HBM & AI Memory

Micron beat sales and profit forecasts for its latest quarter, driven by voracious demand from the AI boom, with guidance also strong except for margin comments on the earnings call that may have caused a muted market reaction. The memory chipmaker added about $43 billion in sales during the most recent quarter compared to the year-ago quarter, and more than $13 billion in sales from the quarter reported three months ago. Operating margins exploded in all business segments, exceeding 80% in some segments. Micron executives signaled tight capacity and higher prices for its products until 2028, with D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria saying expectations for tightening supply-demand conditions through both 2027 and 2028 meaningfully extend the industry's runway for strong pricing and earnings growth. The stock trades on a single-digit forward P/E ratio.

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said on the company's Q4 earnings call that physical AI, starting with self-driving cars and expanding to humanoid robots, could become a significant driver of memory and storage demand by the end of this decade. In its Q4 report on Wednesday, Micron reported earnings per share of $33.42, up 1,002% from $3.03 in the same quarter last year, while revenue climbed 379% to $54.23 billion from $11.31 billion in Q4 2025. Mehrotra said memory content in level 4 and higher autonomous vehicles typically exceeds 200 gigabytes, with storage reaching multiple terabytes, each more than an order of magnitude greater than in today's level two plus and level three semi-autonomous vehicles. He added that humanoid robots will have similar memory and storage requirements, which could serve as an additional revenue opportunity. Companies working on humanoid robots include Tesla, Figure, Hyundai's Boston Dynamics, Unitree Robotics, and Agility Robotics, though Reuters reported only 7,000 humanoid robots were sold globally in 2025 for industrial and professional services.

Micron Technology delivered another outstanding earnings report Wednesday evening, with revenue, earnings and margins all surging and management offering another strong outlook as demand continues to overwhelm available supply. According to UBS estimates, memory represented roughly 14% of total AI capital spending in 2025, a share expected to jump to 37% in 2026 and 64% by 2027. The U.S. economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, while July was revised down to a 10,000-job loss and August was revised lower to 133,000, with July and August payroll growth reduced by another 60,000 jobs combined; St. Louis Fed estimates put the breakeven rate needed to keep unemployment stable somewhere around 15,000 to 87,000 jobs per month. Bitcoin has gained roughly 35% over the past three months compared with about 10% for the Nasdaq 100, reversing its earlier summer underperformance. The Nasdaq is printing fresh all-time highs while the S&P 500 knocks on the door of record highs, as softer labor data pulls Treasury yields lower and eases pressure on the Fed to raise rates again.

Micron reported quarterly earnings per share of $33.42, beating Wall Street expectations by 5.73% and marking its 14th consecutive quarter of topping Zacks Consensus Analyst Estimates, with record profits and triple-digit revenue and earnings growth driven by AI demand. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said fiscal 2027 will be even stronger, and the company's Q1 2027 guidance did not disappoint. Micron shares have surged over 1,300% in the past five years yet trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.61x and a market cap of just $1 trillion, even as the company is expected to generate more quarterly profit next quarter than NVIDIA did in the first quarter of 2026, when NVIDIA earned $40 billion in quarterly profit at a $4.8 trillion market cap. Management said Micron holds 26 multi-year take-or-pay agreements covering more than 35% of expected revenue through 2030, with customer financial commitments rising to $32 billion from $22 billion last quarter, mostly in cash deposits. Micron also confirmed the DRAM supply and demand imbalance remains, saying it has no line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance, and expects humanoid robot production and physical AI to add a significant layer of memory and storage demand by the end of this decade.

Micron Technology reported record financial results for its fiscal year 2026, crediting rising AI-driven demand and effective operational execution. The company said memory chips are becoming increasingly critical as AI evolves into what it calls "Super Intelligence," and pointed to increased technology investments and strategic customer agreements as the basis for its outlook. Micron last closed at $1,097.39, up 3%. In other chip trading, GlobalWafers rose 9.7% to NT$1,190.00, while VeriSilicon Microelectronics (Shanghai) fell 11.3% to CN¥171.68. NVIDIA ended at $230.86, up 1.1% near its 52-week high, after announcing a collaboration with Delta to enhance autonomous driving solutions using its AI technology; Advanced Micro Devices settled at $615.73, up 0.6%, and Broadcom ended at $343.64, down 2.1%.

