Micron rides memory price spike into earnings with stock up 62%
Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief executive officer of Micron Technology Inc., on Friday, January 16, 2026, at the new Micron Technology Inc. headquarters in Clay, New York, USA. during the groundbreaking ceremony of the semiconductor manufacturing facility.
Heather Ainsworth | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Micron Its stock has tripled in 2025 and is up almost 62% so far in 2026 due to strong demand for memory-rich memories Nvidia AI chips are causing shortages.
The memory crisis that has dogged Micron has been bad news for many of its tech peers, who are grappling with higher prices as they try to secure critical components. Among the 10 most valuable technology companies in the USA, Micron was the only company at the top this year. This rise increased Micron’s market value to $520 billion. SeerIt is currently worth $445 billion.
Micron will release second-quarter financial results on Wednesday after the close, with analysts expecting 148% year-over-year revenue growth, according to LSEG. Executives will discuss the results in a conference call with analysts starting at 4:30 p.m. ET.
While the tech industry’s biggest names are spending record amounts to keep up with the AI race, the memory chip shortage shows no signs of abating.
“Memory is a key enabler of AI,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in January. “Today it’s not just a component in the system, it’s a strategic asset. That’s why we need it. Just like your brain, you need more memory. You need faster memory.”
Amazon And GoogleThe company, which has purchased large quantities of Nvidia chips and rented them through cloud services, is increasing its estimates for capital expenditures.
Cloud providers need racks full of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin graphics processing units in their data centers, and each system requires large amounts of memory.
The Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 system uses roughly three times the dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, of the Grace Blackwell GB300 NVL72 rack, RBC analysts wrote in a note Sunday. A single Rubin Ultra graphics processing unit will have terabytes of high-performance HBM4e memory, more than three times that of a Rubin GPU.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Monday at his company’s GTC conference that he sees $1 trillion in purchase orders for Blackwell and Vera Rubin GPUs by 2027.
All these GPU purchases reinforce Micron, which stated in December that it was running out of high-bandwidth memory for 2026.
Tae-won Chey, president of parent company of Micron rival, at Nvidia’s GTC SK HynixHe said the memory deficiency will continue for another 4-5 years. Bloomberg reported.
Analysts surveyed by StreetAccount predict that Micron’s average DRAM sales prices increased nearly 32% in the fiscal second quarter compared to the previous quarter.
Analysts surveyed by StreetAccount predict adjusted gross margin for the third fiscal quarter will be above 71% and revenue will increase approximately 156% to $23.80 billion.
memory for PCs
Stockpiling GPUs has caused memory prices for other products to rise. Technology industry analysis firm TrendForce said: February report He said PC DRAM contract prices “increased significantly this quarter.”
Analysts at RBC wrote that blended DRAM pricing will increase by 80% to 85% in the first quarter of 2026, according to TrendForce data.
As a result, computer sales may decline.
Industry researcher IDC lowered its PC sales forecast last week, expecting an 11.3% decline this year compared to the firm’s November forecast for a 2.4% decline in 2026.
IDC also sees smartphone posts It fell 12.9% this year.
“Memory shortages will continue until 2027,” said Jitesh Ubrani, IDC research director. expression.
Dell Chief operating officer Jeff Clarke also warned about the rise in memory costs in his call to analysts on the company’s February earnings call; He said the cost of DRAM has increased 5½ times in the last six months, while NAND flash memory for long-term storage is four times higher.
“We are working with our memory partners to be as flexible and agile as possible,” said Clarke. “We’re working on: How do we minimize our complexity? How do we improve our mix? How do we sell what’s coming? How do we evolve our designs to take existing pieces?”
Micron is taking steps to increase supply, but some of that increase is still a ways off.
In January, the company held a groundbreaking ceremony for the future facility in upstate New York, which will feature four manufacturing facilities. Next month this opened An assembly and testing facility in India to convert memory plates into finished products.
WRISTWATCH: RBC’s Pajjuri on Micron: Pricing will remain the same throughout the year and into next year
