The largest semiconductor listing in the history of China's Nasdaq-style STAR Market is approaching. On August 21, the listing application of Yangtze Memory Technologies, a NAND flash memory giant, was accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, with a planned fundraising of 33 billion yuan, setting a new record since the STAR Market opened. A memory company founded just ten years ago posted a loss of 19.181 billion yuan in 2023, yet in the first quarter of this year it achieved a single-quarter net profit of 33.379 billion yuan 鈥?an average of 370 million yuan earned every day. Behind this dramatically fluctuating financial statement lies a company that has ridden the cycle for a decade, and also a decade in which China's NAND industry grew from nothing to rank among the global top three.

From a 19.1 billion yuan loss to 370 million yuan a day in just three years

Looking at Yangtze Memory's financial statements for the past three years together, the scale of the swings is rare even in the semiconductor industry. In 2023, during a deep industry downturn, the company's revenue was 18.744 billion yuan and its net profit attributable to shareholders was a loss of 19.181 billion yuan. The gross margin on NAND products was only 1%, and it also recorded 11.353 billion yuan in inventory write-down losses. In 2024 the industry recovered, with revenue reaching 45.203 billion yuan and net profit at 6.771 billion yuan, turning losses into profits. In 2025 revenue was 63.185 billion yuan and net profit was 14.211 billion yuan, a compound growth rate of 83.6%. The real transformation came in the first quarter of this year: single-quarter revenue of 47.042 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders of 33.379 billion yuan 鈥?what it earned in one quarter was 2.35 times its entire net profit for 2025. The overall gross margin was 76.77%, and the gross margin on NAND products was 78.73%, a level roughly on par with SK Hynix and above Micron and Kioxia. Data from TrendForce gives it a formal industry ranking: in the first quarter of this year, among global NAND manufacturers, Yangtze Memory ranked third globally and first in China by both sales and shipments.

Expanding capacity at the trough was the most crucial move

Yangtze Memory was established in Wuhan in 2016 with joint investment from the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, Wuhan state capital, and others, making it the heaviest piece on the national team's board in the memory sector. Its most underrated move was made in 2023. That year, when it lost 19.1 billion yuan and its NAND gross margin was only 1%, the company did not contract but instead kept expanding production, and by the end of March this year it had built the largest 3D NAND wafer production base in mainland China. The trajectory of capacity utilization is telling: 94.42%, 95.43%, 97.91%, and 98.02%, climbing year by year and running at nearly full capacity. The capacity added during the downturn became a profit amplifier when the market recovered. As Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron shifted their wafer capacity and equipment fully toward AI-specific memory such as HBM, traditional NAND capacity was sharply reduced, and Yangtze Memory happened to catch the market the international giants gave up. In the first quarter of this year, NAND contract prices rose 55% to 60% quarter over quarter, widening to 70% to 75% in the second quarter, and the company's own average NAND unit price surged 172.72% versus all of 2025 鈥?the three dividends of the cycle, domestic substitution, and AI demand, it caught every single one.

A technological foundation built up over ten years

What supports all of this is the technological base built through a decade of sustained investment. During the reporting period, the company invested a cumulative total of about 15.953 billion yuan in research and development, holds 5,611 authorized invention patents, and employs 4,796 R&D personnel. Technologically, Yangtze Memory follows its own independent Xtacking architecture, processing and then bonding the memory array and peripheral circuitry separately 鈥?a different technical path from Samsung and Kioxia, and also the card up its sleeve that let it catch up quickly. The market space vacated by global giants can only be seized if there is capacity, yield, and customers. In the first quarter of this year, revenue from the company's top five customers accounted for 64.62%, and capacity utilization approached 98% 鈥?both capacity and orders are stretched to their limits.

Risks in the prospectus worth respecting

The prospectus is quite candid in its disclosure of risks. The first risk is written into its DNA: memory is the most cycle-sensitive track in semiconductors, and the duration of the boom is uncertain. If supply recovers and prices fall, inventory write-downs and gross margin swings will directly affect performance 鈥?the company's 11.353 billion yuan inventory write-down loss in 2023 is a cautionary precedent. The second is customer concentration: the top five customers accounted for as much as 64.62% at their peak. The third is geopolitics: in 2022 the company was placed on the U.S. Entity List, and there is uncertainty over the supply security of key equipment and materials and international cooperation.

Where the 33 billion yuan raised will go is clear from the prospectus: upgrading mass production line technology, research and development of next-generation technology, and supplementing working capital. For a company with 98% capacity utilization and a full order book, this money is first and foremost ammunition for capacity expansion, and only secondarily anything else. So Yangtze Memory's choice to list now is less about cashing in at a high point than about stockpiling ammunition for the next cycle. The rules of the memory industry have always been cruel: over any ten years, some die in the trough, and some ride the cycle ashore. Yangtze Memory has spent ten years proving one thing 鈥?on the hardest track, only companies that keep expanding capacity are qualified to reap the harvest when the cycle turns. The next things to watch are very concrete: how the 33 billion yuan is priced, how hot institutional subscriptions are, and whether, after the cycle peak, this company's gross margin curve can be more resilient than in the last round. China's NAND industry has waited ten years for this ticket to the capital markets.