저자: ParkevTatevosian,CFA · 외국인
요약 보기
마이크론(MU)은 AI 데이터센터 수요로 매출이 급증(FY26 +191% 예상)했으나 성장의 상당 부분이 가격 인상에 의존해 지속성이 불확실하다. TSMC는 매출 성장은 완만하지만 안정적이고 영업현금흐름/매출 약 59.7%로 마진이 우수하다. 밸류에이션은 마이크론이 forward P/OCF 3.78배로 TSMC 14.85배보다 훨씬 저렴하며, DCF 적정가 대비 마이크론 저평가가 크다. 두 종목 모두 매수 의견이며, 같은 가격이면 TSMC를 택하겠지만 가격 매력으로 마이크론을 선택한다.
다듬은 글
Semiconductor demand is soaring due to the rising effectiveness of artificial intelligence. Two of the better-known semiconductor manufacturing companies are Micron Technology and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Investors are asking me which one I think is the better investment at current market prices.
And so that's what I'll do in this video. I'll compare these two semiconductor companies and answer which one I think makes a better investment at these price the first thing I want to look at when making this comparison is revenue. I want to look at a few years into the past and I want to look at a few years into the future and compare these two companies and determine which one is generating better revenue growth.
And let's start with Micron. In the current fiscal year that's going to end in August of 2026, Micron is forecast to generate a 191% revenue growth. A staggering amount and the company just reported quarterly financial results a few weeks ago and these numbers were absolutely phenomenal. I called it Micron's Nvidia moment.
The results were explosive for Micron. And then looking back, they've been demonstrating excellent revenue growth in the fiscal year that ended August of 2024, they generated 61.6% and then another 49% in the fiscal year that ends in August of 2025. Looking forward a bit longer in the fiscal year that will end in August of 2027, they're forecast to generate over 52% growth.
After that, there's an estimated decline in Micron's revenue in its fiscal year that will end August of 2028. And if you ask me, I think those estimates are off. I would I would wager that Micron generates another year of revenue growth even in the fiscal year that ends in August of 2028. Not only is demand for its products soaring, but they're adding new capacity that will allow them to sell more units.
Right now, the primary source of Micron's revenue surge is from higher prices. They're selling the similar amount of units, maybe a little bit more, but the primary source of their revenue growth is coming from price increases. In the coming years, they're adding new supply and that new supply will allow the company to sell more units and then the revenue growth will come from units and that's a more sustainable source of growth because if their prices remain at these elevated levels, the higher price will work to decrease demand.
And we're already seeing some of that demand destruction in Micron's other categories, right? The data center category, absolutely explosive and soaring, demand exceeds supply. But in Micron's more mature segments like computers and smartphones, that higher price is working to lower demand and there's going to be lower units sold in those categories if prices remain at these levels, but not the data center market.
The data center market is proving to be a market where even at higher prices, there's still a lot of demand available. So now let's look at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, which experienced a year of revenue decrease in 2023, -4.4%. And this was trend across the board for a lot of electronics companies overall and that's why Taiwan Semiconductor's revenue decreased in 2023.
There was a lot of electronics purchased in 2020, 2021 and 2022 during those pandemic years when people around the world were stimulated by government funds, you know, worldwide governments stimulated their economies with various kinds of stimulus checks and stimulus measures. And at the same time, a lot of governments around the world restricted what kinds of businesses were allowed to remain open during the pandemic.
So people had more money to spend and fewer places to spend it. And one of the places that received that concentrated customer spending was in electronics and that benefited Taiwan Semiconductor and others in those boom years, but then there was some gap time where revenue didn't increase as a result.
And then in 2024, Taiwan Semiconductor still experiencing those headwinds from the electronics industry, smartphones, computers, etc. were still not growing all that much, but that's when the the boom for data centers really started to take off for Taiwan Semiconductor, 25% growth in that year followed by another 37.8% growth in 2025.
And in the current year, they're forecasting a 29% increase and then another two years of 20% north of 20% revenue growth expected, 24.1% and 21.6% to be more precise. So Taiwan Semiconductor forecast to generate strong revenue growth, but compared to Micron, its revenue growth is slower, but more consistent, whereas Micron is going to generate more revenue growth, but less consistent, more heavily weighted towards this next upcoming year and the year after that and then forecasting a slowdown, but I'm saying that I don't think there will be a slowdown in Micron's revenue even in fiscal year 2028.
