Chinese memory manufacturer CXMT has refused Apple's demand for a price cut in negotiations, says a report from the Korean press. Apple has widely been reported to be interested in procuring its chips from CXMT and has purportedly lobbied the US government for the permission to purchase the products for its gadgets sold outside the country. However, the report from the Korean publication Digital Daily outlines that demand from Huawei, Xiaomi and others has placed CXMT in a stronger position to negotiate with the world's largest consumer electronics firm.

According to the details, as CXMT has emerged to become one of the top players in China's memory market, Samsung and SK hynix have instead chosen to focus on manufacturing and selling high-value HBM memory chips catered to the needs of the data center industry. As a result, CXMT is experiencing high demand from domestic Chinese companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi, which have provided it with the leverage to bargain with Apple.

Sources quoted by Korea's Digital Daily outline that during its negotiations with CXMT, Apple asked for a price cut in order to ease pricing pressures for its smartphones and the upcoming 2026 iPhone. However, CXMT refused the price cut and instead quoted prices that were at level with or higher than the prices quoted by Samsung and SK hynix.

The publication adds that US sanctions on China have led Huawei, Xiaomi and others to lock in CXMT's DRAM memory output in advance. This lock-up is similar to the contracts that the Korean firms have utilized, and they are also high-priced agreements that prevent CXMT from yielding to Apple's requests. According to the sources, the higher prices have provided CXMT with the leverage to negotiate with Apple, as it can point towards the existing deals already in place.

Additionally, the higher prices have also removed a long-followed strategy in sourcing where device manufacturers would quote lower-priced Chinese inputs to use them as leverage in negotiations with other firms.

The higher domestic demand in China has also benefited Korean suppliers Samsung and SK hynix, as they are no longer required to be committed to delivering lower-priced commodity DRAM chips to Chinese firms. Instead, the firms can fully focus on the pricier HBM memory chips required for the AI infrastructure buildout. According to an industry official quoted by the publication, CXMT is effectively controlling the price floor of the commodity DRAM market.

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