Micron Technology stock dropped 30 percent from its peak to close at $848 on July 17, 2026, despite reporting record third-quarter financial results driven by demand for artificial intelligence hardware.
The company delivered $41.4 billion in revenue for its fiscal 2026 third quarter ended May 28, representing a 346 percent increase from the prior year.
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Net earnings surged 1,368 percent year over year to $24.67 per share.
HBM4 Shipments and Market Outlook
High-bandwidth memory chips for data centers fueled the growth across all four business segments.
Management projects fourth-quarter revenue will reach $50 billion with earnings of $30.73 per share due to tight global memory supplies.
The chipmaker recently began shipping its HBM4 hardware for data centers, which offers a 60 percent capacity increase and 20 percent better energy efficiency over prior generations.
Nvidia adopted the component for its Vera Rubin GPU systems.
While the data center HBM market reached $35 billion last year, Micron projects the sector will expand to $100 billion by 2028.
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However, scaling manufacturing capacity across the industry could ease supply shortages over the next two years.
Concerns over corporate spending restraint also weigh on demand expectations.
Investment bank UBS Group found in a recent survey that 60 percent of businesses are trimming AI expenditures by utilizing cheaper, more efficient software models.
Companies such as Walmart, Amazon, and Uber Technologies have introduced caps on employee AI usage to avoid budget overruns.
The restriction comes as corporate clients re-evaluate tech spending following price increases from software providers.
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Despite the pullback, Micron stock trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.2, below the Nasdaq-100 index ratio of 33.4, reflecting market uncertainty over the long-term sustainability of the memory cycle.
