Amsterdam, October 2024 – Say goodbye to cramped airplane seats and endless airport lines. Europe’s best cities are just a train ride away, and now, with Traingift, they’re just a gift card away too.

Experiencegift, the company behind the world’s leading travel gifting brands Flightgift, Hotelgift, and Activitygift, is excited to announce the launch of its newest innovation: Traingift. Founded by entrepreneurs Loes Daniels and Jorik Schröder, Experiencegift launches the first gift card for train journeys across Europe.

“As a frequent traveler myself, I understand the growing appeal of train travel over flying or driving. It’s convenient, flexible, eco-friendly, and you can admire the scenery while staying connected to work or family,” said Loes Daniels, co-founder of Experiencegift. “With Traingift, we’re responding to this rising trend and offering the world a way to gift memorable train journeys. I’ve personally enjoyed the ease of traveling by train between cities like Amsterdam, Paris, and London, and I believe our customers will appreciate this experience as well.”

Traingift provides access to Europe’s largest rail networks, covering over 25,000 destinations in 33+ countries, from high-speed Eurostar trains to scenic Eurail and Interrail passes. Traingift recipients can redeem their cards for one-way trips or unlimited travel passes, opening the door to cities like Paris, Munich, Milan, and more. By partnering with leading rail networks such as Deutsche Bahn, Trenitalia, and Eurostar, Traingift ensures a wide range of options, whether for business travelers, vacationers, or eco-conscious explorers.

Available in multiple languages and 15 currencies, Traingift is designed to be as flexible as possible, appealing to customers worldwide. Gift cards are available as a premium physical gift voucher, featuring a custom image and text printed in high-quality photo resolution. Alternatively, for a quicker option, the gift can be sent digitally as a PDF or eGift, perfect for last-minute gifting.

“We believe in experiences over things. That’s why we created Traingift, to make gifting train travel as exciting and accessible as possible,” added Loes. “Train travel is sustainable, scenic, and stress-free, and we’re excited to offer this new gift card for people to experience Europe.”

Jorik believes this new gift card perfectly fits the current shift towards more sustainable, experience-focused travel options. “More people are opting for train travel because it’s greener, and it’s more convenient than flying. I have friends who’ve even given up flying entirely in favor of train travel. With Traingift, we’re offering the ultimate gift for the conscious traveler—something that allows people to create unforgettable experiences while reducing their carbon footprint.”

Loes and Jorik’s entrepreneurial journey hasn’t been without its challenges. Starting with just two people, they have grown Experiencegift to a team of 70 colleagues and offices in New York, London, Amsterdam, and Athens. “Building a company from the ground up is no small feat,” shared Jorik. “We faced numerous hurdles along the way, including the unprecedented challenges to the travel industry posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite these obstacles, we remained committed to innovation and adaptability. During this time, we managed to improve our operations and grow our gift card brands to the successful company we are today.”

The launch of Traingift is a major step forward for Experiencegift, whose other brands have seen rapid global growth. The company is now active in over 50 countries and has earned a reputation for being innovative, with a strong focus on providing a wide range of redemption options and a personalized gift experience.

Traingift is now available for purchase at www.traingift.com.

About Experiencegift

Founded by Loes Daniels and Jorik Schröder, Experiencegift is a global leader in experience gift cards. With brands like Hotelgift, Flightgift, Activitygift, and now Traingift, they empower people to gift meaningful experiences across the world. The company operates in more than 50 countries and has earned multiple awards, including the top prize in the Deloitte Fast 50 and a nomination for EY Entrepreneur of the Year.

In addition to growing Experiencegift, Loes Daniels is passionate about empowering other women to think big and be ambitious. She founded BusinessWomen to inspire and support women in pursuing their professional dreams.

2024 is turning out to be a solid year for the global semiconductor industry, driven by multiple catalysts. These include the booming demand for chips that can manage artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, a turnaround in the smartphone market’s fortunes, and a recovery in the personal computer (PC) market.

These factors explain why the global semiconductor industry’s revenue is expected to jump 16% in 2024 to $611.2 billion, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). That points toward a nice turnaround from last year, when the semiconductor industry’s revenue fell 8%. Even better, the semiconductor space is expected to keep growing in 2025 as well, with WSTS projecting a 12.5% increase in the industry’s earnings to $687.4 billion next year.

More specifically, WSTS predicts a whopping 25% increase in the memory market’s revenue in 2025 to $204.3 billion. As it turns out, memory is expected to be the fastest-growing semiconductor segment next year as well, following an estimated jump of almost 77% in this segment’s revenue in 2024.

