Key Stats for Applied Materials Stock
- Current Price: $444.57
- Target Price (Mid): ~$790
- Street Target: ~$641
- Potential Total Return: ~78%
- Annualized IRR: ~15% / year
Now Live: Discover how much upside your favorite stocks could have using TIKR’s new Valuation Model (It’s free) >>>
What Happened?
Applied Materials (AMAT) closed up 6.51% at $444.57 on September 18, its sharpest gain in months, two sessions after bottoming out its worst drawdown of the year on September 16, 42.55% below its 52-week high of $739.67. Even after the pop, shares sit roughly 40% under that high. If you searched why the stock moved, the honest answer is that the entire chip-equipment group rallied that day, with Lam Research leading and KLA joining, and Applied rode a sector move it did not create.
The India headline that ran alongside the move is the more durable story, but it is not what did most of the work. The $5 billion plan is a decade-long footprint expansion, not a near-term revenue event. What actually underpins the recovery is a demand forecast that CEO Gary Dickerson keeps revising higher, and a stock that fell far enough to make that forecast cheap again.
The India Plan Is Real, and Industry-Wide
At SEMICON India in New Delhi on September 17, Applied unveiled “India Vision 2035,” a plan to invest $5 billion in the country over the next decade. The money funds a 140-acre research park, a roughly tenfold expansion of India-based supply-chain capacity, and a doubling of the local R&D workforce.
One day earlier, Lam Research announced its own roughly $1.2 billion India plan for a silicon-component facility and R&D expansion, timed to the same conference. That matters for reading the stock. The India news was an industry-wide SEMICON wave, not an AMAT-specific catalyst, which is why the move looked more like a sector rally than a re-rating of Applied alone. The company-specific angle is narrower: Dickerson has flagged regionalization as a tailwind for the higher-margin service business, because new fabs in new places lack the infrastructure and yield-ramp experience Applied sells.
See historical and forward estimates for Applied Materials stock (It’s free!) >>>
The Demand Number Management Keeps Raising
At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference on September 9, Dickerson walked through it: “In February, we said greater than 20% revenue growth. In May, we said greater than 30% revenue growth. Now we’re approaching 40% revenue growth.” That is management raising its own bar three times in seven months.
Dickerson pointed to a structural inversion: a few years ago, smartphone wafer starts were 4x larger than data center, today they are 1:1, and in a couple of years, data center will run 2:1 over smartphone. That shift is why he says 80% of wafer fab equipment growth this year comes from leading-edge foundry-logic, DRAM, including high-bandwidth memory, and advanced packaging, with the same mix holding in 2027. Advanced packaging revenue is tracking to grow more than 70% this calendar year toward a $2 billion to $3 billion business, and process control, powered by e-beam and optical inspection, is growing over 50%.
Fiscal Q3 2026, reported August 13, delivered record revenue of $9.12 billion, up 25% year over year, with adjusted EPS of $3.50, beating the Street’s $3.40, and DRAM revenue, including high-bandwidth-memory packaging, hit a record.
The Valuation Got Interesting Again Because the Stock Fell
In June, when Applied traded near $549, the TIKR mid-case model pointed to roughly $533, so the stock was already pricing the high case. The drawdown reset that math. At $444.57, Applied trades at about 25x next-twelve-month earnings, reasonable for a business the Street models growing forward two-year EPS at a 40% clip.
On NTM EV/EBITDA, Applied sits at 21.57x, below Lam Research at 25.36x, KLA at 26.62x, and ASML at 22.75x, per TIKR’s Competitors page. Part of that discount is structural, because ASML’s lithography monopoly and KLA’s metrology scarcity carry premiums that Applied’s broader portfolio does not. Part of it is the recovery trade: the market has not fully re-rated Applied after the sell-off, even as the demand forecast rose. The risks are real. China remains a meaningful revenue base exposed to export controls, the multiple still embeds years of double-digit growth, and a single soft guide could undo a month of gains. Dickerson himself allowed there could be periods where compute demand grows more slowly for macro reasons, even as he called the multi-year trend clear.
See how Applied Materials performs against its peers in TIKR (It’s free!) >>>
TIKR Advanced Model Analysis
- Current Price: $444.57
- Target Price (Mid): ~$790
- Potential Total Return: ~78%
- Annualized IRR: ~15% / year
See analysts’ growth forecasts and price targets for Applied Materials stock (It’s free!) >>>
TIKR’s mid-case model values Applied at around $790 by late 2030, a total return of roughly 78%, or about 15% annualized. The mid case fits better than the high case here, because after the drawdown, its assumptions no longer require heroics to clear today’s price. The two revenue drivers are leading-edge foundry-logic and DRAM, including high-bandwidth memory, the segments tied to 80% of industry equipment growth. The margin driver is services, where Applied lifted gross margin 180 basis points in the past year, selling yield and output innovation across its 37,000 connected chambers. The primary risk is China and export policy, which can compress revenue and multiple at once.
The upside case: if forward two-year revenue growth near 28% and net margins pushing toward 30% hold, the mid case looks conservative. The downside: if AI equipment orders normalize and the multiple compresses toward its historical range, the stock revisits the lows it just bounced off. The mid case assumes revenue growth around 15% CAGR through 2030 and net margins near 30%.
Conclusion
The India news gave the group a reason to rally, but the number to watch for Applied specifically is management’s own forecast. Applied reports fiscal Q4 in November, and the tell will be whether “approaching 40% revenue growth” survives contact with actual 2027 guidance. A systems outlook holding near 30%-plus reads as confirmation that the recovery has legs. A softer guide, or any hint that the eight-quarter customer visibility is shortening, would confirm the bounce was mostly the sector. Watch the November print, and watch whether the stock holds above its recent lows while it waits.
See what stocks billionaire investors are buying so you can follow the smart money with TIKR.
Should You Invest in Applied Materials?
The only way to really know is to look at the numbers yourself. TIKR gives you free access to the same institutional-quality financial data that professional analysts use to answer exactly that question.
Pull up Applied Materials, and you’ll see years of historical financials, what Wall Street analysts expect for revenue and earnings in the quarters ahead, how valuation multiples have moved over time, and whether price targets are trending up or down.
You can build a free watchlist to track Applied Materials alongside every other stock on your radar. No credit card required. Just the data you need to decide for yourself.
Analyze Applied Materials on TIKR Free →
Looking for New Opportunities?
- See what stocks billionaire investors are buying so you can follow the smart money.
- Analyze stocks in as little as 5 minutes with TIKR’s all-in-one, easy-to-use platform.
- The more rocks you overturn… the more opportunities you’ll uncover. Search 100K+ global stocks, global top investor holdings, and more with TIKR.
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
