Company Reports

Lam Research's September-quarter results were above the midpoints of guidance. Sales rose 52% year-on-year to $8.2 billion, and profitability hit record highs of 52.4% non-GAAP gross margin and 40.2% non-GAAP operating margin. December-quarter guidance implies further strong growth and profit.

Lam Research is one of the largest providers of wafer fabrication equipment for semiconductors, and we believe its strong portfolio should enable it to maintain and increase its large market share. Lam historically was weighted to memory chipmakers, but has gained significant share in logic chip equipment, and we expect it to be more in line with peers’ exposure in the future. In our view, Lam will benefit from broadly increasing chip complexity over the long term, including advanced packaging, new transistor architectures, and high-bandwidth memory capacity expansion. In the short term, we expect immense growth as chipmakers race to build out more supply for AI infrastructure demands.

Lam Research reported great June-quarter results and even better guidance. Sales rose 30% year over year, and September guidance calls for 52% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. Lam also raised its long-term margin targets by 500 to 1000 basis points versus its 2025 investor day targets.

Lam Research is one of the largest providers of wafer fabrication equipment for semiconductors, and we believe its strong portfolio should enable it to maintain and increase its large market share. Lam historically was weighted to memory chipmakers, but has gained significant share in logic chip equipment and we expect it to be more in line with peers’ exposure in the future. In our view, Lam will benefit from broadly increasing chip complexity over the long term, including advanced packaging, new transistor architectures, and high-bandwidth memory capacity expansion. We expect Lam to increase sales in the mid- to high-single digits over the course of market cycles and over the long term.

Lam Research's March-quarter results hit the top ends of guidance, and it provided stellar June-quarter guidance. Compared with FactSet consensus estimates, June-quarter revenue is guided 10% higher (at the midpoint), and June-quarter earnings are guided 15% higher.

Lam Research reported strong December-quarter results and guided for impressive growth in calendar 2026. Lam expects 2026 wafer fabrication equipment spending to increase by more than 20%, reaching $135 billion from $110 billion in 2025.

Lam Research is one of the largest providers of wafer fabrication equipment for semiconductors, and we believe its strong portfolio should enable it to maintain and increase its large market share. Lam historically was weighted to memory chipmakers, but has gained significant share in logic chip equipment and we expect it to be more in line with peers’ exposure in the future. In our view, Lam will benefit from broadly increasing chip complexity over the long term, including advanced packaging, new transistor architectures, and high-bandwidth memory capacity expansion. We expect Lam to increase sales in the mid- to high-single digits over the course of market cycles and over the long term.

Lam Research is one of the largest providers of wafer fabrication equipment for semiconductors, and we believe its strong portfolio should enable it to maintain and increase its large market share. Lam historically was weighted to memory chipmakers, but has gained significant share in logic chip equipment and we expect it to be more in line with peers’ exposure in the future. In our view, Lam will benefit from broadly increasing chip complexity over the long term, including advanced packaging, new transistor architectures, and high-bandwidth memory capacity expansion. We expect Lam to increase sales in the mid- to high-single digits over the course of market cycles and over the long term.

Lam Research's September-quarter results came in at the high end of guidance. Sales rose 21% year over year to $5.3 billion, and non-GAAP operating margin rose 250 basis points year over year to 33.2%. December-quarter guidance calls for a slight moderation from September levels.

We have updated our medium-term growth assumptions for the wafer fabrication equipment market and for Applied Materials, KLA, and Lam Research specifically. Our growth forecasts for these companies also include advanced packaging investments for semiconductors.

Lam Research is one of the largest providers of wafer fabrication equipment for semiconductors, and we believe its strong portfolio should enable it to maintain and increase its large market share. Lam historically was weighted to memory chipmakers, but has gained significant share in logic chip equipment and we expect it to be more in line with peers’ exposure in the future. In our view, Lam will benefit from broadly increasing chip complexity over the long term, including advanced packaging, new transistor architectures, and high-bandwidth memory capacity expansion. We expect Lam to increase sales in the mid- to high-single digits over the course of market cycles and over the long term.

Lam's June quarter results came in above the midpoints of management guidance, with revenue rising 34% year over year and 10% sequentially to $5.17 billion. September guidance implies similarly high revenue, but management expects a step down in revenue and margin in the December quarter.

Lam Research is one of the largest providers of wafer fabrication equipment for semiconductors, and we believe its strong portfolio should enable it to maintain and increase its large market share. Lam historically was weighted to memory chipmakers, but has gained significant share in logic chip equipment and we expect it to be more in line with peers’ exposure in the future. In our view, Lam will benefit from broadly increasing chip complexity over the long term, including advanced packaging, new transistor architectures, and high-bandwidth memory capacity expansion. We expect Lam to increase sales in the mid- to high-single digits over the course of market cycles and over the long term.

Lam Research reported positive March-quarter results, with revenue rising 24% year over year to $4.72 billion and non-GAAP operating margin expanding 30 basis points year over year to 49.0%. Guidance calls for further growth, with a June-quarter sales midpoint of $5 billion.

Lam Research presented an optimistic calendar 2028 financial target model at its 2025 investor day. Management is expecting $26 billion in revenue and $6.50 non-GAAP EPS, implying 13% and 18% compound annual growth, respectively.

Lam Research is one of the largest providers of wafer fabrication equipment for semiconductors, and we believe its strong portfolio, particularly for memory chip production, should enable it to maintain and increase its large market share. In our view, Lam will benefit from increasing chip complexity over the long term, including progress toward higher memory chip density and high-bandwidth memory. We expect Lam to increase sales in the midsingle digits over the course of market cycles and over the long term.

Lam Research's December-quarter revenue rose by 16% year over year and 5% sequentially to $4.38 billion. Management guided for more growth in the March quarter and provided an expectation to outperform mid-single-digit chip equipment market growth in calendar 2025.

We have consolidated our recent DeepSeek-related coverage in this note. Artificial intelligence affects companies across much of our coverage, including semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, software, utilities, and energy.

Many technology hardware stocks under our coverage plunged in Monday trading after reports of DeepSeek's R1 generative artificial intelligence model out of China offering performance parity to top US models at a much lower training cost. The iShares Semiconductor ETF was down 8% in midday trading.

We maintain our $83 fair value estimate for shares of wide-moat Lam Research after the firm reported positive September quarter results that fit our expectations. Lam is benefiting from semiconductor capacity expansions at customers, particularly for cutting-edge chips serving artificial intelligence. We believe it is well-positioned to capture more of this demand with a strong portfolio diversified between memory and logic chips.