Micron forecasts $61.5 billion revenue for fiscal first quarter, topping estimates

CNBC's account of the statement says revenue almost quadrupled from $11.32 billion a year earlier ^[3]. Divide $54.23 billion by that and the multiple is 4.8, closer to a fivefold rise ^[1][1]. Data centers brought in about a third of the total ^[4][2]. Take them out and the rest of Micron went from roughly $9.7 billion to $36.2 billion, 3.7 times in a year ^[3]. Growth that broad outside the AI division fits with higher prices across the product line. CNBC reports the shortage has already raised memory costs and the prices of Apple's iPads and MacBooks ^[6], and Yahoo Finance reports device makers have raised prices to cover the cost of memory and storage chips ^[20].

The forecast of about $61.5 billion for the quarter through November ^[8] is $7.27 billion, or 13.4%, above the quarter just reported ^[4]. Yahoo Finance reported the guide as a range of $60 billion to $63 billion ^[9]. Even the bottom of that range beats the roughly $57 billion analysts expected by about $3 billion ^[10][5].

The per-share guide points the opposite way from Micron's margin warning ^[11]. Adjusted earnings of $38.15 a share, against $33.42 in the fourth quarter, is a 14.2% rise, slightly faster than revenue's 13.4% ^[12][2][6]. Gross margin could still narrow beneath that figure, either because new fabs cost money to start up or because chip prices stop climbing. Bloomberg's report does not say which margin narrows or why.

Micron has already committed to the supply that would end the shortage ^[13]. It is investing $250 billion in two HBM campuses. The largest broke ground in Clay, New York, in January, and its first new fab, in Boise, Idaho, is due online next year ^[13]. SK Hynix and Samsung, both ahead of Micron in HBM share ^[15], are building new plants in South Korea ^[14]. The $250 billion is about 6.6 quarters of the $37.7 billion Micron earned in the latest one ^[5][7].

Micron's market value is above $1.2 trillion ^[16]. The latest quarter's net income times four is about $151 billion, which puts the stock at roughly eight times earnings ^[8]. In my view a multiple that low says investors expect the profit to fade once that capacity arrives, even after shares rose about 550% in 12 months, according to Yahoo Finance ^[17].

The numbers fit more than one outcome. In the first, the shortage holds and prices keep rising through November, as the revenue guide implies. In the second, prices level off at a high point while new-fab costs climb, which matches the margin warning. In the third, AI spending slows. That concern is behind recent swings in memory stocks since Anthropic's Dario Amodei called for slowing frontier model development ^[18]. I'd budget for the first, because the forecast is Micron's own and it sits about $4.5 billion above consensus ^[9]. The margin warning is the case against. It gets stronger if Micron's next forecast shows flat revenue or if device makers stop passing costs on ^[11]. So far they are still passing them on: higher prices have offset much of the hit from selling fewer devices, Yahoo Finance reports ^[19].