LRCX Q4 2026 Earnings Analysis
Record FY2026 revenue of $23.2B with 50.6% gross margin, Q4 NAND doubled, advanced packaging >70% growth, September guidance $8.1B, and 2026 WFE raised to $150B.
Key Metrics
Key Takeaways
- NAND revenue doubled; AI-driven 256+ layer conversions and SSD demand are primary growth vectors.
- Advanced packaging on pace for >70% YoY growth; shipping panel-level tools for larger AI chips.
- CSBG revenue hit record $2.5B (+43% YoY); Equipment Intelligence solutions scaling across memory.
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Transcript
// Full episode scriptWelcome to Beta Finch, your AI-powered earnings breakdown, bringing you the numbers and the narrative from Wall Street's biggest movers. I'm Alex, joined as always by Jordan. Today we're digging into Lam Research's June quarter, fiscal Q4 2026 — and Jordan, this one's a barnburner. Before we get into it, quick disclaimer: this podcast is AI-generated content for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing we discuss should be considered investment advice. Always do your own research and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
With that out of the way — Alex, Lam just closed out fiscal 2026 with records stacked on records. Fourth straight quarter of record revenue, highest gross margin in 20 years, record operating margin, record EPS. This is a semiconductor equipment maker riding the AI capex wave about as well as anyone.
Let's hit the headline numbers. June quarter revenue came in at $6.72 billion, up 15% sequentially and 30% year-over-year. Gross margin hit 52%, operating margin 38.4%, diluted EPS a record $1.82 — all above the high end of guidance. For the full fiscal year, revenue was $23.2 billion with EPS of $5.82, up 41% from fiscal 2025.
And the guide for September is even bigger — $8.1 billion, plus or minus $400 million. That's more than 20% sequential growth. CEO Tim Archer also raised his calendar 2026 wafer fab equipment spending outlook to the "low $150 billion range," up from the prior $140 billion call.
What jumped out to me was NAND. Revenue there literally doubled sequentially. Archer tied that directly to AI — bigger context windows, persistent memory requirements, all of it pushing customers to upgrade their fabs to 200-plus layer NAND architectures.
Right, and this is where the story gets interesting for the long haul. Archer said Lam's served available market — SAM — per wafer in NAND could double again as layer counts climb from 128-layer to 500-plus layer devices. More layers means more etch and deposition steps, and etch and deposition is Lam's bread and butter.
They also talked a lot about advanced packaging — TSV etch and electroplating for things like HBM. That segment's growth outlook has basically been revised upward every quarter this year — from 40%, to 50%, now to over 70% year-over-year growth.
And it's not just chasing today's demand. Archer mentioned future AI packages could be nine times the size of a standard reticle — three times larger than today's chips — which is pushing the whole industry toward panel-level packaging instead of traditional wafers. Lam's already shipped panel-format tools into development programs, so they're trying to get ahead of that transition.
Let's talk margins for a second, because CFO Doug Bettinger got some pointed questions on this. Analysts pushed him on how Lam gets from today's 51-52% gross margin to the "mid-50s" long-term target they've now laid out — up from the "high-40s to 50%" framework from their 2025 investor day.
His answer was basically: it's a mix of scale, operational efficiency — a lot of credit went to their global manufacturing footprint, including that Malaysia facility JPMorgan's analyst asked about — plus new product introductions and, yes, pricing. But he was clear it's going to take "several years," not quarters.
One exchange I loved was the debate over 2027. Multiple analysts tried to get Bettinger to put a number on next year's growth, and he wouldn't bite, but he kept saying things like "pretty darn good year" and that he feels "incrementally good" about each successive quarter. The industry is still undersupplied — there are reportedly eight to ten new fabs coming online globally between now and the end of 2027.
That undersupply point matters. Bettinger also updated a framework they'd floated last year — roughly $100 billion in hyperscaler data center capex translating to about $8 billion in wafer fab equipment spending. He said that ratio is now trending a billion or two higher than they'd previously estimated, which tells you AI infrastructure spending is pulling through even more equipment demand than expected.
There was also a nice moment where they addressed the bear case directly — an analyst from Citi asked about a third-party forecast calling for NAND oversupply next year due to weak consumer demand. Archer pushed back gently, saying the upgrade cycle to higher-layer NAND still has legs, and reminded everyone that Lam's story isn't just NAND — DRAM and foundry logic are actually expected to grow faster next year.
Regionally, Taiwan hit a record 27% of revenue, while China fell to 26% from 34% the prior quarter — largely due to declining mature-node spending from domestic Chinese customers, even as multinational customers operating in China actually grew. Korea came in at 20%.
And don't sleep on the Customer Support Business Group — CSBG. Nearly $2.5 billion in revenue, up 17% sequentially, 43% year-over-year, driven by record upgrade revenue. Lam's also rolling out these "Dextro" collaborative maintenance robots — cobots — that are helping customers boost tool uptime during a period of industry-wide supply shortages.
So what does this all mean for investors watching from home? The picture Lam painted is: 2026 is already a standout year, outperforming broader WFE growth for a third straight year, and 2027 is shaping up to be even stronger thanks to AI-driven fab buildouts across NAND, DRAM, and foundry logic. Management's confident enough to raise both their WFE outlook and their margin targets in the same call.
The risks worth watching — China's mature-node business staying soft, gross margin expansion taking "several years" rather than happening overnight, and the fact that management still won't put hard numbers on 2027 yet. There's optimism, but also real caution about getting ahead of themselves.
Before we wrap — everything discussed is AI-generated analysis for educational purposes. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Please do your own due diligence.
With clean rooms filling up, AI workloads pushing NAND, DRAM, and packaging into new territory, and Lam's technology showing up at nearly every leading-edge node, this is a name that's clearly benefiting from the AI infrastructure buildout — the question going forward is how much of that is already priced in.
We'll be watching the September quarter results closely to see if that 20%+ sequential growth guide holds up. Thanks for tuning in to Beta Finch — we'll catch you next time.
See you then.