CXMT shares soared almost 500 per cent in their trading debut in Shanghai on Monday as investors flocked to the Chinese chipmaker amid booming demand for AI memory chips.
The stock opened at Rmb49.50 ($7.30), compared with an IPO price of Rmb8.66. CXMT sought to raise nearly $10bn, making it mainland China’s largest initial public offering since Agricultural Bank of China’s listing in 2010. Its debut came just two weeks after South Korean memory-chip maker SK Hynix raised more than $26bn through a US listing.
The strong reception reflects investors’ growing appetite for memory-chip companies, which have become central to the global artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout. CXMT is the world’s fourth-largest producer of dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, which is used in products ranging from smartphones to AI servers.
The Hefei-based company has also emerged as Beijing’s leading domestic contender in advanced memory chips. Its expansion is therefore closely tied to China’s efforts to reduce its dependence on overseas suppliers, particularly in high-bandwidth memory, a critical component used in AI data centres.
CXMT’s debut was supported by intense retail demand, a comparatively low IPO valuation and renewed expectations of state-backed support for China’s equity markets.
The retail portion of the offering was 212 times oversubscribed. Individual investors submitted 9.4mn orders worth Rmb7.07tn, roughly 10 times the size of the retail order book for SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO.
Part of that demand can be attributed to tightly controlled IPO pricing system. Regulators have discouraged companies from selling shares at aggressive valuations, partly to reduce the risk of immediate losses for retail investors. That approach can leave newly listed companies priced well below prevailing secondary-market valuations, creating the conditions for sharp first-day gains.
CXMT’s debut was further amplified by the surge in memory-chip prices since 2025, which has strengthened expectations for its earnings and reinforced investor enthusiasm for the broader DRAM cycle.
Valuation may remain one of the stock’s main attractions as investors become increasingly cautious about AI-related companies trading at elevated multiples. CXMT’s IPO price implied a price-to-book ratio of 2.4 times. That represented a 56% discount to the average valuation of global DRAM peers SK Hynix, Micron Technology and Nanya Technology.
The discount was even wider relative to Chinese semiconductor manufacturers. CXMT’s IPO valuation was approximately 77% below the average price-to-book ratio of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Hua Hong Semiconductor.