Micron is poised to out-earn every Magnificent Seven company in operating income in the current quarter, a milestone that would surprise most investors in the mega-cap tech names. The memory-chip maker easily beat sales and profit forecasts for its latest quarter on Wednesday, driven by voracious AI demand, and added about $43 billion in sales versus the year-ago quarter, with operating margins exploding across all business segments. Micron's market cap of roughly $1.1 trillion is the smallest of the group that also includes Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Tesla and Nvidia. Guidance was also strong, except for margin comments on the earnings call, and the stock is up 285% year to date.

Micron Technology reported fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 non-GAAP earnings of $33.42 per share, up more than 11-fold from $3.03 a year earlier and beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 5.73%. Revenue surged 379.3% year over year to $54.23 billion, topping consensus by 6.33%, as tight DRAM and NAND conditions lifted pricing and AI demand drove data center growth. Data center SSD revenues approached $10 billion, more than 10 times the year-ago level and more than two-thirds of total NAND revenues. Wall Street closed higher Thursday after a volatile start to October trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.04% at 50,926.56, the Nasdaq Composite up 0.04% at 26,871.60, and the S&P 500 up 0.2% at 7,666.45. The rally came as yields on U.S. Treasury Notes retreated from 24-year highs, with the 10-Year yield falling six basis points and the 30-Year four basis points in late trading after hitting 5.344% and 5.636% intraday, respectively.

Micron delivered a blowout quarter, beating sales and profit forecasts on explosive demand from the AI boom, with guidance also coming in strong except for margin comments on the earnings call that may be causing a muted market reaction. The memory chip maker added about $43 billion in sales in the most recent quarter compared to the year ago quarter, and more than $13 billion in sales from the quarter reported just three months ago, with operating margins exploding in every single business segment both year over year and quarter over quarter. On the earnings call, Micron's CFO said the company expects price increases to moderate eventually, with a better mix of products worked based on technology and product leadership, and that market conditions would remain tight and supportive through 2028. Separately, Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz is stepping down to become co-CEO of the merged Paramount and Warner Bros, a company that has said it may need to cut over $6 billion in costs. BFA's Vivek Arya raised his total addressable market outlook for AI in 2030 to about $2.2 trillion, up from about $1.8 trillion previously, naming Nvidia, Intel, Marvell, Micron and Lam Research among his top picks on the play.

Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya raised his total addressable market outlook for AI in 2030 to about $2.2 trillion, up from his previous estimate of $1.8 trillion. Arya cited a more aggressive build-out of AI infrastructure in the United States, including more data centers, as the driver behind the increase. His top picks on the theme include Nvidia, Intel, Marvell, Micron and Lam Research. Intel was noted for a comeback year as its chip-making plants, built under former CEO Pat Gelsinger, have shifted from losses to a key strategic advantage. Micron was highlighted for higher prices and tight capacity, which the analyst called a magic elixir for the company's top and bottom lines.

Volantis, a semiconductor company building a new category of AI inference system, announced an $88 million Series A co-led by Lachy Groom and Abstract Ventures, with participation from John Doerr, VXI Capital, Triatomic and Susa Ventures, plus angel investors Dwarkesh Patel, Naveen Rao and Sholto Douglas. The company's first system, A-1, is being designed to run models exceeding 20 trillion parameters at up to 10,000 tokens per second per user while reducing inference cost per token. Volantis says A-1 will increase memory capacity and bandwidth simultaneously by nearly two orders of magnitude, using a photonic interconnect that connects compute chips to memory and aggregates the bandwidth of large numbers of memory chips into a unified pool. The architecture uses custom micro-VCSELs rather than external lasers, drawing on the existing gallium arsenide VCSEL supply chain and avoiding indium phosphide supply constraints, with end-to-end links consuming less than one picojoule per bit. The financing will support development and commercialization of A-1 and its photonic memory architecture, including expanding the engineering team, and Volantis plans to deliver its first integrated inference engines to customers in 2027.

Micron unveiled an upbeat quarterly revenue forecast that topped expectations, sending its shares higher in extended-hours trading. The Idaho-based chipmaker said customers had increased their commitments under its long-term supply agreements to $32 billion, up from $22 billion reported in June, as businesses race to secure memory chips for AI data centers. Micron's stock price has more than tripled so far this year, giving the company a $1 trillion market capitalization. Separately, Nike was due to release its latest results after the closing bell, with investors watching for progress in CEO Elliott Hill's turnaround strategy; Nike shares have slumped by more than 44% this year and the company was removed from the S&P 100 this month. Tencent signed a $7 billion lease deal with Oracle for access to about 100,000 advanced artificial intelligence chips, the Financial Times reported, in what would be Tencent's largest ever overseas lease agreement.

