Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) shares climbed 3% in premarket trading Wednesday after SK Hynix delivered a strong third-quarter report pointing to a sharper-than-expected rebound in the global memory market.
The South Korean memory giant’s results indicated clear visibility into demand across product lines through 2026, alongside plans to ramp up investment to address expected supply shortages that could persist into 2027. SK Hynix projected DRAM bit growth above 20% year over year and NAND growth in the high-teens percentage range for 2026 — signaling healthy end-market demand for both categories.
Of particular interest to Micron investors was SK Hynix’s forecast that High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) will expand at a 30% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through the end of the decade. The company said it is already sold out of HBM capacity for 2026, with pricing agreements secured at profitability levels similar to this year.
“MU implications: We believe Hynix’s bullishness on commodity memory & HBM read-throughs directly to MU, which we anticipate is also gaining share in HBM in CY26. Hynix’s comments regarding the 2030 HBM TAM is nearly 50% higher than MU’s prior 2030 forecast of >$100bn,” Wolfe Research noted.
Based on Hynix’s projections, the total addressable market (TAM) for HBM could approach $150 billion by 2030, significantly above Micron’s earlier forecast of just over $100 billion — underscoring growing optimism about long-term demand for advanced memory solutions tied to AI and data center expansion.