Micron shares rise on bets of strong demand for AI-related memory chips
The company saw a nearly 50 per cent jump in sales of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for the third quarter compared to the previous three months. Micron is one of the providers of HBM chips besides South Korea's SK Hynix and Samsung
"AI servers are giving Micron an over-caffeinated growth spurt... (and) Micron is the only kid on the block shipping HBM3E at scale," said Michael Ashley Schulman, partner at Running Point Capital Advisors.
Micron said it will continue to invest in HBM chips which reflects the growing demand from AI chip front runners - Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, who are customers of the company.
J.P.Morgan said it expects Micron's HBM chip sales to accelerate, hitting a $8 billion annualized revenue run rate over the next one to two quarters.
Micron's Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana told Reuters the extent of tariff-related pull-ins from customers in the third quarter was fairly modest.
"Strength in AI set to be a material contributor to results, we see a scenario where the narrative isn't all about tariff impacts," Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note.
Following the results, at least 10 brokerages raised their price targets on the stock.
Shares of peers AMD, Nvidia and Marvell Technology rose between 1-2 per cent in premarket trading.
Micron is up 51.2 per cent, while AMD and Nvidia have gained about 19 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively, so far this year. Micron has a 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio of 11.85, compared to SK Hynix's 6.48 and Samsung's 11.57.
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