Micron, the Boise, Idaho-based memory chip maker, has captured the heart of Wall Street. Whether the love story endures will largely depend on how long the AI-driven memory chip supply shortage lasts.
Micron promises to have strengthened its long-term position, allowing it to withstand a sudden drop in demand or excess supply capacity. And Wall Street has become a believer, helping Micron briefly surpass the market valuation of Meta and Tesla for the first time on Thursday, although it fell again on Friday to almost equal them.
Specifically, Micron closed the day on Friday with a market capitalization close to $1.27 trillion, while Meta stood at $1.39 trillion and Tesla at $1.42 trillion. Micron shares have soared more than 236% in the last month alone, closing Friday at $1,132 per share. By comparison, it spent years and years before mid-2025 for less than $100 per share.
It’s a dizzying rise for a company that most consumers associated with the small memory cards that, in the past, were commonly needed to boost storage in PCs, smartphones or other devices.
Wall Street isn’t sweating over that product line. Micron is benefiting from an AI data center construction boom that has created a shortage of system memory chips, both DRAM and NAND, that Micron makes, particularly high-bandwidth memory (HBM). A single AI server requires much more memory than a laptop.
Large amounts of memory are being purchased by AI system manufacturers like Nvidia, as well as hyperscalers that build their own systems, including Microsoft, Amazon AWS, Google, Meta, and Oracle. This is forcing all the other companies that need memory to stockpile it as well, from PC makers like Dell and HP to other types of device makers.
This lack of supply, which has been called RAMageddonis expected to persist until 2027. And it’s already driving up the price of consumer electronics like Apple products and Xbox consoles.
With the entire tech industry clamoring for more memory, Micron reported blockbuster third-quarter results last week. Revenue quadrupled year over year to $41.45 billion, and profits soared from $1.88 billion to $28.2 billion during the same period. Micron also provided a positive outlook, forecasting fourth-quarter revenue of between $49 billion and $51 billion.
And Wall Street, which has been eager to find more AI-related public companies that can perform as well as Nvidia, fell even more enamored.
The historical problem for memory chip makers like Micron and Samsung is that building manufacturing facilities to increase capacity is a costly and time-consuming task. And demand often falls just when companies can increase capacity, creating a glut and resulting price declines.
Micron pre-empted any talk of AI bankruptcy by emphasizing a series of long-term supply deals, including with Nvidia and the AI Lab. anthropicthat would presumably protect him. The company said in its earnings presentation that it has signed 16 strategic agreements with customers in the data center, consumer and automotive market segments, which it expects fundamentally transform your business model.
This seemed to convince several analysts that this company could be another profitable long-term investment. In a research note, William Blair technology analyst Sebastien Naji noted that demand growth continues to outpace the rate of new cleanroom space coming online.
“Given the strong likelihood of continued ASP growth in the coming quarters and improved revenue visibility thanks to a rapidly expanding set of long-term agreements (SCAs) with key customers, we see potential for longer-lasting earnings growth and reiterate our Outperform rating,” Naji wrote.
It remains to be seen if Micron can truly sustain itself in the long term without a down cycle. But for a brief moment on Thursday, this American company was more valuable than some of the industry’s giants.
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