Nanya doesn't sell high bandwidth memory, the product every DRAM maker is racing to supply for AI chips, and the company is quadrupling its 2027 capital spending because conventional DDR4 (legacy DRAM) margins just hit 79.5%.
Nanya Technology printed a 79.5% gross margin in Q2 2026 on revenue of T$82.55 billion (about US$2.6 billion), per the company's unaudited Q2 results. The number was produced without a single HBM chip sold.
High-bandwidth memory, the stacked DRAM that rides next to Nvidia and AMD AI accelerators, is the only memory product most analysts will describe as "scarce" in 2026. SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung are spending tens of billions to add HBM capacity. Nanya has explicitly opted out, ruling out HBM2 through HBM4, with a customized edge-AI variant developed with Etron Technology, Piecemakers Technology, and Formosa Advanced Technologies targeted for the end of 2026.
Nanya's 79.5% gross margin in Q2 2026 lands within roughly six percentage points of Micron's 85% consolidated gross margin in its most recent quarterly filing, even though Micron's number is lifted by HBM mix. The mechanism is conventional DRAM.
Nanya's product mix is mostly legacy parts. Roughly 70% of revenue is DDR4 and LPDDR4, with DDR5 at about 10%, per the January earnings conference briefing cited by Tom's Hardware. None of those parts feed an AI accelerator. They go into consumer electronics, automotive, networking gear, and industrial systems.
Conventional DRAM prices have reset hard after a brutal downcycle. In Q1 2026, Nanya's average selling price climbed more than 70% quarter over quarter while bit shipments fell by a mid-single-digit percentage, per Tom's Hardware's report on Lee's briefing. TrendForce projects another 13% to 18% rise in conventional DRAM contract prices in Q3 2026, a third-party forecast rather than company guidance, but the direction matches Nanya's Q2 results.
President Pei-Ing Lee used a July 10 online briefing to flag preliminary 2027 capital spending of more than T$200 billion, roughly US$6.2 billion, about four times the 2026 budget of up to T$52 billion. The combined 2023-2026 capex was about T$94.7 billion, less than half of what 2027 alone is now expected to absorb, per the 2Q26 investor conference deck. The new plant's full-capacity run-rate is targeted at roughly T$480 billion in annual revenue, per Lee's remarks as reported by Nikkei Asia.
The 2027 capex is preliminary and not yet board-approved, so the headline number is a target, not a budget. The 684% year-over-year revenue jump and the 1,324% net income surge in Q2 reflect a depressed 2025 base; Nanya's net income of T$50.19 billion in a single quarter is 7.6 times its full-year 2025 earnings, and quarterly revenue now exceeds total 2025 sales, per the Q2 release. The Q2 numbers are unaudited, so typical immaterial revisions are possible.
In April 2026, Nanya placed a 10.19% private stake with SanDisk, Kioxia, Solidigm, and Cisco, raising T$78.72 billion. SanDisk and Kioxia signed long-term DRAM supply agreements tied to the placement, locking in customer commitments alongside the equity check.
Micron's HBM-anchored 85% margin and Nanya's HBM-free 79.5% margin point to the same question: can DDR4 and LPDDR4 hold their new price floor through the 2027 capacity build? TrendForce's Q3 forecast and Nanya's own full-year guidance, which targets teen-percentage bit shipment growth, imply the company believes yes.
The next trigger is the board. Lee's T$200 billion-plus 2027 figure is a briefing number, not an approved budget. The Q3 contract pricing prints and any board approval later this year will tell readers whether Nanya is buying a four-year capex cycle or front-running one.