China's total goods trade value reached CNY37.31 trillion (approx. US$5.23 trillion) in the first ten months of 2025, marking a 3.6% increase from the same period last year, according to the General Administration of Customs. Exports rose 6.2% to CNY22.12 trillion, while imports remained steady at CNY15.19 trillion.
IC exports led growth with a 24.7% surge to CNY1.16 trillion, fueled by rising memory prices and increased demand for AI servers. Vehicle exports also gained momentum, climbing 14.3% to CNY798.39 billion amid sustained interest in new energy vehicles.
ASEAN retains status as China's largest trading partner with bilateral trade hitting CNY6.18 trillion, a 9.1% increase. Meanwhile, trade with the US dropped 15.9%, reflecting a strategic pivot towards markets in Asia.
Memory price rally fuels IC export growth
The remarkable rise in IC exports is closely linked to a global surge in memory prices since the third quarter of 2025. Prices for DDR4, DDR5, and NAND flash memory modules have increased substantially. For example, a 16GB DDR4 memory module at Shenzhen Huaqiangbei Electronics Market doubled in price to over CNY420, while Samsung's 1TB solid-state drive saw its cost double within a month.
Industry insiders attribute this volatility to tight supply conditions and stockpiling behaviors, driven primarily by soaring AI server demand. AI servers consume approximately eight times more DRAM than conventional servers. Major cloud providers such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services account for over half of the global monthly DRAM output.
Leading memory manufacturers, including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, have reallocated production capacity towards high-bandwidth memory, used in AI applications, resulting in constrained availability of traditional DDR products. At the same time, NAND flash output has decreased, and downstream stocks are low, further compounding supply pressures.
These factors have caused ripple effects, pushing up costs across PCs, smartphones, and consumer electronics. During the 2025 Singles' Day shopping event, the cost of building a PC saw an estimated 30% increase from 2024 levels, discouraging some consumers from upgrading.
opportunities and challenges for chinese memory producers amid market shifts
Rising memory prices also present opportunities for domestic Chinese memory manufacturers. ChangXin Memory Technologies reportedly increased DDR4 capacity utilization to around 90%, while Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp. has expanded its market share in mid-to-high-end ZhiTai solid-state drives.
However, experts caution that the growth driven by AI applications mainly benefits high-end segments such as HBM and DDR5, where Chinese firms face significant barriers to competing globally in the short term.
The uptick in China's integrated circuit exports signals both active foreign trade and the influence of the ongoing AI revolution on semiconductor demand. While increased memory prices have boosted export revenues, the extent to which this trend will catalyze sustained advancements in domestic manufacturing capacity remains uncertain.
Article translated by Jingyue Hsiao and edited by Jack Wu
