These 10 tech stocks have been models of consistency for a decade - none are chip stocks

By Philip van Doorn Investors caught up in AI euphoria may need to be reminded that some industries go through slow periods These are among a small number of technology companies that have managed to increase revenue by at least 10% annually for each of the past 10 years. This year's performance for technology stocks has been remarkable, especially for those in the semiconductor industry. And some of the hottest tech stocks are remarkably cheap relative to the companies' profit estimates. Therein lies a warning for investors. If you wish to hold a group of individual technology stocks, it might be a good idea to add exposure to some steady growers to complement your exposure to the generative artificial intelligence trade. These are screened below. And what about this warning built into some tech stock valuations? Micron (MU) provides an excellent example. Based on consensus estimates from analysts polled by LSEG, Micron is expected to post revenue of $108.92 billion for its current fiscal year, which ends on Aug. 31. That would make for a sales increase of 191% from the previous year. And the company's earnings per share are expected to increase to $57.64 for the current fiscal year from $7.59 during the previous fiscal year. The surge in demand for Micron's memory chips installed by data centers to support AI technology has led to a 154% increase in its share price this year, following a 239% gain for the stock in 2025. Micron has a market capitalization of $817 billion, making it the 12th largest component of the S&P 500 SPX. So why is Micron's forward price/earnings ratio only 8.2? The forward P/E is a company's share price divided by the consensus EPS estimate for the next 12 months. Micron's forward P/E compares to weighted valuations of 10.9 for the S&P 500, 23.5 for the S&P 500's information technology sector and 26 (as calculated by LSEG) for the iShares Semiconductor ETF SOXX, which tracks the NYSE Semiconductor Index by holding all 30 of its stocks, including Micron. The reason Micron's forward P/E is so low, despite its incredible success during the more recent phases of the AI hardware build-out, is that investors remember that the market for computer memory components is so cyclical. Micron's sales declined 49% during its fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2023. The broader semiconductor industry is also cyclical. Nvidia's (NVDA) forward P/E might be considered modest at 23.3. Maybe that is because the company's revenue was flat for its fiscal year ended Jan. 29, 2023, and down 6.8% for its fiscal year ended Jan. 26, 2020. Within tech but outside the semiconductor industry, there are plenty of companies that have seen occasional revenue declines over the past decade. These include Apple (AAPL), whose sales declined 2.8% during its fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2023. Screening tech stocks for consistently high revenue growth For a broad screen of tech companies that have increased sales most consistently over the past decade, we began with the 190 stocks in the information technology sector of the S&P Composite 1500 Index XX:SP1500, which is made up of the S&P 500, the S&P MidCap 400 MID and the S&P Small Cap 600 SML. The S&P information technology sector excludes some tech-oriented companies such as Meta Platforms (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL), which are actually in the S&P communications services sector. The S&P 1500 IT sector also excludes other well-known U.S.-listed tech names, such as Marvell Technology (MRVL). So we added 10 more companies that are in the Nasdaq-100 technology index XX:NDXT but not included in the S&P 1500, to bring our initial list up to 202 companies We narrowed those 202 companies down to 163, for which at least 11 fiscal years of annual report data were available from LSEG. Some of the companies haven't existed in their current forms for that long. Among the 163 companies, 10 have had annual sales increase at least 10.0% for each of the past 10 full fiscal years. Here they are, ranked by minimum annual sales growth rates for the decade: Any stock screen will have limited information. If you see any companies of interest here, you should do your own research to form your own opinion as to whether or not their business strategy is likely to hold up over the long term. One way to begin that process is to click on the tickers for more information. Read: Tomi Kilgore's detailed guide to the information available on the MarketWatch quote page Don't miss: 20 stocks in the S&P 500 of companies with soaring sales and improving profit margins -Philip van Doorn This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. (END) Dow Jones Newswires 05-18-26 1021ET