Apple CEO Tim Cook Just Gave Great News to Micron Investors

when apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Providing quarterly updates only makes sense if everyone pays attention to how the latest news affects Apple itself. But sometimes, information provided by Apple’s management team can have an impact on other companies.

Such was the case during the iPhone maker’s first-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call last week. Apple CEO Tim Cook just dropped some good news Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU) investor.

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If I didn’t count, the word “memory” was mentioned 16 times during Apple’s first-quarter earnings call. These references aren’t exactly fond memories of Apple’s history. Analysts and Apple management have discussed the ongoing supply and demand imbalance for memory chips extensively.

Cook said on the call that strong demand for iPhones has put Apple into a “supply chase mode” for memory. He added, “We are currently under constraints and it is currently difficult to predict when supply and demand will balance out.”

What impact will supply constraints have on Apple’s finances? Not a lot, at least so far. “Memory had a minimal impact on gross margin in the first quarter,” Cook said. However, he expects the impact to be greater in the second quarter.

Anyone familiar with the laws of supply and demand knows that when supply is limited and demand is strong, prices will rise. As expected, Cook admitted that Apple expects memory prices to rise “significantly” after the second quarter.

To be clear, Cook never mentioned Micron on Apple’s first-quarter earnings call. Neither did anyone else. However, Cook’s warning about memory supply constraints is good news for Micron.

Samsung Still the main supplier of memory chips to Apple. SK hynix is another major source of memory. but Citigroup (NYSE: C) It is estimated that Micron supplies about 30% of the DRAM and NAND chips for Apple iPhone 17. This share is not far from the 37% and 33% estimated by Samsung and SK Hynix respectively.

this Korea Economic Daily It was reported last month that Apple had sent members of its procurement team to hotels near Samsung and SK Hynix’s South Korean manufacturing plants to secure long-term memory contracts. If this sounds desperate, it is.

However, Cook said something during the first-quarter earnings call that cannot be ignored. He mentioned that Apple has “different levers that we can push” to deal with memory supply constraints. It doesn’t take much reading between the lines to deduce that one of these levers could lead to a deal that could pay off handsomely for Micron.

If nothing else, Apple’s predicament highlights the depth of the tech industry’s memory shortage. When the world’s second-largest tech company has trouble getting the memory chips it needs, imagine the challenge for smaller companies. This puts Micron in a strong position, especially considering it also sells all high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that can be used in GPUs and artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators.

You might think that an AI stock like Micron, which is in the catbird seat, would be trading at a premium. But that’s not the case.

Micron’s forward price-to-earnings ratio is just 13.1. The stock’s price-to-earnings (PEG) ratio, which includes analysts’ five-year earnings growth forecasts, is just 0.73.

The technology stock has surged about 380% in the past 12 months. If you believe Wall Street, Micron Technology’s momentum may be evaporating. The consensus price target is 15% below the current share price. However, I trust Tim Cook more than I trust Wall Street. Dynamics in the global memory market should continue to be favorable to Micron. I predict this dirt-cheap AI stock will soar even further in 2026.

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Citigroup is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Keith Speights works at Apple. The Motley Fool owns and recommends Apple and Micron Technology. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Apple CEO Tim Cook just revealed good news to Micron investors Originally published by The Motley Fool