(Yicai) Sept. 4 -- China’s listed memory chip companies swung to a first-half profit, posting a combined bottom line of more than CNY100 billion (USD14.9 billion), as an artificial intelligence-driven rally in memory prices boosted earnings and industry leader CXMT went public.

The 12 memory chipmakers publicly traded on Chinese mainland stock markets made CNY117.2 billion between them in the six months ended June 30, compared with a CNY502 million (USD74.8 million) loss a year ago, Yicai calculated based on figures from their financial reports.

CXMT, which joined Shanghai’s Star Market in July, contributed most of that. The Hefei-based manufacturer of dynamic random access memory earned CNY77.6 billion (USD11.6 billion), reversing a year-earlier loss of CNY2.3 billion (USD340 million).

The black ink comes amid soaring global demand for memory chips fueled by the rapid buildout of AI data centers. Demand for memory has soared as AI servers need vast amounts of DRAM and high-bandwidth memory to support increasingly powerful AI accelerators, tightening supply and driving sharp price increases across the industry.

Four other China-listed firms also swung to a profit in the period: memory module makers Biwin Storage Technology and Techwinsemi Technology and chip designers Dosilicon and Zbit Semiconductor.

Five of the companies, including CXMT, reported profits exceeding CNY5 billion. Storage product maker Longsys Electronics earned CNY10.6 billion, Biwin CNY7.2 billion, chip designer GigaDevice Semiconductor CNY6.9 billion, and Techwinsemi CNY6 billion.

The bottom line varied significantly from business to business depending on their places in the industry chain. CXMT ranked first with a gross margin of 85 percent, up 71 percentage points from a year ago, making DRAM production the segment benefiting the most from rising memory prices.

Module makers Longsys, Biwin, and Techwinsemi had gross margins of 59 percent, 55 percent, and 47 percent, respectively. These companies mainly buy memory chips from manufacturers, assemble them into standardized products, and sell them on. During periods of rising prices, they can boost profits by building up inventories in advance.

Gross margins at the six chip designers, including GigaDevice and Dosilicon, ranged from 45 percent to 68 percent. By comparison, distributor Shannon Semiconductor Technology had a gross margin of just 12 percent, the lowest in the storage sector.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Emmi Laine