Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) and SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ:SNDK) fell Thursday even as technology stocks rallied, after new data showed Chinese memory manufacturers rapidly gaining global market share.
Both badly lagged a rally in high-growth technology stocks, with Palantir, SpaceX and Tesla among the day’s biggest gainers.
China Takes Bigger Slice of Memory Market
ChangXin Memory Technologies, or CXMT, captured 10% of global DRAM revenue in the second quarter, up from 4% a year earlier, Counterpoint Research said.
That reduced the combined share held by Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron to 87% from 94%.
Privately held Yangtze Memory Technologies, or YMTC, increased its NAND revenue share to 14% from 9%, overtaking SanDisk, whose share slipped to 11% from 12%. DRAM provides working memory for computers and servers, while NAND stores data in products such as solid-state drives.
The gains are happening during a memory boom rather than a downturn. Counterpoint said the NAND market grew 70% sequentially in the second quarter as prices jumped 55%, while AI demand continues to keep DRAM supply tight.
Micron has so far bucked the pressure. Its DRAM share increased to 24% from 22%, while its NAND share rose to 15% from 13%.
China Is Adding More Capacity
CXMT secured a more than 20 billion yuan, or roughly $2.9 billion, three-to-five-year DRAM supply agreement with Tencent, Reuters reported in June. Expansion plans would lift monthly production capacity from about 300,000 to 600,000 wafers.
YMTC’s parent plans to raise about $4.9 billion through a Shanghai IPO to fund manufacturing upgrades and research.
TrendForce expects DRAM supply to remain constrained in 2027, but sees NAND entering a looser supply environment in the second half as new capacity comes online.
That longer-term supply risk has yet to dent near-term expectations for Micron.
Traders See $990 in Reach
Micron traded around $941 at the time of writing.
Polymarket traders put roughly a 29% chance on Micron touching $990 before the end of the week, a gain of about 5% from current levels. The market has attracted about $17,000 in trading volume.
A separate Polymarket market puts just an 8% chance on the U.S. government taking an equity stake in Micron by year-end.
The markets point to little immediate concern around Micron, either from China’s growing memory presence or expectations that Washington will step in. SanDisk faces the more immediate competitive shift, with YMTC already moving ahead of it in NAND.
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