Micron CFO is confident in HBM, and storage stocks are rising across the board.

Micron executives express positive outlook on next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips at industry conference, alleviating market concerns about falling behind competitors in the HBM4 field. This statement, combined with Wall Street analysts raising target prices, has driven the overall strength of the memory chip sector.

Overnight, Micron’s Chief Financial Officer Mark Murphy stated at the conference that the company has begun mass production and shipment of HBM4 chips. “We are very excited about the performance of HBM,” Murphy said. This statement directly addresses market doubts about Micron potentially lagging behind SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics in the HBM4 competition.

Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore significantly raised Micron’s target price from $350 to $450 on Wednesday, maintaining an overweight rating. Moore pointed out that although SK Hynix will supply HBM4 products to Nvidia in the first quarter, Micron should be able to achieve the same starting from the second quarter.

The surge in demand for HBM chips has been a major driver behind Micron’s stock price more than tripling over the past 12 months, with the stock rising 6.6% to $410.34 on Wednesday. Confirming that the company has achieved mass production and commercial shipment of HBM4 marks progress in this critical technology area as expected.

Micron’s strong gains have boosted the overall memory chip sector, with SanDisk’s overnight maximum increase of 13.20%, Western Digital up 4.26%, and Seagate Technology closing up 2.88%.

Mass production progress alleviates market concerns

HBM4 is the next-generation high-bandwidth memory technology crucial for supporting cutting-edge AI chips from companies like Nvidia. Previously, the market worried that Micron might be overtaken by Korean competitors in this field, affecting its market share in high-margin products.

Morgan Stanley analyst Moore noted in a research report that although SK Hynix will supply HBM4 to Nvidia in the first quarter, Micron will also be able to start supply from the second quarter, with the time gap not being significant.

Moore expects a new round of significant price increases in the first quarter, and that supply growth in 2026 will hardly alleviate the anticipated severe shortages. “We expect prices to further rise throughout this year,” he wrote.

Senior analyst Karl Ackerman of BNP Paribas Securities Research believes that market concerns over Micron’s HBM4 position have been exaggerated. He pointed out that even if Nvidia does not allocate initial HBM4 orders to Micron, it may balance the supply chain through orders of other memory components.

The strong demand for HBM chips has caused shortages of other types of memory chips, driving up prices across the industry. Ackerman’s analysis suggests that if Micron replaces 20% of its HBM4 share with 20% of LPDDR5X modules, the profit generated in Nvidia’s Vera Rubin computer architecture would be comparable.

This supply-demand dynamic creates a favorable pricing environment for memory chip manufacturers like Micron. The high-profit margins of HBM chips make them a key product line driving Micron’s performance growth.

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