Amazon beats on Q2 earnings, but Q3 profit forecast comes in light; capex goes sky-high

Micron shares are continuing their meteoric rise after South Korean competitor SK Hynix reported record earnings for the final quarter of 2025, underscoring the continued demand for the world’s three leading memory chip manufacturers — SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung — fueled by rampant AI capex spending.

Driven by demand for its high-bandwidth-memory (HBM) products, a higher-margin memory product essential for AI accelerators, the company posted a record 32.8 trillion won (~$22.6 billion) in revenue and 19.2 trillion won ($13.2 billion) in operating profit for the fourth quarter. The company’s shares were up more than 6% in trading in Korea.

SK Hynix also announced on Wednesday that it will commit at least $10 billion as it restructures a subsidiary to establish a new US-based company specialized in finding “new AI growth engines.” Management also continues to consider listing its shares in the US.

SK Hynix’s latest performance reflects the strong demand for HBM3E, its cutting-edge DRAM product, for which the Korean firm is the main supplier to big tech companies like Nvidia and Microsoft. Micron is second to SK Hynix’s dominance in the HBM space in market share.

Elsewhere in the AI memory and storage space, Seagate’s robust results and strong guidance is helping to lift sentiment further.

Micron, Western Digital and, Sandisk are soaring in premarket trading stateside, while Samsung shares popped up a smaller 2% at Wednesday’s close in Korea.

Dutch semi equipment giant ASML’s strong start to the year looks set to continue after the company’s solid revenue beat, rosy 2026 guidance, and strong order book outweighed softer margins in the final quarter of the year. For Q4, the company reported:

Net sales: €9.718 billion (estimate: €9.57 billion). A 1.6% beat.

Adjusted earnings per share: €7.34 (estimate: €7.56). A 3% miss.

The guidance told a similar story, with stronger topline and a marginally softer margin outlook.

For the full year 2026, ASML management expects total net sales to be between €34 billion and €39 billion, with a gross margin between 51% and 53%. Consensus estimates, as of 4 a.m. ET this morning, were expecting €35.1 billion, with an anticipated gross margin of 52.9%. At the midpoints of those ranges the guidance is solidly above on revenue, and a bit below on margin.

For the current quarter, ASML said sales would range from €8.2 billion to €8.9 billion, with the same gross margin profile as the full year (between 51% and 53%). Even the low end of that revenue guidance is above the Street’s forecasts, with Q1 consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg showing €8.1 billion in revenue.

The strength of demand for the company’s highly sought after extreme ultraviolet lithography machines was underscored in its bookings, one of the most closely watched figures in the industry, which came in at €13.2 billion in Q4 — a blowout compared to the €6.8 billion analysts were expecting.

The company also announced that it would be cutting about 1,700 jobs in the Netherlands and the US, representing about a 4% cut to its workforce, per Bloomberg.

ADRs of Europe’s largest publicly traded company pushed higher immediately after the print, although they have since pared some of those gains, currently up around 4.4% as of 4:25 a.m. ET. That upward jolt adds to a strong start to 2026, with the stock up 36% heading into this report. The longevity and magnitude of the AI boom is spurring massive capex spending not just by hyperscalers, but also from the chip companies that supply the brains behind this build-out.

ASML and other semicap companies offer equipment that enables chip companies to make more chips. The Dutch company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography occupies a particularly important chokepoint in chip development by etching designs onto tiny wafers.

Back in July, ASML rattled investors by warning that growth in 2026 couldn’t be guaranteed. These results, backlog, and guidance suggest that those fears won’t come to pass, to put it mildly.

Texas Instruments soared in after-hours trading as better than expected Q1 guidance outweighed a mediocre set of Q4 results.

The chipmaker sees current quarter sales ranging between $4.32 billion to $4.62 billion, the midpoint of which is slightly north of the consensus estimate for $4.42 billion. The outlook for earnings per share of $1.22 to $1.48 also compares favorably to Wall Street’s call for $1.26.

For Q4, sales of $4.42 billion were a tad below the consensus call for $4.43 billion, while earnings per share of $1.27 came in three cents light of the Street’s view. However, earnings per share included a six-cent hit that was not incorporated into the company’s guidance, Texas Instruments said.

Managing expectations had not been Texas Instruments’ strong suit as of late: the stock sank after the firm reported Q3 results since Q4 guidance was weak. And during the conference call that followed Q2 earnings, three separate analysts remarked that CEO Haviv Ilan’s “tone” wasn’t too upbeat despite better than expected financials and decent guidance.

This time, the outlook and commentary is all sunshine and rainbows.

“The first quarter guidance is significantly stronger than seasonal,” remarked Deutsche Bank analyst Ross Seymore. “And if my math is right, it seems like it's the first time you've guided up sequentially since right after the financial crisis 15 years ago, roughly.”

Ilan credited this to a persistent recovery in industrial demand, which accounts for about one third of the company’s sales.

“Remember that on the industrial market, we still have a lot of room to go when you think about the previous peaks,” he said. “So, if you will, the compare, it's still easy for industrial to continue to recover.”

And then, of course, there’s AI. Data center revenues are a small but briskly growing part of TI’s business, accounting for 9% of sales for the full year while surging roughly 70% year-on-year in Q4.