⚠ YMTC Went From Eight to ThirteenHigh threat

The most consequential change in NAND's structure has nothing to do with technology.

China's YMTC held about 8% of NAND revenue in the first quarter of 2025 and about 13% a year later¹ — five points in twelve months, taken during a shortage. It is now level with Micron and Sandisk and closing on SK hynix.

A competitor funded by industrial policy behaves differently from one funded by shareholders. It will add capacity when prices are falling, because the return on the investment is not the point, and that is precisely the behaviour a six-player market cannot absorb. The whole logic of an oligopoly assumes every participant is trying to make money.

The immediate damage is not lost accounts — Kioxia's customers are largely outside China, and export controls make the boundary firmer every year. It is a shrinking addressable market and a supply curve that stops responding to price.

There is a genuine offset: the same controls that close China to Kioxia also close much of the world to YMTC, and a market splitting into two halves gives incumbents a protected one.

Watch China's share of world NAND bit supply rather than YMTC's share of Kioxia's customers. The second will stay near zero while the first does the damage.