Micron Technology (MU) has transformed from a money-losing chipmaker three years ago into one of the most profitable companies in the United States.
The Boise, Idaho-based memory chip maker posted $41.46 billion in revenue, crushing Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $35.84 billion by a substantial margin.
Micron also recorded $28.24 billion in net income, a figure that places it on a trajectory to become the third most profitable U.S. company behind only Nvidia (NVDA) and Alphabet (GOOGL).
The company disclosed a gross margin of 84.9%, up sharply from 74.9% in the prior period and a dramatic leap from just 39% a year earlier.
That margin figure puts Micron ahead of every major U.S. technology company, including Nvidia at 75% and Meta (META) at close to 82%.
“Fiscal Q3 gross margin more than doubled from a year ago and was a new company record,” Micron CFO Mark Murphy said on the earnings call.
Nvidia (NVDA) had been the benchmark for extraordinary profitability as its graphics processing units became essential infrastructure for artificial intelligence development, but its gross margin peaked at around 79% in early 2024.
Among other megacap technology companies, Broadcom (AVGO) currently sits at a gross margin of 69.5%, followed by Microsoft (MSFT) at 67.6% and Alphabet (GOOGL) at 62.4%.
A global shortage of memory chips has acted as a powerful accelerant for Micron’s pricing power, as demand outstripping supply shifts leverage dramatically toward the supplier.
The surging demand for high-bandwidth memory, known as HBM, which sits inside the most advanced AI accelerators, has fundamentally reshaped the supply-demand equation for the entire memory chip industry.
HBM is technically complex and harder to manufacture than conventional memory, making the current shortage particularly acute and difficult to resolve quickly.
Nvidia is now the world’s most valuable company with a market capitalization of close to $5 trillion, a position built on the same AI infrastructure boom that is now lifting Micron.
Micron’s stock surged as much as 18% in pre-market trading following the earnings announcement, adding to a run that pushed the company’s market capitalization to $1 trillion back in May 2026.
Wall Street has clearly taken notice of Micron’s rise, as the company captured significant investor attention with results that few analysts anticipated at such scale or speed.
