YMTC has entered the top three global NAND suppliers by volume for the first time, according to Counterpoint Research data published on 12 August.
The standings
On second-quarter bit shipments: Samsung 25%, down from 32% two years earlier; SK hynix including Solidigm 22%; and YMTC 14%, passing Kioxia into third. Micron is fifth. YMTC's shipments rose 22% year on year and 5% sequentially.
Why the revenue ranking is different
By revenue YMTC is only fifth. Its mix is consumer-weighted with thin exposure to enterprise SSDs — where the money currently is. That single fact explains both rankings: the company is shipping enormous volumes of comparatively cheap bits while its competitors sell fewer, dearer ones into data centres.
The shift underneath the table
Enterprise SSDs reached 48% of all NAND bits shipped in the quarter, up from 26% a year earlier, and Counterpoint expects them to pass 50% by year-end. Solidigm's bit shipments rose 40% quarter on quarter. Industry revenue is up roughly five times against the second quarter of 2025 — a market being remade by AI storage demand rather than by phones.
What third place does and does not mean
Volume share is a manufacturing achievement for a company operating under export controls, and it gives YMTC scale economics. It is not the same as competing at the top of the market, which requires enterprise qualification, endurance guarantees and hyperscaler relationships that the shipment table does not measure.
Source caveat
These are analyst estimates, not company-reported or audited figures. YMTC discloses no shipment data of its own, so the ranking rests entirely on Counterpoint's modelling.