Micron Technology told investors the memory market will stay in deficit through 2028, even as the company posted a record 86.25 percent gross margin and guided for $61.5 billion in first-quarter revenue. The forecast implies more than $53 billion in gross profit against roughly $2.06 billion in operating expenses and a 15.5 percent tax rate, leaving earnings per share at $38.15 plus or minus a dollar on 1.15 billion shares outstanding.
Supply tightens despite shipment growth
Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra said the company has already committed most of next year’s output and that buyers will pay more than they did in 2026. “In calendar 2027 as well as 2028, we see demand exceeding supply,” he said on the call. “We do not have line of sight to when supply and demand will return to balance.” Shipments of both NAND and DRAM are projected to rise in the low-to-mid twenty percent range annually for the next two years, yet the industry remains supply-constrained because high-bandwidth memory for AI data centers is absorbing capacity faster than conventional DRAM.
New capacity years away
Factories now under construction will not produce meaningful volume for years. In the meantime, the labor market is pricing in the scarcity: Samsung and SK hynix employees have collected bonuses worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, while Micron’s workforce in Taiwan has threatened to strike unless it receives a larger share of the AI-driven windfall.
Acer offers a dissenting view
The outlook clashes with Acer’s prediction that PC prices will fall by late 2027 as Chinese memory suppliers enter the market and consumers resist higher costs. One of those narratives will be proven wrong. For now, the company selling the chips is betting on the shortage.