Micron Technology, Inc. (MU.US) HBM stackable memory market size is experiencing explosive growth, with strong demand expected to continue through 2026.

According to media reports, the total addressable market (TAM) is a prediction of future sales volume, more accurately described as the forecasted quantity of products that can be produced and sold. It is not a prediction of total demand, which may be greater, as indicated by the backlog orders for HBM memory and its main DRAM sets used for artificial intelligence inference and training. Therefore, as the market size expands, it means that the income distribution among competitors will also expand. This is why the explosive growth of the HBM stacked memory market size at Micron Technology, Inc. (MU.US) this week has everyone so excited. "As leading global technology companies move towards general artificial intelligence (AI) and reshape the global economy, our customers are investing heavily in building massive data centers, a construction cycle that will last for years," said Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of Micron Technology, Inc. during a conference call with Wall Street analysts. The purpose of this conference call was to review the company's financial performance for the first quarter of the 2026 fiscal year ending in November. "The growth in AI data center capacity is significantly driving the demand for high-performance, high-capacity memory and storage. Server demand has increased significantly, and we now expect the server sales growth rate to reach close to 10% in 2025, higher than the 10% expected in the last earnings call. We expect the strong momentum in server demand to continue in 2026. Server memory and storage capacity, as well as performance requirements, are also increasing generation by generation." Of course, this wave of excitement is not limited to HBM alone, but also includes other DRAM, LPDRAM, and flash memory used in artificial intelligence systems. Mehrotra proudly mentioned that Micron's data center NAND storage business surpassed $1 billion for the first time in the first quarter of the 2026 fiscal year, with the company's G9 series flash memory being the first flash drive to adopt the PCI-Express 6.0 standard, and QLC versions with capacities of 122TB and 245TB undergoing certification at several hyperscale data centers and cloud service providers. Overall, it is expected that industry bit shipments for DRAM in 2025 will increase by around 20%, and NAND shipments will increase by over 10%much higher than expected in the previous quarter. By 2026, it is expected that both DRAM and NAND shipments will increase by approximately 20% from 2025. Thus, any revenue growth beyond this range is due to demand and other inflationary factors leading to price increases. For example, according to Micron's Chief Financial Officer Mark Murphy, in the first quarter of the 2026 fiscal year, DRAM costs per bit increased by 20%, while shipments only slightly increased; NAND shipments increased by a "high single-digit percentage," but costs per bit rose by around 15%. To better meet the supply demand for 1 DRAM and HBM memory, Micron Technology, Inc. will increase its capital expenditure for the 2026 fiscal year by $2 billion, reaching $20 billion, and expedite equipment ordering and installation to etch more chips faster. The first wafer fab in Idaho will start production in mid-2027, rather than the original plan for the second half of next year; the second fab will commence construction next year and start operations by the end of 2028. The first fab in New York will break ground in 2026 and begin supplying chips in 2030. The HBM assembly fab in Singapore will also start production in 2027, contributing to the supply of HBM. If Micron wants to capitalize on the booming HBM market, they better speed up their production capacity. The forecasts from December last year and the newly released forecasts this week are as follows: These TAM data for the potential market size for HBM are based on calendar years. In the forecast in December 2024, Micron Technology, Inc. expected HBM market revenue to reach $35 billion in 2025, and grow to approximately $100 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.2%. However, Micron Technology, Inc. has now revised the expected time for the market size to reach $100 billion from 2030 to 2028, which means that the compound annual growth rate will exceed 40% compared to the forecasted $35 billion HBM sales this year. The estimated values shown in bold red italics in the chart are to fill in data gaps and are roughly consistent with the actual compound annual growth rate (CAGR), thus achieving the expected level of compound annual growth rate within the indicated period. We estimated the HBM sales in 2029 and 2030 (which were not included in Micron Technology, Inc.'s forecast), expecting their growth rates to stabilize and be consistent with the initial expectations. Of course, sales may continue to grow at a faster rateno one can predict. Interestingly, if the total