US Stock Market Move | Micron Technology, Inc. (MU.US) fell more than 3% as the company announced the termination of its Crucial consumer business.

On Thursday, Micron Technology, Inc. (MU.US) fell more than 3%, closing at $225.74. Micron Technology, Inc. announced on Wednesday that they plan to stop selling storage products to individual consumers in the PC/DIY market in order to focus their capacity on providing enough storage products for high-performance AI chip-driven computing clusters. "The exponential growth of data center scale driven by the wave of AI has led to a surge in demand for DRAM and NAND products," said Micron's business chief Sumit Sadana in a recent statement. "Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to enhance the supply and support of storage products to large strategic customers in faster growing segments." The oligopoly competition in the global storage industry has further strengthened Micron's sense of urgency in transformation. The current HBM market is dominated by a trio of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, with the former two holding nearly 90% of the market share due to their first mover advantage, while Micron, although starting later, is rapidly catching up - with its HBM market share expected to increase from 10% in 2023 to 10-16% in 2024 and aiming for 20-25% in 2025. Analysis suggests that Micron's decision to divest from the consumer business is essentially achieving "strong focus" by "subtraction", concentrating on research and development and production capacity to tackle advanced products like HBM4/HBM4E, enhancing their competitiveness in the high-end market.