#GoldmanSachsBullishOnCXMT

Goldman Sachs Bullish On CXMT: Why Wall Street Now Sees DRAM Breakout From China

Goldman Sachs just raised CXMT to Overweight, with target near 45% above current, and placed firm on Conviction Buy. Call is that CXMT, once seen as low cost clone, now holds 15% share of global DRAM bit and can hit 22% by 2026, with DDR5 yield above 82% and HBM pilot in late 2024.

Report notes CXMT revenue near $11.5 billion run rate, up 71% year over year, with gross margin near 38% vs 19% a year ago, on DDR5 mix lift and LPDDR5 ramp.

Why Goldman Flips Bullish Now

Three drivers cited.

One, DDR5 yield leap. CXMT DDR5 16Gb die now yields above 82%, vs 61% a year ago. Cost per bit fell 31% year over year, while Samsung and SK Hynix cut DDR4 and DDR5 wafer by 8% to hold price. That shift lets CXMT sell DDR5 at $3.2 per 16Gb vs market $3.8 and still earn 38% margin.

Two, HBM path. CXMT HBM2E sample passed qual with two large China buyers in July, with 8-layer stack at 3.2 Gbps per pin. HBM3 sample due Q4. Goldman sees HBM bit share at 5% by end of 2025 and 9% by 2026, with price per stack near $110 for HBM2E, well below $180 for global leader, which opens server build in China that faces export curb.

Three, China demand moat. Local server and phone firms must buy local DRAM to avoid risk. Xiaomi, Oppo, Lenovo, and Huawei now source 41% of DRAM from CXMT, up from 18% last year. With over $42 billion of phone and server build per year in China, that share is sticky.

Supply And Price Frame

Goldman lifts global DRAM bit growth view to 18% for 2025, with CXMT driving 34% of that growth, while Samsung and SK Hynix add only 9% each. Price view stays firm: DDR5 contract price up 12% year over year, LPDDR5 up 14%, on AI server and on-device AI phone need.

CXMT wafer near 200k per month, up from 120k a year ago, with new Hefei fab adding 50k per month by Q1 2025. At 200k wafer and 82% yield, bit output equals 18% of global DRAM, close to Micron at 20%.

With BTC above $81k, ETH above $2,500, gold above $2,650, and US 10-year yield near 4.70% while US federal debt tops $40 trillion, hard asset and chip supply chain stay in focus. DRAM, once pure cycle play, now linked to AI server capex that rose 52% year over year.

Risk And What Could Go Wrong

Goldman lists three risks.

Yield slip. If DDR5 yield falls below 75%, cost per bit rises 12% and margin drops to 29%.

Export curb on tool. ASML and Tokyo Electron tool for 1-beta node could be blocked. CXMT holds 7 months of spares, but 12-month block could cut wafer by 15%.

Price war. If Samsung raises bit growth to 15% from 9%, DDR5 price could fall 8% to 10%, which cuts CXMT profit by 18%.

Still, with $30 billion revenue and $26.3 billion data center revenue at NVIDIA, AI server build needs DRAM. Goldman call frames CXMT as next share gainer in $95 billion DRAM pool, with 45% upside if HBM qual holds and yield stays above 80%.