According to Chinese media outlet Guancha.cn, China's Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) rose to the world's 3rd place in NAND flash memory shipment volume share in April-June for the first time, according to a report by research firm Counterpoint Research.

According to the report, in terms of shipment volume share, South Korea's Samsung Electronics maintained the top spot with 25%, followed closely by South Korea's SK Hynix with 22%. YMTC rose to 3rd place with 14%, narrowly surpassing Japan's Kioxia, and the U.S.'s Micron Technology was 5th with 13%.

In terms of shipment revenue share, YMTC fell short of Micron and Kioxia. This is due to its product portfolio being skewed towards consumer applications, and its relatively low share of high-unit-price enterprise and data center SSDs.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a decisive factor influencing the demand for NAND flash memory. As the AI paradigm shifts from training to inference, demand for storage capable of holding KV caches and datasets at high speed and low power consumption is surging.

As servers come to account for the majority of NAND bits, profitability until 2027 will be determined not by companies shipping the most bits, but by those shipping with the appropriate product mix.

YMTC plans, amidst expanding avenues for capital support, to further shift its product mix to eSSD in the second half of this year and solidify its position as the world's 3rd largest. (Translated and edited by Yanagawa)