Memory Chips Reliance on Samsung and SK Hynix Fall as Chinese Smartphone Makers are Turning to CXMT

Fuelled by a global memory shortage, China’s CXMT is winning spots in flagship handsets from ByteDance-powered AI devices to Xiaomi’s top models

· Apple is reportedly testing memory chips from China’s CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies) for possible use in products such as iPhones and MacBooks, particularly devices sold in China.

· The testing was reported by The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.

· Apple and CXMT have not publicly confirmed any partnership or supply agreement.

· Apple’s reported interest comes amid a global memory-chip supply crunch, driven largely by strong demand from AI data centers.

· Increasing AI-related demand is putting pressure on supplies of conventional memory chips used in smartphones, PCs and other consumer electronics.

· The tighter supply has contributed to rising memory-chip prices, potentially increasing component costs for consumer-electronics manufacturers.

[ABS News Service/17.09.2026]

China’s leading memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is gaining ground among local smartphone vendors, with some of its high-end chips finding their way into flagship Chinese handsets as vendors push into the premium market.

ZTE-backed Nubia’s NaviX Ultra that went on sale on Wednesday used LPDDR5X DRAM chips from CXMT, the companies announced earlier this month. The handset was dubbed the Nubia Doubao phone due to its integration of TikTok parent ByteDance’s Doubao artificial intelligence assistant.

CXMT said the tie-up with Nubia marked the first large-scale use at that level of domestically made LPDDR5X chips, which have a data transfer speed of up to 10,667 megabits per second (Mbps).

The flagship handset, priced from 5,999 yuan (US$885), according to ZTE’s website, was also the first mass-market smartphone equipped with an AI agent, the company claimed. The consumer version of ByteDance’s Doubao smartphone assistant provides the phone with capabilities to respond to spoken instructions and carry out tasks on a user’s behalf.

CXMT’s LPDDR5X chips support speeds of 8,533 Mbps, 9,600 Mbps and 10,677 Mbps, with the two slower versions already in mass production since last year.

The adoption of LPDDR5X by the Nubia Doubao underscores how CXMT is breaking into the premium mobile memory chip segment at a time when on-device AI is boosting demand for faster and more capable memory.

Chinese smartphone-to-vehicle giant Xiaomi and Transsion, known for its budget phones in emerging markets, were also among customers using the LPDDR5X line, CXMT said in its 2026 interim report published last month.

CXMT said last month that its newer and faster LPDDR6 chips had entered mass production, with Xiaomi’s 18 Fold becoming the first flagship smartphone to commercially deploy the memory product.

The memory chip offers a capacity of 16 gigabytes and supports a maximum data rate of 12,800 Mbps, which was “sufficient data bandwidth to meet the high-performance computing needs of flagship smartphones and edge devices”, CXMT said.

Huawei Technologies’ Kirin 9030 Pro, the processor in its Mate 80 Pro Max released in February, uses a mix of memory components from Samsung Electronics and CXMT, according to a teardown report published in June by SemiAnalysis.

The Chinese memory chip giant has been rapidly gaining traction in the global DRAM market. CXMT’s share of global DRAM revenue rose to 9.5 per cent in the second quarter from 7.6 per cent in the first quarter, according to market consultancy TrendForce in early September.

However, it still trails the three global memory giants by a wide margin. Samsung accounted for 39.4 per cent of global DRAM revenue in the second quarter, followed by SK Hynix at 24.9 per cent and Micron Technology’s 23.3 per cent, according to TrendForce.

CXMT’s growing capabilities have also appeared to attract the attention of Apple. The US tech giant has reportedly been testing the Chinese firm’s memory chips for potential use in products including iPhones and MacBooks, particularly those for sale in China, according to a Wall Street Journal report last month, citing sources.

Neither Apple or CXMT have publicly announced any tie-up so far.

Apple’s exploration of Chinese chips comes as the global industry is grappling with a memory chip supply crunch, with surging demand from AI data centre buildouts squeezing supplies of conventional memory chips for smartphones and other consumer electronics, pushing up prices.