New York—March 12, 2026, 2:44 PM EDT.
Micron Technology dropped $11.69 to $407 in Thursday afternoon trading, after touching an intraday peak at $418.50. Shares had slipped to $396.83 earlier in the session.
Applied Materials on Tuesday announced it’s teaming up with Micron and SK Hynix at its EPIC research center, aiming to push forward on new memory chip technology designed for AI and high-performance computing. The collaboration comes as Micron, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix—still the world’s top memory-chip producers—scramble to meet soaring AI-driven demand. Reuters has estimated Big Tech will pour at least $630 billion into AI infrastructure this year.
Pricing is where things are biting hardest. TrendForce last month sharply boosted its outlook for conventional dynamic random access memory, or DRAM—now predicting prices to surge 90% to 95% in the first quarter. Previously, the group’s forecast sat at 55% to 60%. The shift comes as AI and data-center appetite continues to outpace available supply, widening the imbalance.
Micron announced back on Feb. 24 that it’s set to release its fiscal second-quarter results on March 18, with the earnings call slated for 2:30 p.m. Mountain time.
Micron’s latest quarterly results showed revenue hit $13.64 billion, with adjusted EPS coming in at $4.78 for its fiscal first quarter 2026. Looking ahead, the company is guiding for second-quarter revenue of $18.70 billion, give or take $400 million, and adjusted earnings per share of $8.42, either side of 20 cents.
Micron’s latest move with Applied offers a fresh narrative. Both firms said the collaboration targets high-bandwidth memory, or HBM—the speedy, low-power chips crucial for demanding AI tasks. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra called memory and storage “essential enablers of AI.” Technology chief Scott DeBoer added, the goal is to push ideas “into production faster.” markets.businessinsider.com
Atif Malik at Citi bumped his price target up to $430, pointing to “higher memory costs” as a key force behind increased spending from major cloud providers. Over at Susquehanna, Mehdi Hosseini set his target even higher at $525, noting that supply and demand may find equilibrium by mid-2027, once new clean-room facilities are operational. TradingView
Still, there’s a risk in play. Barron’s reported this week that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix landed the first HBM4 supply slots on Nvidia’s Rubin platform. Analysts quoted by Barron’s noted Micron might get in later this year, and with 2026 capacity already spoken for, the company could dodge a revenue shortfall. Even so, the situation keeps the spotlight on how quickly Micron can grab share in the upcoming generation.
