Among major memory companies, Micron Technology, known as the ‘memory market weathervane’ for being the first to announce its earnings, announced on the 25th (local time) its fiscal fourth quarter (June-August) results that exceeded market expectations. On the 26th, SK Hynix also announced the world’s first mass production of 5th generation 12-layer high bandwidth memory (HBM), putting to rest the ‘semiconductor winter theory’ that was spreading in the market and bringing about a long-awaited ‘spring breeze’.
● Micron “Best position in history”
On this day, Micron announced in its earnings announcement for the fourth quarter of this fiscal year after the market closed that its sales recorded $7.75 billion (approximately KRW 10.3 trillion), a 93% increase compared to the same period last year. This number exceeds Wall Street’s expectation of $7.66 billion. Earnings per share were also $1.18, exceeding Wall Street’s estimate of $1.11. The sales forecast for the first quarter of next fiscal year, the next quarter, was also presented at $8.7 billion, far exceeding the previous estimate ($8.3 billion).
Along with the performance announcement on this day, Micron officially announced that this year’s and next year’s supplies have already been sold out, saying, “As demand for HBM exceeds supply, product prices are being increased and long-term contracts are being signed.” “We are entering fiscal 2025 in the best position in Micron’s history,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron CEO. “We expect record first quarter sales and significantly improved profitability in 2025, leading to significant sales growth.” “We expect to achieve a record,” he said.
This forecast is contrary to the previous report by global investment bank Morgan Stanley, which predicted that the semiconductor industry would peak in the third quarter of this year (July-September) and then sales growth would slow from the fourth quarter (October-December). . Accordingly, Micron’s stock price soared 14.75% from the previous day after the market closed, reaching $109.9 per share.
● SK Hynix “World’s first mass production of HBM3E 12-speed”
SK Hynix, which ranks first in global HBM market share, also announced that it has begun mass production of the world’s first new 12-layer ‘HBM3E’, the 5th generation HBM. Initially, the 12-layer product was targeted for mass production in the fourth quarter of this year (October to December), but considering the expanding market demand, the schedule was advanced once to mass production in the third quarter of May this year (July to September).
HBM3E 12-layer is the product with the largest capacity (36 gigabytes) among existing HBM products, and is scheduled to be supplied to customers such as NVIDIA within the year. SK Hynix said, “Following the launch of the world’s first generation HBM (HBM1) in 2013 for the first time in the world, we are the only company that has developed and supplied all generation lineups to the market up to the 5th generation,” adding, “We are launching a 12-layer new product that meets the increasing expectations of AI companies.” He emphasized, “We are the first to succeed in mass production and maintain an unrivaled position in the AI memory market.”
In February of this year, Samsung Electronics succeeded in developing the HBM3E 12-layer product for the first time in the world and announced that it would begin mass production in the second quarter (April to June), but lost out to SK Hynix. While SK Hynix is leading the way in the rapidly growing HBM market, it is expected that Samsung Electronics and Micron will continue to catch up. According to Bank of America, this year’s annual HBM market share is expected to be 55% for SK Hynix, 39% for Samsung Electronics, and 6% for Micron.
On this day, due to Micron’s good performance and SK Hynix’s successful mass production of HBM3E 12-layer, SK Hynix’s stock price rose 9.44% from the previous day to 180,900 won, and Samsung Electronics’ stock price rose 4.02% to 64,700 won.
Reporter Kwak Do-young [email protected]
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2024-09-27 11:43:27