Changxin Technology put a number on its own confidence on 4 November. Chairman Zhu Yiming proposed raising the company’s share repurchase ceiling from a band of RMB 1 billion to RMB 2 billion up to a band of RMB 2.5 billion to RMB 5 billion, more than doubling the top end in a single filing.
At the upper limit, the buyback is the largest ever disclosed by a company on Shanghai’s STAR Market. It equals about 2.9 per cent of the free float, a high ratio for a technology listing. Roughly half of the repurchased stock will be cancelled and the registered capital reduced, with the remainder going to employee incentive plans covering 6,760 employee accounts.
The timing is the point. Changxin closed at RMB 38.80 on 3 November, down 7 per cent on the day and the lowest close since it listed on 27 July. Its market capitalisation had fallen to about RMB 2.63 trillion, against RMB 3.3 trillion at one stage on debut day. More than RMB 1 trillion of value left the company in roughly a hundred days.
The morning after the filing, the stock opened about 2 per cent higher in the call auction, traded up more than 13 per cent intraday, and closed at RMB 44.09, taking the market value back towards RMB 3 trillion.
What the buyback is actually financed by
The confidence has an income statement behind it. In results published on 31 October, Changxin reported revenue of RMB 269.024 billion for the first nine months of 2026, up 738.51 per cent year on year. Net profit attributable to shareholders was RMB 132.04 billion, against a loss of RMB 5.28 billion in the same period a year earlier.
The third quarter alone delivered revenue of RMB 118.714 billion, up 613.18 per cent, and net profit of RMB 54.435 billion. Gross margin reached 89.53 per cent. Research spending for the nine months was RMB 11.071 billion, up 73.03 per cent.
Two subsidiaries, Changxin Xinqiao and Changxin Jidian, both grew revenue and profit by more than 50 per cent quarter on quarter. The group’s stake in them is low enough to dilute the attributable figure, which is why Changxin injected more capital into Jidian in August to lift its equity share.
The underlying driver is the DRAM supply-demand balance, and the demand side is being pulled by AI compute. The company’s own assessment is that global memory remains in shortage, that DDR5 in particular is tight in server and enterprise segments, and that it has negotiated long-term supply agreements with several leading customers to lock in medium-term demand. It expects the upcycle to hold, with fourth-quarter gross margin stable and revenue still growing.
Zhu’s personal exposure runs alongside the company’s. The prospectus shows him holding about 1.59 billion shares, of which 768 million were given without payment to future employee incentive pools under a three-year lock-up. Doubling the buyback puts both the company’s and the founder’s balance sheet behind the retracement.
The regulator is pushing in the same direction
Policy has turned supportive. Regulators have introduced a package of measures to stabilise markets and expectations, including an explicit commitment to improve the buyback regime and make it easier for listed companies to use the tool.
The effect is measurable. As of 4 November, 42 STAR Market semiconductor companies had disclosed buyback plans in 2026 with a combined ceiling of RMB 13 billion. Twenty-four of those were disclosed in October or later, worth RMB 10.65 billion between them, pushing the total through the RMB 10 billion mark.
Changxin is the largest single participant in that wave, and the least ambiguous about motive. A buyback at a record size, at the bottom of a hundred-day drawdown, from a company earning an 89.5 per cent gross margin on a product the AI build-out cannot get enough of, is a straightforward claim about where the cycle is.
The claim that remains unproven is duration. Changxin’s case rests on the DRAM shortage persisting long enough to justify buying its own equity at RMB 44 rather than waiting. The filing says the company believes the upcycle is not finished. The market will price whether it believes the company.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original OFweek report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://www.ofweek.com/ai/2026-11/ART-201714-8110-30710331.html.