Memory giant Micron (MU) will report its fourth-quarter results after the bell on Wednesday, providing investors with insight into the state of the memory and AI market.
Micron’s fortunes, along with those of fellow memory chip producers Samsung (005930.KS) and SK Hynix (SKHY), have soared amid extremely high demand driven by the global development of AI.
As an example, Micron’s third-quarter earnings per share climbed 1,214% year-over-year, while its revenue soared 345%.
The company’s stock price has also exploded, rising 279% year-to-date and 587% over the past 12 months as of Tuesday.
Micron is also banking heavily on its future growth. In August, the company announced it would invest up to $10 billion over the next 10 years to build a “premier, long-term research institution” in Boise, Idaho.
While the AI boom has been a boon for memory makers, it is having detrimental consequences for other sectors of the technology industry.
Consumer electronics makers have raised the prices of their devices to offset the rising cost of memory and storage chips. Most recently, Apple (AAPL) increased prices on its iPhone 18 Pro line by $100 compared to its iPhone 17 Pro.
Even though the price increases reduced the number of devices manufacturers sold, the higher prices offset much of the negative impact on their bottom lines.
For the fourth quarter, Wall Street expects earnings per share of $31.83, according to consensus estimates from Bloomberg analysts. This represents a 950% increase from the EPS of $3.03 the company reported in the fourth quarter of last year.
Revenue is expected to be $51.49 billion, up 355% from the $11.31 billion the company reported in the year-ago quarter.
DRAM, which goes into high-bandwidth memory used in data centers, is expected to generate $38.22 billion in sales, while NAND storage chips are expected to bring in $12.29 billion.
Memory and chip stocks have been volatile in recent weeks amid concerns about AI safety, following Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call earlier this month to slow the development of frontier AI models.
Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on @DanielHowley.
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