So now that we looked at revenue, let's look at margins and let's look at operating cash flow to sales. And comparing Taiwan Semiconductor to Micron, we can see a clear advantage for Taiwan Semiconductor, flow to sales might be the best of any company I'm following. I can't think of off the top of my head any company that has a better operating cash flow to sales ratio compared to Taiwan Semiconductor.
And the fact that this is a manufacturing company that's generating these kinds of margins is truly impressive. I've called Taiwan Semiconductor the best manufacturing company in the world, period. Doesn't have to be a semiconductor manufacturing company, just any kind of manufacturing. I haven't seen or come across a better manufacturing company.
If you know of one that you think is better, let me know cuz I haven't seen one. And you know, I'm doing this 10, 12 hours a day, six days a week, looking across markets around the world. And I've been doing this for a decade now, so let me know if there's one that I've missed on my search here. But this is an incredible manufacturing company, very efficient, very effective, great management.
They've just been best in class, world-class in what they do. Also great, nothing to complain about here, but just when you compare it to Taiwan Semiconductor, they're behind. And there are relatively few companies that can say that to Micron, to say that we're better than you in terms of cash flow to sales cuz Micron at 47% is among the leaders of all of the companies I'm following, too.
It's just that Taiwan Semiconductor might be the best. And so comparing it against the best, it's a tough comparison for Micron. But what I do notice here is a clear trend for Micron upward, whereas the trend is not as great for Taiwan Semiconductor. Micron's cash flow to sales at 47% is up from 25% about a decade ago, whereas Taiwan Semiconductor at 59.7% is only up a few basis points from the 57% it generated in 2016.
Looking forward, Taiwan Semiconductor's margins also look more sustainable compared to Micron's. As I mentioned, the primary source of Micron's recent success are the elevated prices. And that typically is not as sustainable as growth from unit expansion with more moderate growth in average selling prices.
But Micron is heavily heavily shifted towards price increases compared to unit growth. And just to give you an idea, it's something like 60% growth in price compared to the same quarter last year and about 12 or 13% growth in units. When you when you combine Micron's units between storage and memory, that's the kind of increase, the soaring price increase that Micron is experiencing for its units.
Whereas for Taiwan Semiconductor, it's more balanced. The increase in selling price per unit for Taiwan Semiconductor, not all that meaningful. It's generating more of its improvements from unit expansion and technology expansion because, you know, it goes from, you know, 4 nanometer technology to 3 nanometer to 2 nanometer.
The smaller and smaller it gets, the more advanced the technology. And of course, the more advanced technology garners a higher selling price. It's not just the same technology that's achieving the higher selling price. It's new technology that's getting a higher selling price. And that kind of price increase is more sustainable than a price increase on existing technology.
So now let's look at valuation. What we've seen so far is Micron might be experiencing better revenue growth in the near term, although it's a lot more volatile and a lot more risky in terms of estimating its revenue growth, whereas Taiwan Semiconductor was experiencing slower revenue growth, but more consistent and more sustainable.
And then when we compared margins, Taiwan Semiconductor was well ahead of Micron Technology on margins and also more sustainable. So if they're selling at, you know, exactly the same valuation, I would go with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, easy decision. But they're not selling at the same price.
In fact, Taiwan Semiconductor is way more expensive than Micron in terms of regardless of the valuation method I used on the market multiples. I'm going to share with you here the forward price to operating cash flow, where Taiwan Semiconductor is trading at 14.85, whereas Micron is trading at a ridiculously cheap 3.78.
So much cheaper valuation here for Taiwan, I should say for Micron. And then when looking at ethod, I calculated a fair value for Micron stock at 483 compared to a market price of 367. So, it looks very undervalued on the valuation of the discounted cash flow model. And when I look at Taiwan Semiconductor, it also looks undervalued when the market price is 341 and my intrinsic value per share is 408.
So, these are both undervalued and I have them both rated as a buy. It's not an easy decision which one I would rather have, but if you forced me to pick one of these two companies, I would pick Micron because of the valuation looking so much more attractive compared to .
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