It is rare for a company in the supply chain to dare to refuse Apple, and this company even refused to sell to Apple twice.

For more than two decades, being chosen by Apple as a supplier has been an opportunity that many Chinese businesses have tried their best to pursue. In return for large orders and the opportunity to enter the global supply chain, they often have to accept strong bargaining pressure from American technology companies. But now, a Chinese memory chip manufacturer has caught the market's attention when it continuously fails to meet Apple's requests, even refusing to quote prices.

The person behind this move is ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), one of China's major DRAM manufacturers. In less than 3 months, the company twice failed to reach an agreement with Apple.

The first time took place in August 2026, when Apple asked CXMT to reduce the price of LPDDR5X mobile memory chips to below the levels of Samsung and SK Hynix. CXMT did not accept this request, and said that some products using its self-developed production process may even cost more than chips from Korean competitors.

At the next contact, CXMT's attitude was even tougher. Instead of offering a price to continue negotiations, the company is said to have refused to quote DRAM prices to Apple. At the same time, CXMT also refused a DDR5 order from a Taiwanese server manufacturer due to insufficient capacity.

This move comes at a time when the global memory chip market is increasingly tense. Demand from AI data centers is absorbing a large amount of DRAM supply, causing memory chip prices to increase sharply and large manufacturers such as Samsung and SK Hynix continuously raising contract prices. For Apple, finding more suppliers is therefore not only to diversify product sources but also to help the company have more options during price negotiations.

One of Apple's goals as identified by Korean media is to seek lower quotes from CXMT to put pressure on current suppliers. At the end of July 2026, Mr. Tim Cook also said that the DRAM market is mainly controlled by three large suppliers, and said that having more suppliers will help improve supply and positively impact product prices.

However, this time Apple did not easily achieve what it wanted. CXMT is no longer in the position of a business having to find every way to win orders from foreign technology corporations.

For many years, joining the Apple supply chain was considered a turning point for Chinese component manufacturers. Luxshare Precision, Lens Technology and Goertek all recorded significant growth after becoming suppliers to the American technology company. As for Luxshare, revenue has increased from 2.556 billion yuan in 2011 to 153.946 billion yuan after a decade.

This cooperation model brings large-scale orders and opportunities to increase production capacity, but comes with price pressure and strict requirements from Apple. In the past, many suppliers were willing to accept such conditions to gain a position in a firm's supply chain.

CXMT's difference lies in the fact that the company has a large consumer market right in China. About 90% of its capacity is currently reserved for domestic customers such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo. CXMT's LPDDR6 chip has also been equipped on Xiaomi's self-developed Xuanjie 03 processor.

In other words, CXMT does not have to depend on Apple orders to maintain business operations. Meanwhile, the thirst for memory chips serving AI is making DRAM production capacity a significant advantage. When supply is limited, manufacturers have more grounds to prioritize customers and contracts that match their supply capabilities.

However, refusing to quote does not mean CXMT has completely closed the door to cooperation with Apple. As production capacity increases and technological capabilities continue to improve, the two sides may still return to the negotiating table.

CXMT is promoting production expansion. Its monthly DRAM wafer capacity is currently estimated at 320,000 units and could increase to 420,000 by 2027. The long-term target is set at more than 500,000 wafers per month. If the plan goes on schedule, CXMT's position in the global memory chip market may continue to change.

Notably, Apple also seems to not want to lose this option. In June 2026, some media reports said that the company had lobbied the US Department of Commerce and senior officials at the White House to seek assurances that CXMT would not be included in the Entity List in the future. Currently, the Chinese chip manufacturer is not on this restricted list.