Micron Brings Support for Multiple Holdings, Especially AI-Related Ones

On Wednesday night, we had two companies deliver their quarterly results that are not in the Portfolio, Micron (MU) and Accenture (ACN) . Because their businesses and end markets touch several areas for some of our holdings, we’re assessing their comments and connecting them back to our names.

It was largely business as usual, but given the time of year, we would argue their comments and guidance will no doubt shape expectations for the soon-to-be-upon-us December quarter earnings season. Not to be that person ahead of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, but that earnings season is about four weeks away.

Preamble out of the way, let’s get to it: Micron’s comments, and we’ll follow up with those from Accenture in another alert to you.

Micron

Let’s dig into Micron’s comments by end market and share our thoughts along the way:

"…customers are committing to an extraordinary multiyear data center buildout. This growth in AI data center capacity is driving a significant increase in demand for high-performance and high-capacity memory and storage.

"Server unit demand outlook: calendar 2025 server unit growth now expected in the high-teens percentage range, higher than the last earnings call outlook of 10%; server demand strength is expected to continue in 2026."

The comment on the AI and data center buildout supports the guidance we’ve gotten of late from several companies, including our own Nvidia (NVDA) , Arista Networks (ANET) , Marvell (MRVL) and newly added Broadcom (AVGO) . Micron’s upped outlook for this year and next year for server unit demand is another such signal, but it also supports the comments discussed less than a month ago from Dell (DELL) :

"Dell's results included a record quarter for AI server orders of $12.3 billion, which compares to the $5.6 billion booked in the prior quarter. Exiting the October quarter, Dell’s backlog stood at a record $18.4 billion compared to $11.7 billion at the end of July.

"During the current quarter, Dell expects to ship ~$9.4 billion of AI servers compared to $5.6 billion in the October quarter. And while it declined to give any formal guidance beyond the current quarter, Dell management painted a favorable picture based on what it sees in its backlog and larger pipeline as well as customer discussions."

Turning to Micron’s comments on the PC market, one we are exposed to as part of Qualcomm’s (QCOM) diversification efforts, the memory company sees calendar PC unit shipments now growing in the high single-digit percentage range, up from mid-single digits it saw earlier this year.

Micron sees that demand, which we know is being driven by the end of life for Windows 10 and AI PCs, continuing into 2026, but tipped that “memory supply constraints may affect some PC unit shipments.”

Turning to Micron’s comments about the smartphone market, the key one for both Qualcomm and Apple (AAPL) , management shared much more limited comments about calendar 2025 shipments.

Micron sees those volumes growing in the low-single-digit percentage range, which was the same forecast it gave back in late September. In terms of 2026, earlier this week, research firm CounterPoint Research shared that it sees the smartphone market declining around 2% on a shipment basis, primarily because of rising memory costs. Counterpoint’s thinking is that higher memory costs, especially for DRAM, are driving up the bill of materials for a smartphone, and companies are passing that through to consumers.

While Micron didn’t comment on this, its comment about memory supply constraints potentially impacting PC shipments suggests the same is likely true for the smartphone market. That reaffirms our decision on Wednesday to use QCOM shares to fund our initial position in BRCM shares. As we get more insight into the smartphone landscape for 2026, we’ll continue to revisit implications for Qualcomm and its shares, given that smartphones still drive more than 60% of its overall revenue.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long NVDA, ANET, MRVL, AVGO, QCOM and AAPL.