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron's forays in HBM have seemingly left a gap for more traditional R&D.
Now laptop manufacturers are reportedly turning to the memory underdog to ease their supply chain woes. A recent Nikkei Asia report suggests that HP, Asus, and Acer are all using a "limited amount" of CXMT memory in laptops sold in China. It's no surprise - after all, Apple is reportedly testing the use of CXMT's memory in its products sold in China, and the brand already supplies domestic brands Xiaomi, Transsion, Honor, Oppo, and Vivo.
This is no miracle moment, though. For now we're only talking about 'laptops' as a generalization. There's no word on whether HP, Asus, and Acer will extend this use to gaming rigs, and whether CXMT will relax its focus on Chinese manufacture and domestic markets in time to make a meaningful dent in new release price tags.
The competition CXMT could one day pose to Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix, though, is certainly a glimmer of hope. The big three have been writing the rulebook for over ten years now, and their focus on HBM manufacturing has left a "growth window for CXMT," explains a recent Pandaily report.
With the brand's LPDDR6 research continuing to show results, and plans for a second manufacturing plant in Beijing in place (Reuters), the RAM underdog has every opportunity to capitalize on the gap left by the Big Three.
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Need a new machine before CXMT goes global? Check out the best Razer laptops and best Asus gaming laptops I've tested so far.