memory sales from 2025 to 2030 (including 2025 and 2030) are added up, according to the forecast in December 2024, the global HBM sales revenue will reach $378 billion. Assuming Micron Technology, Inc. can obtain approximately 25% of the HBM revenue share (roughly similar to their current market share in DRAM), then Micron Technology, Inc. will generate $95 billion in revenue from HBM during these six years. Assuming that HBM memory costs make up about 40% of the cost of GPU or XPU computing engines, the revenue from GPU and XPU over these six years will be about $950 billion. If the cost of accelerators accounts for approximately 65% of server node or rack level costs, then the total system revenue will reach approximately $1.5 trillion. According to the new forecast, assuming the HBM revenue growth rate slows down in 2029 and 2030 but still remains at high levels of 35% and 25%, the revenue from HBM over the next six years is estimated to reach $555 billion, which is 46.8% higher than the previous forecast. There is a significant difference in the forecast for the later stage. With a significant increase in HBM sales, the production of more HBM products will be required. If Micron Technology, Inc. maintains a market share of around 25%, then their HBM memory revenue for the next six years will be approximately $139 billion. This $555 billion in HBM revenue will drive the production of GPU and XPU computing engines, leading to AI system sales of around $2.1 trillion. These figures are much smaller than the data center total spending forecast quietly released by NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) a few weeks ago. Certainly, these are only rough estimates of sales of artificial intelligence systems, but they are roughly in line with some other significant numbers being discussed. Based on Micron Technology, Inc.'s financial performance for the first quarter of 2026, the company's revenue for this quarter was $13.64 billion, a 56.7% increase from last year. Operating income was $6.14 billion, almost doubling, and net income was $5.24 billion, also doubling from last year. This indeed looks like a market environment with a significant price advantage for memory and flash products. Micron Technology, Inc. had a capital expenditure of $5.4 billion in the first quarter of the 2026 fiscal year, slightly higher than the proportion expected for the total $20 billion expenditure for 2026. This represents a 1.7x increase from the same period last year. Micron Technology, Inc. ended the quarter with $10.32 billion in cash reserves, providing some room for expansion of wafer fabs and plants. In the November quarter, Micron Technology, Inc. sold DRAM memory worth $10.81 billion, a 68.9% increase from the previous year. In the first quarter of the 2026 fiscal year, revenue from NAND flash chips, drives, and cards reached $2.74 billion, a 22.4% increase, while NOR flash and other products brought in sales of only $88 million. The following are revenue compositions from the new financial reporting segments announced by Micron Technology, Inc. a few quarters ago: From the chart, it can be seen that in the first quarter of 2026, the profit margins for the cloud memory group and the core data center group increased significantly compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, indicating supply constraints in the DRAM, HBM, and flash memory markets leading to price increases. Overall, Micron's data center business generated $7.66 billion in revenue, a 55.1% increase, with an operating income of $3.79 billion, nearly double the amount from the same period last year. The prosperity and downturn cycle of the data center memory industry are worrisome, but at present, there is no doubt that there will be a period of prosperity in the next year or two, and Micron Technology, Inc. will also achieve new heights. Micron Technology, Inc. re-entered the HBM market at the right time, seizing a dominant position in the market with its unique technical advantages and strategic position headquartered in the United States. The model shows that the total sales revenue of HBM stacked memory, high-capacity server DRAM, and LPDDR5 low-power server memory reached $5.66 billion, slightly higher than half of the total revenue from DRAM memory sales. This number has increased by over 5 times compared to the same period last year, mainly attributed to NVIDIA Corporation using HBM and LPDDR5 memory in its AI computing engines. But many other companies are also contributing funds to Micron, with NVIDIA Corporation accounting for only 17% of revenue this quarter, totaling $2.32 billion, doubling what NVIDIA Corporation spent in Micron memory stores during the same period last year. Based on limited statements released by Micron in the past few quarters, it is estimated that high-capacity server DIMM and LPDDR5 memory contributed approximately $1.4 billion in revenue, a 3.7x increase, while HBM memory contributed approximately $4.27 billion in revenue, a 5.7x increase. This growth rate is impressive.