BEIJING, May 19 (Reuters) - China's top flash memory

chipmaker YMTC has begun the so-called "tutoring" process for a

potential initial public offering, where a company receives

formal pre-IPO guidance from an investment bank, a regulatory

filing showed on Tuesday.

Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (YMTC) has hired CITIC

Securities, a Chinese state-owned investment bank, to guide its

IPO preparation ahead of a potential stock market listing.

YMTC's IPO preparations follow that of Hefei-based Changxin

Memory Technologies (CXMT), which revealed in an updated

prospectus on Sunday that it was profitable for the first time

in its history last year, while its first quarter revenue jumped

more than 700% year on year.

YMTC and CXMT are seen as China's best hope of establishing a

foothold in a global memory chip market long dominated by South

Korean and U.S. players such as Samsung Electronics ( SSNLF ),

SK Hynix and Micron.

Despite being added to a U.S. trade blacklist in late 2022,

a move that curtailed its access to foreign chipmaking tools,

the Wuhan-based company has expanded its use of domestic

equipment suppliers such as Naura and is now aggressively adding

capacity.