Micron CFO says pricing has trended ‘well below’ expectations

Micron CFO Mark Murphy stated while presenting at the Wells Fargo TMT Summit: "We had a press release on the 16th of November, where we announced a reduction in wafer starts, 20% off of our fourth quarter ’22 levels, and that’s across both DRAM and NAND. It is a really tough environment. We still see customers doing inventory adjustments. That continues. And then in a number of markets, we see weak end market demand. So we’re working through that, but it’s been very difficult. And again, that’s why we chose to take the supply action… I’m not going to provide a full update on the guidance today. But what I would say is that pricing has trended well below what we thought it would be when we had our earnings call. So the pricing environment has been difficult. And that’s despite what we think have been very good and disciplined actions on our part around pricing… If we look out to calendar ’23 and based on our discussions with customers, our own industry analysis, our own market view, it’s become clear to us that customers are entering calendar ’23 with high levels of inventory still. And so that’s going to suppress their demand in calendar ’23, and that we’re incorporating that into our views. And again, that informed the supply decision that we announced on the 16th."