(Bloomberg) — Micron Technology Inc., the largest U.S. maker of memory chips, raised its forecast for revenue and earnings in the current quarter helped by demand for memory chips used in phones and computers.
Revenue in the current period will be $6.2 billion to $6.25 billion, Micron said Wednesday in a statement. That’s up from a previous range of as much as $6 billion. The Boise, Idaho-based company forecast profit, excluding certain items, of 93 cents to 98 cents, up from a prior range of 68 cents to 82 cents.
Micron’s memory chips are used to help processing and store data in everything from smartphones to super computers. It competes with South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. in a market in which chips are largely interchangeable and priced like commodities.
Tightness in the supply of dynamic random access memory chips, or DRAM, coupled with strong demand means that the industry will likely fail to fill all orders for the rest of the 2021, Chief Financial Officer Dave Zinsner said at a Morgan Stanley conference. The market for Nand flash memory, which provides storage, may suffer from a surfeit of chips as new supply comes on line this year, he cautioned.
In its most recent financial year, DRAM provided about 68% of Micron’s sales with most of the balance coming from Nand revenue.
Micron will provide more details during its next earnings announcement, Zinsner said. The company’s fiscal second quarter ends Thursday.
Micron shares, which jumped as much as 2.5% on the announcement, gave back most of those gains, and was little changed at $91.05 at 12:48 p.m. in New York.
(Updates with comments from CFO in the fourth paragraph.)
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