Micron Technology reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as it benefited from higher average selling prices for its memory chips used in PCs amid tight supplies and a surge in demand for its storage chips found in smartphones.
The company’s shares (MU) were up nearly 7% at $28.58 in after-market trading on Thursday.
Average selling prices of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips have rebounded in recent quarters, largely due to demand from the fast-growing cloud computing industry and a stabilizing PC market.
The company said there was a 21% jump in average selling prices of DRAM chips in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, demand for the company’s NAND chips is also thriving, tracking the explosive growth in smartphones that has boosted the appetite for storage.
NAND sales volumes rose 18% in the quarter, the company said. “Strong demand and limited industry supply for NAND and DRAM solutions, combined with significant progress on our cost reduction plan, produced excellent results for our second quarter,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Durcan said in a statement.
Net income attributable to Micron was $894 million, or 77 cents per share, in the second quarter ended March 2, compared with a net loss of $97 million, or nine cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding certain items, the company earned 90 cents per share, beating the average analysts’ estimate of 86 cents, according to Thomson Reuters (TRI).
Micron’s net sales surged 58.4% to $4.65 billion, the second straight quarterly revenue rise after nearly two years of declines.
The revenue was in line with the analysts’ average estimate.
Up to Thursday’s close, the stock had more than doubled in value in the past 12 months, outperforming the near 50% gain in the broader Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index during the period.