Japanese chipmakers rallied on Thursday after Micron Technology's stronger-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results and outlook renewed optimism over AI-related semiconductor demand. Advantest jumped nearly 8% by 04:16 GMT, Lasertec surged 10%, TDK rose 5.5%, Taiyo Yuden climbed 8.3%, Murata Mfg advanced 7.4%, Kioxia Holdings rose 4.6%, Tokyo Electron added 6%, and Rohm gained 4%. Micron reported quarterly revenue of $54.23 billion and forecast first-quarter revenue of $61.5 billion, above market expectations. The company also said long-term supply agreements had risen to $32 billion from $22 billion in June, while demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI data centres continued to outstrip available capacity. The rally helped lift Japan's Nikkei 2.8% to 68,606.81 points, with gains concentrated in AI and semiconductor-related shares.

Shares of Hana Microelectronics Public Company Limited, or HANA, rose 4.90% to 53.50 baht on trading value of 1.60493 billion baht after KGI Securities (Thailand) Public Company Limited said in an analysis that its earnings outlook is on a recovery path. It expects third-quarter 2026 sales of about 173 million US dollars, up 10% from a year earlier and 5% from the previous quarter, driven by smartphone-related sales, which account for roughly 20% of total sales. Orders from the PMS business are expected to recover to about 4 million US dollars, while orders from Phononic are expected to rise to around 3 million US dollars. As a result, sales for the first nine months of 2026 are seen at approximately 494 million US dollars, up 5% from a year earlier, or 73% of the full-year sales estimate. Gross margin is expected to rise to 11.0% in the third quarter of 2026, up 5 percentage points from a year earlier and 0.3 percentage points from the previous quarter, helped by a smaller loss at PMS after production was shifted to a manufacturer in China, along with higher orders from Phononic and a weaker baht. Gross margin for the first nine months of 2026 is expected at 10.4%, up 1.9 percentage points from a year earlier and close to the full-year assumption of 10.6%. KGI Securities maintained its Buy rating on HANA with an end-2027 target price of 63 baht, based on a price-to-earnings ratio of 40 times, and expects core business profit to grow another 44% in 2027, supported by its entry into the AI supply chain and the start of a second mass production round of cooling solutions for HBM and GPU devices through the partnership between HANA and Phononic.

Micron Technology, a major maker of memory semiconductors for AI servers, reported on September 30 its fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter results for the June-August period, with revenue up 4.8 times year-on-year to 54.229 billion dollars, net profit up about 12 times to 37.701 billion dollars, and adjusted diluted earnings per share up about 11 times to 33.42 dollars, beating market expectations. Growing demand for AI servers and rising memory prices boosted results, with the cloud memory business segment revenue up 3.6 times year-on-year to 16.283 billion dollars and the core data center business segment up about 11 times to 18.002 billion dollars. For the fiscal 2027 first quarter covering September to November 2026, the company forecast revenue with a midpoint of 61.5 billion dollars and adjusted earnings per share with a midpoint of 38.15 dollars. It plans capital expenditure of about 25 billion dollars in fiscal 2027, expanding DRAM and NAND production capacity in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and elsewhere. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said memory and storage supply and demand will tighten further in fiscal 2027 and fiscal 2028.

U.S. stock index futures rose on Wednesday evening after Micron Technology posted stronger-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter earnings and guidance, reinforcing confidence in the artificial intelligence trade. S&P 500 Futures rose 0.36% to 7,743.25 points, Nasdaq 100 Futures rose 0.4% to 30,822.50 points, and Dow Jones Futures rose 0.3% to 51,430.0 points. Micron reported adjusted earnings of $33.42 per share, above expectations of $31.16, and guided current quarter EPS at $38.15, plus or minus $1.00, above street estimates of $36.02. Micron shares rose as much as 1% in aftermarket trade but pared gains to trade flat after its earnings call, as the company flagged slightly softer gross margins in the current quarter and forecast higher operating expenses for fiscal 2027, while saying it will increase shareholder returns in December. Caution over soaring yields and key upcoming labor market data stifled bigger gains, with the 10-year Treasury benchmark hitting a fresh 19-year high and remaining well above 5.2%.

South Korean exports grew far more than expected in September, rising 83.5% year-on-year in preliminary government data released Thursday, the fastest pace in nearly 50 years. The print blew past expectations of 61.7% and accelerated sharply from the 68.7% rise seen in the prior month. The export strength pushed South Korea's trade balance to a surplus of $49.85 billion, beating expectations of $38.20 billion. Imports also rose sharply, growing 26% in September against expectations of 21.5%, as the AI trade supported the local economy and higher oil and gas prices tied to the Middle East war added to import costs. South Korean exports have grown steadily since June 2025 amid surging global demand for AI chips and data center equipment, with memory chip makers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix at the heart of the boom as global memory supplies tightened.

