By Adam Clark, Kit Norton and Anita Hamilton
Micron Technology stock popped Wednesday, putting its market capitalization above $900 billion for the first time. Labor unrest at rival Samsung Electronics could intensify the broader memory-chip supply crunch, which would be a boon for rival Micron if both prices and demand rise.
Micron shares jumped 4.3% to $799.87 in late afternoon trading. The stock price threshold for the $900 billion valuation is $798.06, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
Memory chips are in high demand, making them a key bottleneck in the booming market for artificial-intelligence data centers. Micron is the third largest producer of memory chips by market share, behind Samsung and SK Hynix.
The stock price jump puts Micron close to Eli Lilly in terms of total market value. Lilly is currently the 11th most valuable, publicly-traded U.S. company. The top 10 U.S. firms by market cap are currently Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Broadcom, Tesla, Meta, Berkshire Hathaway, and Walmart.
Talks between Samsung and its labor union to avert a walkout collapsed on Wednesday. Samsung said it would continue efforts to prevent a strike. Union leaders are seeking to remove legal obstacles to the walkout.
Samsung's workers are demanding the company allocate 15% of its operating profit for bonuses and are threatening a general walkout from May 21 to June 7. A walkout could hit about 3% of global memory-chip production, according to Jefferies estimates.
Memory-chip supplies are already undergoing a historic squeeze. Any hit to Samsung's output would increase demand for Micron's hardware, which is already surging because of the wave of investment in AI infrastructure. Samsung's challenges could also be a boon for Sandisk, which competes with Samsung in NAND flash memory chips.
Sandisk shares fell 0.4% Wednesday. South Korea's SK Hynix, which also competes with Samsung in memory chips, rose 7.7% in local trading.
Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com, Kit Norton at kit.norton@barrons.com and Anita Hamilton at anita.hamilton@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 13, 2026 15:40 ET (19:40 GMT)
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