Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), a global manufacturer of semiconductor devices such as NAND Flash, DRAM and NOR Flash memory chips reported better-than expected third quarter earnings for the fiscal 2014 after hours today.
The stock price of the memory chip maker closed $31.26 per share, slightly down by 1.85% and it further slid by 0.38% to $31.14 per share during the extended hours trading around 6:02 in the evening EDT.
Financial results
Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) said its net income was $913 million or $0.68 per diluted share on $3.98 billion in revenues. During the same period a year ago, the chip maker recorded a net income of $43 million or $0.04 per diluted share.
Excluding items, the earnings of Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) were $0.79 per share. Wall Street analysts expected the company to deliver $0.70 earnings per share on $3.89 million in revenues.
According to the company, its consolidated margin for the third quarter was 34%, which is consistent with its gross margin in the previous quarter due to mix-related decreases in average selling prices, which were significant;y offser by corresponding decreases in manufacturing costs.
Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) said its cash flows from operations were $1.46 billion during the period. Its investments in capital expenditures were $576 million. The company ended the period with $4.81 billion in cash and marketable investments.
During a conference call, Mark Adams, president of Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) said, “Pent-up demand for corporate refresh on desktops and notebooks seem to be leading to better-than-expected sector performance. PC DRAM pricing is improving.”
Better-than-expected demand for PCs
According to Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), the better-than-expected demand for PCs helped its DRAM sales. The company also noted that the pricing for NAND chips were moderatelt stable.
The chip maker and some market observers belive that recent consolidation in the industry will end the extreme price volatility, which caused losses to larger companies and drove smaller players to go out of business.
“The supplier base has consolidated in DRAM and stabilized in NAND, and we believe that in both markets the industry is in a stage of maturity such that each supplier has sufficient scale to compete,” said Marc Durcan, CEO of Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU).