Micron Technology reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings after the market closes Wednesday, with the stock up 261% this year and 560% over the past year, pushing its market value past $1 trillion. Analysts expect fourth-quarter sales of $50.75 billion, up from $11.31 billion a year earlier and above Micron's fiscal third-quarter record of $41.46 billion, with profits projected at $31.45 per share versus $3.03 last year. Micron has beaten Wall Street sales and EPS predictions for 12 and 10 quarters, respectively, and its fiscal third-quarter gross margin was 84.9%, with the company guiding to 86% in the fourth quarter and UBS forecasting 87.6%. Multiyear high-bandwidth memory take-or-pay contracts have earned Micron $100 billion, with 16 key client agreements worth over $22 billion, and most of its HBM capacity is booked through 2027 and 2028. The options market implies Micron shares could move 7.75% in either direction by week's end, with management's comments on memory pricing, HBM demand, profits and the duration of tight supply the biggest driver.

Micron is set to report earnings on Wednesday, September 30, with investors' expectations running high on the AI boom as surging demand for memory chips has driven prices up and put the company on track to beat revenue estimates. Also on deck is fresh inflation data from the August personal consumption expenditures report, with economists forecasting both headline and core PCE to rise on a month-over-month basis. Finally, the ADP September employment report is expected to show 74,000 jobs added for the month, compared with 38,000 in August, offering more insight into the health of the job market ahead of Friday's full jobs report.

The Hong Kong Trade Development Council, or HKTDC, on Monday, September 28, raised its forecast for Hong Kong's merchandise export growth in 2026 to 42-47%, after global demand for artificial intelligence-related technology proved far stronger than expected. Meanwhile, the HKTDC's exporter confidence index for the third quarter of 2026, released the same day, showed the current performance index at 51.8 and the expectation index at 51.3, reflecting that exporter sentiment remains broadly sound even as geopolitical uncertainty persists. Bruce Pang, HKTDC's director of research, said Hong Kong's strong export growth this year has been driven mainly by the rapid acceleration of global demand for AI-related goods and infrastructure, with demand for semiconductors, memory chips, computer components, telecommunications equipment and other advanced electronics expanding much faster than expected, providing significant support to Hong Kong's exports.

Technology markets are watching Micron Technology's fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 earnings announcement on September 30, 2026, after the U.S. stock market closes. Micron is one of the world's largest memory manufacturers, covering DRAM, NAND and NOR, and plays a key role in data centers and AI computing systems. The point markets are watching most closely is HBM, or High Bandwidth Memory, the high-speed memory used alongside AI accelerators. Micron has said that HBM4 has already begun shipping in high volumes to a major customer's platforms, while HBM4E is under development and is expected to enter mass production in 2027. For its most recent results, Micron reported fiscal third-quarter 2026 revenue of 41.46 billion dollars, before guiding for fourth-quarter revenue of about 50 billion dollars, plus or minus 1 billion dollars, with gross margin of roughly 86% and non-GAAP earnings per share of 31 dollars, plus or minus 1 dollar. That reflects a sharp recovery from the trough of the memory cycle, with revenue growth accelerating from negative 39.6% year on year in fiscal fourth quarter 2023 to positive 345.7% year on year in fiscal third quarter 2026, driven by memory demand for AI and data centers. This makes the current report a key point for assessing how much momentum the Memory Supercycle still has. Beyond the revenue and profit figures, what needs watching is guidance for the next period, the direction of DRAM and HBM prices, and the outlook for demand from AI data centers, because these will be important indicators of whether the memory industry's upcycle still has momentum. Another interesting issue is that AI growth is turning memory from a highly commoditized component into a more strategic one, with Micron and other memory makers increasingly signing long-term contracts with AI customers to lock in supply and meet rising demand, while many new capacity projects will still take years to come fully on stream. From an investment standpoint, if Micron's results and guidance come in better than expected, there is a chance of a positive catalyst for the semiconductor equipment group as well, since expanding DRAM and HBM capacity requires more investment in machinery. LRCX01 is linked through Lam Research, a maker of etch and deposition equipment, AMAT01 through Applied Materials, which makes equipment for DRAM, HBM and advanced packaging, while KLAC01 is linked through KLA, a specialist in chip inspection and process control systems. The equipment group's picture is also supported by investment in AI semiconductors running at high levels, reflecting that the money is not concentrated only in the chips themselves but is spreading to more related equipment and manufacturing processes. So Micron's report on September 30 is one of the key events of the week, because besides measuring momentum for MICRON01, it may also signal the direction of the Memory Supercycle and semiconductor equipment themes going forward, especially if AI demand remains strong and the company's guidance continues to reflect tight supply conditions. For investors who want to ride this theme, they can invest through DR01 from Bualuang Securities, which trades in baht, with MICRON01 providing direct access to the memory theme, while LRCX01, AMAT01 and KLAC01 open the opportunity to invest further into the semiconductor equipment group, covering more of the AI semiconductor supply chain.

