Per TrendForce data cited in a Bernstein report, global NAND makers have taken a harder line on mobile NAND price hikes in order to bring pricing in line with eSSD, while China's YMTC has not pushed for increases of the same magnitude — allowing it to pick up additional share.

I've mapped the entire Wall Street bear playbook on AI names: Have your favorite institution/media insert one of these name down below: 1. < ______ [GPUs, Transcivers, MLCC, Memory...] are a commodity set to crash> 2. < ______ [YMTC, CXMT, Dongshan...] from China will flood the market > 3. < ______ [Micron, Nvidia, ...] from unverifiable channel checks is facing issues > 4. < ______ [Kospi, Sivers, ...] is a bubble like the ____ [2007, 2021] crash> 5. <____ [1,2,3, ...] unexpected rate hikes this year> 6. < _____ [Google, Nvidia, Deepseek ...] optimization removes the need of this!> in a new headline, and it's ready to go!

REUTERS: SAMSUNG AND SK HYNIX ARE EXPLORING THE ADOPTION OF CHINESE-MADE EQUIPMENT AS U.S. SANCTIONS COULD MAKE IT MORE DIFFICULT TO BRING EQUIPMENT INTO THEIR CHINA FABS According to Reuters sources, the two companies began testing AMEC’s etching equipment about two years ago, although no decision has yet been made on broader deployment. The aim is not to expand production capacity in China, but to keep Chinese suppliers in reserve in case U.S. restrictions are extended to the servicing, repair, or replacement of existing Western equipment. Samsung operates a NAND plant in Xi’an, while SK Hynix operates a DRAM plant in Wuxi and NAND facilities in Dalian. These plants currently rely heavily on etching equipment from U.S. suppliers such as Applied Materials and Lam Research. AMEC’s equipment is already used by Chinese chipmakers including YMTC. Chinese tools are about 20% to 30% cheaper than comparable foreign equipment, while the technology gap has also narrowed in areas such as etching, deposition, cleaning, and planarization. Approval from Samsung or SK Hynix would provide AMEC with significant technical and commercial validation and could, over the longer term, pose a threat to established global equipment suppliers such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, and KLA.

SPE ESTIMATES RAISED AT MS: Raising 26/27 DRAM WFE spending by about 10% each, while not tweaking NAND much at all. Outcome favors AMAT, but maintaining pref for LRCX. Given that the YoY deltas will be much higher for Chinese names CXMT (DRAM) and YMTC (NAND), Chinese local SPEs (benefiting from captive clients) are clearly leveraged to theme, with AMEC 688012 best positioned.

The memory supply-demand gap will keep widening through 2027. That is the real reason Apple is lobbying the White House to keep CXMT off the Entity List. ▌Start with my latest industry checks: The pressure on Apple has shifted from soaring memory costs to a widening supply gap. 1. Of the memory capacity allocated to consumer electronics in 2026, an estimated 15–20% is expected to shift to data centers in 2027, and that share could grow. 2. Due to tight memory (LPDDR) supply, Apple's actual pull-in volume of A20 chips in 2H26–1Q27 could be 10–20% below its original target (though part of that may reflect Apple’s own overbooking). ▌CXMT states in its IPO prospectus that its capacity is far below domestic demand. Given the persistent global memory imbalance, even if Apple’s lobbying succeeds and it buys DRAM from CXMT, that would not materially lower costs or fill the supply gap. Still, with the imbalance widening, Apple has every reason to secure an additional source. ▌This also explains why Apple is being more proactive this time than it was when it evaluated YMTC in 2022. YMTC was mainly about lowering NAND costs; CXMT is about managing DRAM supply risk. ▌Tim Cook is one of the few tech leaders who can still navigate both Washington and Beijing, so this is better handled before he steps down as CEO. Even if the effort goes nowhere, the media coverage can still leave the market with the impression that Apple tried but was constrained by U.S. policy. That may help ease frustration over price hikes and longer delivery times.