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YMTC Rises to Third in Global NAND Shipments

The company’s mass production of 267‑layer Xtacking chips and rapid Wuhan fab expansion have driven shipment gains while U.S. export controls restrict its access to higher‑margin Western server customers.

Overview

  • Counterpoint's Q2 2026 data published Wednesday showed YMTC shipped 14% of the world’s NAND bits, moving it into the global top three by shipments behind Samsung and SK hynix.
  • Enterprise SSDs took 48% of total NAND bits in Q2 2026, a fast shift toward premium server products that pay much higher prices than the consumer NAND YMTC mainly sells.
  • YMTC is mass-producing 267‑layer 3D NAND on its Xtacking architecture and advancing 300+ layer development while running about 200,000 wafers per month from two Wuhan fabs and planning further plants.
  • The firm ranks lower by revenue because most shipments serve lower‑priced consumer channels, and its placement on the U.S. Entity List since December 2022 blocks standard Western server qualification.
  • If YMTC wins non‑China server customers and completes planned fabs to roughly double wafer capacity, it could capture more high‑margin eSSD business and reshape supplier economics in 2027–28.