Micron beats NVIDIA on scorecard at 18.2 times EBIT

Both NVIDIA and Micron sit on the same premise: AI data centers want more chips and memory than the industry can supply. But the money flows in opposite directions. NVIDIA is putting its own balance sheet behind some of its biggest buyers, while Micron's buyers are posting cash deposits to secure memory — about $22 billion in deposits and related commitments, roughly $18 billion of it in cash that Micron returns late in the agreements.

NVIDIA's late-August outlook is a forecast, with management expecting revenue to grow about 70% in fiscal 2028 and calling that a supply-constrained number. Micron's late-June outlook rests partly on signed contracts that set a revenue floor management expects actual revenue to exceed. The trade-off is a cap: the largest deals set a ceiling near calendar Q2 2026 prices for existing products. NVIDIA faces its own margin pressure, with gross margin at 75% in fiscal Q2 2027 expected to bottom at 71% to 72% in fiscal Q4 2027 as memory prices have risen more than expected.

The scorecard's moderate tilt toward Micron rests on recent numbers rather than the longer arc, where NVIDIA has grown revenue faster over three years and keeps more of each sales dollar as net profit. Whether that tilt holds is likely to hinge on how much of Micron's recent surge comes from memory price increases — DRAM prices rose in the low 60s percentage range from the prior quarter while bit shipments rose by low single digits — and on the fiscal Q4 2026 report due September 30 against its $50 billion revenue guide.