UPDATE: Micron Tech 4Q Loss Narrows; Results Top Views

Micron Technology Inc. (MU) sharply narrowed its fiscal fourth-quarter loss amid prior year write-downs, while also suggesting the beaten-down markets for memory chips are recovering.

"The market, while still challenging, is beginning to improve," said Micron Chairman and Chief Executive Steve Appleton. The company said it saw demand increase across several segments, including computers and mobile products.

Shares of the memory chip maker fell 2% after-hours to $8.23. The stock through the close had more than tripled in value this year, as investors saw Micron as one of the likely survivors in an industry plagued over the last three years by oversupply conditions.

Micron is the last U.S. maker of a type of computer memory chip known as dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM. It also makes flash memory chips, and has suffered along with international peers from oversupply of both DRAM and flash memory.

But cuts in capacity throughout the industry have helped turn prices around, and a number of companies have reported recently that demand is growing.

For the fourth quarter, which ended Sept. 3, revenue dropped 10% to $1.3 billion from the year earlier period. But sales of DRAM and flash memory rose 28% and 10% respectively from the third quarter.

DRAM chips are used in personal computers, while flash memory chips are found in such devices as MP3 music players and digital cameras.

Meanwhile, gross margin came in at 13%, the second-straight quarter of positive margins. Prior to the third-quarter, Micron had posted three straight quarters of negative readings as the selling price of chips fell below the cost of producing them.

For the fourth quarter, Micron reported a loss of $88 million, or 10 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $344 million, or 45 cents a share. The prior-year results included a $205 million write-down on memory chips and a $70 million gain related to price adjustments for chips bought from other producers.

The latest results topped analysts' expectations. Wall Street expected a loss of 19 cents a share on revenue of $1.27 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters.

Micron is growing its share of the current market, said executives during the company's conference call to discuss the results. Micron was one of the earliest firms to transition to a more cost-effective manufacturing technology, and the capital needed by others to make the transition remains difficult to find.

"It's gone, it's just not available, and if you can't generate the cash internally, then you have a very difficult time raising the money," said Mark Adams, head of worldwide sales for Micron.

The company said it has seen shortages in specialty DRAM memory chips and chips used for servers. Meanwhile in its flash memory unit, smartphones have helped to keep the mobile segment healthy.

-By Jerry A. DiColo and Kathy Shwiff, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2155; [e-mail]; [e-mail]

(Kevin Kingsbury contributed to this report.)