Micron Technology headlines a relatively light technology earnings calendar this week, with the memory chip leader set to report fiscal fourth-quarter results after the market closes on Wednesday, Sept. 30. The Zacks Consensus Estimate calls for Micron Q4 earnings of $31.45 per share, a 938% increase from EPS of $3.03 in the prior-year quarter, on sales projected to soar nearly 350% to $50.86 billion from $11.32 billion a year ago, with surging demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI infrastructure remaining the central story. Electronics manufacturer Jabil is scheduled to report fiscal fourth-quarter results before Wednesday's opening bell, with the consensus estimate calling for EPS of $4.05, up 23% from the prior-year period, on revenue of $9.61 billion, representing more than 16% growth. Accenture will round out the week's notable tech reports, announcing fiscal fourth-quarter results before the market opens Thursday, Oct. 1, with the consensus estimate calling for earnings of $3.19 per share, up 5% year over year, and revenue projected to rise more than 2% to $18.01 billion. Investors will watch Micron's outlook for DRAM and NAND pricing, HBM demand and gross margins, while Jabil's cloud and data-center exposure and Accenture's enterprise technology spending trends offer additional reads on AI-related demand.

Baird analyst Tristan Gerra raised his price target on Micron Technology to $1,520 from $1,280 while keeping a Buy rating, just ahead of the company's Sept. 30 earnings release. Gerra said server deployments using AMD and Intel CPUs could lift demand for dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, as AI workloads expand, and he expects AI-related CPU demand to increase about 40% in 2027. He also sees DRAM supply growth slowing to around 20% next year from more than 30% in 2026, a setup that could keep pressure on memory prices in check. On pricing, Gerra expects DRAM contract prices to rise 20% sequentially in the September quarter and another 10% in December, with enterprise DDR5 and NAND prices also projected to advance.

Piper Sandler analyst Thomas Champion is projecting that Google's newly disclosed external chip business will generate $104 billion in TPU hardware revenue by 2028, a forecast the firm says the broader Street has yet to price in. Champion published the note after Google disclosed external hardware sales for the first time in its second-quarter 2026 earnings report, a milestone that triggered a formal reassessment of the revenue opportunity. The firm's model has TPU sales climbing from approximately $8 billion in 2026, or roughly 240,000 chips, to $51 billion in 2027, or approximately 2.4 million chips, and then to $104 billion in 2028, anchored to a facilities and power-capacity build-out of 3 gigawatts of run-rate capacity by the end of 2027 and 6GW by the end of 2028. Piper Sandler raised its price target on Alphabet to $400 from $395 and reiterated its Overweight rating, with its 2027 and 2028 Cloud revenue estimates now 15% and 17% above consensus and its Cloud EBIT estimates 18-19% above consensus. Champion also flagged that even these estimates may prove conservative, noting that Broadcom management recently spoke to 5GW of Anthropic demand in 2027 and 10GW in 2028, which Piper Sandler estimates as $105 billion and $210 billion in revenue if that capacity is achieved.

SK hynix is in exploratory discussions with Intel over a potential manufacturing partnership in the United States that could see memory chips produced at Intel's planned Ohio complex. Media reports indicate one option involves SK hynix leasing part of the facility, while another could involve a joint venture including major cloud companies, though SK hynix said no specific arrangement has been decided. The talks come as SK hynix builds out its US footprint, having recently broken ground on its more than $4 billion Indiana facility, which is expected to begin producing next-generation high-bandwidth memory products in the second half of 2029, with wafers made in South Korea slated for advanced packaging and testing there. SK hynix reported record second-quarter 2026 results, with revenues surging 257% year over year and operating profit jumping 557%, and has established long-term agreements with around 10 key customers while ramping HBM4. SKHY has gained 25.8% over the past three months against the industry's decline of 12.6%, outperforming FormFactor, Inc., which has lost 10%, and ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd., which is up 5.2% over the same period. SKHY currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).