- Blowout quarter. Micron Technology reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $54.23 billion on September 30, a 379% increase year-on-year, beating the $50.45 billion analyst consensus by roughly $4 billion.
- HBM is the engine. High-bandwidth memory, the architecture underpinning AI accelerators, drove the surge, with Micron’s Core Data Center Business Unit generating $18 billion in the quarter at a 90% gross margin.
- Market reaction. Micron shares — already up 270% year-to-date before the report — lifted the broader semiconductor sector at the October 1 open, even as 10-year Treasury yields pressed 5.34%, a 24-year high.
Micron Technology’s fiscal fourth quarter, reported after the close on September 30, delivered numbers that exceeded expectations by a margin that surprised even the most bullish analysts. Revenue of $54.23 billion was up 31% sequentially and 379% year-on-year, according to QZ. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $33.42, versus the $31.16 consensus.
Where the Money Is Coming From
DRAM accounted for $39.77 billion, or 73% of quarterly revenue, with average selling prices rising in the high-teens percentage range sequentially — a reflection of structural supply tightness in AI-grade memory. NAND contributed $14.10 billion, with average selling prices up approximately 30% quarter-on-quarter. The standout performance was inside the data-centre stack: data centre SSD revenue alone reached nearly $10 billion in the quarter, more than ten times the year-ago level.
The Core Data Center Business Unit posted $18 billion in revenue at a 90% gross margin. The Cloud Memory Business Unit added $16.3 billion, up 18% sequentially. Together, the two units illustrate why AI infrastructure buildout — with its insatiable demand for high-bandwidth memory to feed large-scale training and inference workloads — has transformed Micron into a different company from the commodity memory supplier it was five years ago.
Yields, Macro, and the Broader Market
The results land on a market navigating the tension between corporate earnings strength and rate pressure. The 10-year US Treasury yield touched 5.342% on October 1 — its highest since April 2002 — before pulling back modestly. That rate level compresses the present value of future earnings and typically pressures equity multiples. Yet Micron’s report, alongside gains in Alphabet following its unveiling of a new Gemini model, was enough to push the Nasdaq modestly higher at the open despite those headwinds.
Wells Fargo Investment Institute noted that “corporate earnings have continued to show resilience” but flagged that “the key question is whether that earnings strength can continue as borrowing costs remain elevated.” For Micron, the near-term answer appears straightforward: hyperscaler capital expenditure budgets remain committed to AI infrastructure, and no large customer has signalled a pullback. The company’s profit margins currently stand at 87%, though announced increases in employee compensation are expected to apply modest pressure in the next quarter.
The results extend a broader trend in the AI-memory complex. As Broadcom earlier reported a tripling of its AI chip revenue, Micron’s Q4 reinforces a picture in which the hardware layer of the AI stack continues to generate returns that the model labs are still catching up to.