Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) gained 3.6% in premarket trading Thursday after Citi analyst Christopher Danely raised his price target on the memory-chip manufacturer to $175 from $150 while reiterating a Buy rating.
The revised target implies roughly 25% upside from current levels and comes just ahead of Micron’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings release, scheduled for September 23. Danely expects results in line with consensus but anticipates first-quarter guidance will come in well above expectations, citing stronger DRAM and NAND sales and firmer pricing.
“We believe the continued memory upturn is being driven by limited production and better than expected demand, particularly from the data center end market,” Danely said in a note. His earnings forecast for fiscal 2026 sits 26% above Wall Street’s consensus.
The bullish view reflects a sharp pickup in demand from artificial intelligence applications. Morgan Stanley recently underscored NAND’s increasing role in AI, projecting the AI-related NAND market will make up 34% of total NAND demand by 2029, adding around $29 billion to the global addressable market.
Micron, one of the largest NAND producers globally alongside Samsung, SK Hynix, Kioxia and Western Digital, has also been capturing more share in enterprise solid-state drives (eSSDs). Morgan Stanley noted that Micron’s revenue share in this category is now nearing that of SK hynix/Solidigm combined, despite historically operating at a smaller scale in NAND.
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