World Hit by Major Crisis, China Grows Stronger, Kicking America Aside

Chinese memory chip producer Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC) has set a historic record in the global semiconductor industry. YMTC succeeded in displacing the American giant Micron Technology in terms of NAND flash market share in Q2 2026.

This stellar performance comes as the world faces a memory chip shortage crisis, triggered by surging demand for chips needed for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.

The Memory & Storage Tracker report from Counterpoint Research noted that YMTC managed to control 14% of the global NAND flash market share. This figure brought YMTC into the world’s top three for the first time, simultaneously beating Micron and edging out Kioxia by a narrow margin, as cited from Tom’s Hardware on Friday (14/8/2026).

At present, the top position is still held by Samsung with a 25% market share, followed by SK Hynix in second place at 22%. Meanwhile, Micron has been pushed to the bottom of the top five.

YMTC’s success in seizing market share occurred amid a shifting industry landscape. Key competitors such as Samsung chose to cut NAND production volumes in pursuit of higher profit margins in the DRAM sector. At the same time, Kioxia faced purchase delays from consumers due to price surges.

Amid a 75% surge in NAND contract prices in just one quarter, YMTC took an aggressive step by flooding the consumer market with competitively priced products.

As a result, YMTC’s shipment volume soared 22% year-on-year (YoY) and rose 5% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ). These sales were driven by the successful mass production of 267-layer 3D NAND using Xtacking technology, as well as its development which has now reached the 300-layer level.

The Chinese manufacturer’s presence is set to grow even stronger. YMTC’s third fab in Wuhan has reportedly passed the 50% threshold for domestic equipment usage set by Beijing, and is ready to begin full production by the end of this year.

Despite clearly outperforming Micron in terms of shipment volume and market share, YMTC still lags behind in revenue. YMTC ranks fifth in revenue terms because the majority of its products flow to the consumer retail market segment, which is far cheaper than enterprise-class SSDs for data servers.

YMTC’s efforts to profit from the global server market are hampered by US policy that placed it on the Entity List in December 2022. These sanctions lock YMTC out of server certification in Western countries.

To maintain its position in the top three, Counterpoint said YMTC will begin shifting focus to enterprise SSD (eSSD) products in the second half of this year, fully supported by domestic Chinese capital injections.