Following CXMT, which is closing in on the top three DRAM manufacturers, another Chinese company is shaking things up.
YMTC Takes Third Place in the NAND Market © TechPowerUp
Chinese manufacturer Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) continues to gain ground in the NAND memory market. Driven by a sharp increase in volumes, the company has just surpassed several long-standing competitors and secured third place globally in terms of flash memory shipments. This achievement also illustrates the upheavals caused by the rise of artificial intelligence. YMTC now accounts for 14% of global NAND shipments, according to data from Counterpoint Research cited by TechPowerUp. In the second quarter of 2026, the Chinese manufacturer ranked behind Samsung—which remains the leader with a 25% share—and SK hynix, which reached 22% when including Solidigm.
YMTC is notably ahead of Micron and SanDisk, two long-standing players, while Kioxia remains just behind with a comparable market share. The Chinese manufacturer increased its shipments by 22% year-over-year and 5% quarter-over-quarter, confirming particularly strong momentum. This third-place ranking, however, must be viewed in context: in terms of revenue, YMTC ranks only fifth. The group remains more exposed to the consumer market, which is less profitable than the market for SSDs intended for data centers. Yet artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing storage needs: in the second quarter, enterprise SSDs already accounted for 48% of global NAND shipments, up from 26% a year earlier. This trend could intensify further, as enterprise SSDs are likely to exceed half of total volumes by the end of the year.
To take full advantage of this new landscape, YMTC will therefore need to establish itself in the infrastructure market. The company already possesses technological strengths, with mass production of 267-layer 3D NAND and generations of over 300 layers in the works, while its Xtacking 4.0 architecture is set to continue improving performance and capacity. However, U.S. restrictions pose a major obstacle: since being added to the Entity List in 2022, YMTC has faced difficulties accessing certain Western markets and customers, particularly in the critical data server sector. Its place on the global podium is therefore an important milestone, but the real challenge going forward will be to transform this industrial strength into commercial success in the most lucrative segments.
