Micron Shares Plunge 16% on Disappointing Guidance Despite AI-Driven Chip Demand
TMTPOST -- Micron Technology Inc. Shares finished 16.2% lower on Thursday, clocking their biggest daily loss since March 2020. Shares plunged after the memory chip leader posted disappointing guidance for the current quarter despite artificial intelligence (AI)-driven booming demand.
Micron Technology said revenue for its first quarter of fiscal year 2025 ended November 28 rose 84.3% year-over-year (YoY) to $8.71 billion, in line with the Wall Street projection. On GAAP basis, net income was $1.87 billion,compared with a loss of $1.23 billion a year ago. The net income beat estimated $1.83 billion with a quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) gain of 52%. On non-GAAP basis, adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.79 topped analysts expected $1.77, reversing a loss of $0.95 the same quarter of last year.
By business unit, Compute and Networking brought a new record of $4.4 billion, representing a 46% QoQ rise. That accounted for over half of Micron’s total quarterly revenue, buoyed by over 400% YoY increase in data center revenue due largely to demand for AI. Businesses outside those benefited from AI suffered declines. Mobile Business Unit revenue fell 19% QoQ to $1.5 billion as mobile customer focused on improving their inventory health. Embedded Business Unit recorded revenue of $1.1 billion with a 10% QoQ decrease as auto, industrial and consumers continue to manage their inventories lower.
By technology, revenue from DARM, or dynamic random-access memory, grew 20% QoQ to $6.4 billion as high-bandwidth memory (HBM) shipments were ahead of plan and achieved more than a sequential doubling of revenue. Revenue from NAND, a non-volatile storage tech, shed 5% QoQ to $2.2 billion, weighed by inventory adjustment of auto, industries and other downstream customers.
“Micron delivered a record quarter, and our data center revenue surpassed 50% of our total revenue for the first time,” said Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. “While consumer-oriented markets are weaker in the near term, we anticipate a return to growth in the second half of our fiscal year. We continue to gain share in the highest margin and strategically important parts of the market and are exceptionally well positioned to leverage AI-driven growth to create substantial value for all stakeholders.”
In spite of stellar growth for the past quarter, Micron delivered weaker-than-expected guidance for its fiscal second quarter. Revenue for that quarter is expected to slide around 9% QoQ to $7.9 billion, plus or minus $200 million, missing analysts’ projection of $8.99 billion. Micron expected adjusted EPS of $1.43, plus or minus 10 cents, compared with analysts estimated EPS of $1.91.
Micron’s guidance suggested it would snapp seven-quarter increase in revenue and record an QoQ decrease of nearly $800 million. The miss and decrease obviously raised concerns about outlook of the upward cycle that Micron’s memory chips enjoyed. It also made investors speculate whether growth of the company’s HBM business has been hampered.
Micron counts AI chip heavyweight Nvidia Corporation as a major customer. Its HMB chips are used in Nvidia’s latest Blackwell GPUs (graphics processing units), which hyperscalers use in data centers to power both their customers' and their own artificial intelligence workloads. Micron’s HBM3E 8H is designed into Nvidia’s Blackwell B 200 and GB200 platforms. Micron said its HBM revenue more than doubled sequentially during the first fiscal quarter, projected multiple billions of dollars of HBM revenue in the whole fiscal year. Micron expected its HBM4 will maintain time to market and power efficiency leadership while boosting performance by over 50% over HBM3E, and HBM4 is poised to ramp in high volume for the industry in calendar 2026.
“In 2028, we expect the HBM total addressable market (TAM) to grow four times from the $16 billion level in 2024 and to exceed $100 billion by 2030. Our TAM forecast for HBM in 2030 would be bigger than the size of the entire DRAM industry, including HBM, in calendar 2024,” said CEO Mehrotra.
After Micron earnings, Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy following its earnings results and outlook. Arya said Micron's growing revenue from sales of its memory chips for AI isn't enough to offset pressures from weak demand for those used in personal computers and smartphones. Analysts at investment firms, including JPMorgan, Raymond James, and TD Cowen, also lowered their price targets on the stock but kept their Buy ratings.
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