Micron's stock gains as the memory-chip maker clears a high bar

By Britney Nguyen

Wall Street expected a beat-and-raise quarter from Micron, which indeed gave an outlook far stronger than what analysts were expecting as AI drives strong demand for memory chips

Micron's stock was up in after-hours trading on Tuesday.

Micron Technology Inc. faced a high bar heading into its Tuesday afternoon earnings report, with the stock up 41% over the past month alone.

And with shares rising 0.4% in the extended session, it looks like the company delivered just enough to fuel more enthusiasm. Analysts were expecting a beat-and-raise performance from Micron (MU), but its outlook nonetheless impressed and signaled pricing strength in the memory-chip market.

The memory-chip maker set revenue guidance for the November quarter at $12.5 billion, plus or minus $300 million, which came in above the $11.9 billion expected by analysts tracked by FactSet.

Micron Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra mentioned "all-time highs across our data-center business" in the fiscal year that just ended. His statement noted that Micron is "entering fiscal 2026 with strong momentum and our most competitive portfolio to date."

"As the only U.S.-based memory manufacturer, Micron is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the AI opportunity ahead," he added.

Revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter was $11.3 billion, beating the $11.2 billion consensus on FactSet. Micron reported adjusted earnings of $3.03 a share, which topped estimates for $2.86.

Ahead of the company's earnings report, Morgan Stanley had raised its estimates for Micron's guidance for the fiscal first quarter on strength in the memory space. The analysts set their revenue target at $12.5 billion, which ended up being what the company gave at the midpoint. When the analysts published their note, they cited "anecdotes now of substantial tightness of most components going into compute infrastructure markets in particular," which was leading to higher prices in the market for dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM.

However, the analysts said that investors would be looking for clarity on Micron's position in the market for high-bandwidth memory, which is a type of DRAM. Although volumes for HBM "are still good," the Morgan Stanley team said that Nvidia Corp.'s (NVDA) "monopsony," or status as the sole buyer, on Micron's latest-generation HBM3e chips will likely lead to a "step down" in those prices.

Mizuho desk-based analyst Jordan Klein said ahead of the earnings report that Micron's guidance for the fiscal first quarter would be a "key" signal for its expectations for pricing in the coming fiscal year.

Klein said that Micron faced a "super high" bar, and noted that what it said about expected pricing trends will determine whether bullish investors stay enthusiastic or find the risk-reward balance to be "unfavorable."

On the company's earnings call, Mehrotra emphasized that supply of DRAM remains tight due to accelerating, AI-driven demand. He also said that that company's next-generation HBM4 remains on track to support customers that are ramping up chip platforms, even as performance requirements for bandwidth and pin speeds have increased.

Mehrotra said that Micron has recently shipped customer samples of HBM4 "with industry-leading bandwidth exceeding 2.8 terabytes per second, and pin speeds over 11 gigabytes per second."

With the specs of HBM chips "becoming increasingly more demanding," Micron said it feels well-positioned with its products, and that it expects the value proposition of HBM to continue growing, especially with more data-center infrastructure announcements.

-Britney Nguyen

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09-23-25 2028ET