HSBC has bumped its price target on Micron Technology to $1,700, up from the $1,100 level it set just weeks ago. For those keeping score at home, that means HSBC has effectively raised its target on the memory chipmaker five times this year alone.
The trajectory tells the story better than any analyst note could. In January, HSBC lifted its Micron target from $350 to $500. Then came the jump to $750. In May, it hit $1,100. Now $1,700. The bank has maintained a Buy rating throughout.
The numbers behind the upgrades
Micron’s fiscal third quarter results were, by any reasonable measure, exceptional. Revenue came in at $41.46 billion, obliterating consensus estimates of roughly $36.28 billion. Adjusted earnings per share landed at $25.11, again well above what Wall Street had penciled in. Gross margins hit approximately 84.6%.
The driver behind all of this is straightforward: AI data centers are consuming high-bandwidth memory and DRAM at a pace that even the most bullish forecasters didn’t anticipate. Memory chips have become the bottleneck in the AI infrastructure buildout, and when you’re the bottleneck, you get pricing power.