There’s one company that could help investors tap this fast-growing niche of the semiconductor market next year: Micron Technology (NASDAQ: MU). Let’s look at the reasons why buying this semiconductor stock could turn out to be a smart move right now.

WSTS isn’t the only forecaster expecting the memory market to surge higher next year. Market research firm TrendForce estimates that the sales of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) could jump 51% in 2025, while the NAND flash storage market could clock 29% growth. Both these markets are expected to reach record highs next year.

The growth in these memory markets will be driven by a combination of strong demand and improved pricing. TrendForce is forecasting a 35% year-over-year increase in DRAM prices next year, driven by the increasing demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) that’s used in AI processors, as well as the growth in DRAM deployed in servers. Meanwhile, the growing demand for enterprise-class solid-state drives (SSDs) and the growth in smartphone storage will be tailwinds for the NAND flash market.

These positive trends explain why Micron is set to begin its new fiscal year on a bright note. The company’s revenue in fiscal 2024 (which ended on Aug. 29) increased 61% year over year to $25.1 billion. The company posted a non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) profit of $1.30 per share, compared to a loss of $4.45 per share in fiscal 2023, driven by a big jump in its operating margin on account of recovering memory prices.

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More importantly, Micron is expecting fiscal 2025 Q1 revenue of $8.7 billion at the midpoint of its guidance range. That would be a jump of 84% from the same quarter last year. The memory specialist has guided for non-GAAP earnings of $1.74 per share for the current quarter, up substantially from the loss of $0.95 per share it suffered in the same quarter last year.

The good part is that its top and bottom lines are expected to jump substantially in both fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026 (see chart below).

It won’t be surprising to see Micron deliver such impressive growth thanks to the health of the memory market. However, there is a good chance it could end up exceeding analysts’ expectations.

Micron management remarked on the latest earnings conference call that it is “making investments to support artificial intelligence (AI)-driven demand, and our manufacturing network is well positioned to execute on these opportunities.” The company has guided for capital expenditures of $3.5 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2025, which would be a big leap over the $1.7 billion capex it reported in the year-ago period.

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Micron is doing the right thing by increasing its capex, as the company says that it has sold out its entire HBM production capacity for 2024 and 2025. The addressable opportunity in the HBM market is expected to grow from $4 billion in 2023 to $25 billion next year, per Micron’s estimates. So an increase in capital spending should allow Micron to shore up its production capacity and fulfill more demand, which could lead to a stronger-than-expected performance from the company.

Micron stock has been subject to some volatility this year, but it has still clocked respectable gains of 30%, as compared to the PHLX Semiconductor Sector index’s 25% jump. The stock, however, has gained impressive momentum since it reported its quarterly results on Sept. 25. There is a strong likelihood that it will be able to sustain this bull run in 2025 and beyond, thanks to the favorable dynamics in the memory market, as discussed.

We have already seen in the chart that Micron’s earnings could hit $8.91 per share in the current fiscal year before jumping to $12.80 per share in fiscal 2026. Assuming Micron does generate $12.80 per share in annual earnings after a couple of years and trades at 30 times forward earnings at that time, in line with the Nasdaq-100 index’s forward earnings multiple (using the index as a proxy for tech stocks), its stock price could hit $384.

That would be a big increase from Micron’s current stock price of around $109, suggesting that this chip stock could deliver outstanding gains over the next two years. Given that Micron is trading at just 12.5 times earnings right now, investors are getting a good deal on this tech stock that seems set to skyrocket going forward.

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Harsh Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Semiconductor Sales Could Keep Soaring in 2025: 1 Top Stock to Buy Hand Over Fist Before That Happens was originally published by The Motley Fool

Tech pioneer Intel (INTC) has seemingly missed out on the artificial intelligence boom — and part of it can reportedly be traced back to a decision not to buy the chipmaker at the center of it all almost two decades ago.

Intel’s former chief executive Paul Otellini wanted to buy Nvidia in 2005 when the chipmaker was mostly known for making computer graphics chips, which some executives thought had potential for data centers, The New York Times (NYT) reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. However, Intel’s board did not approve of the $20 billion acquisition — which would’ve been the company’s most expensive yet — and Otellini dropped the effort, according to The New York Times.

Instead, the board was reportedly more interested in an in-house graphics project called Larrabee, which was led by now-chief executive Pat Gelsinger.

Almost two decades later, Nvidia (NVDA) has become the second-most valuable public company in the world and continuously exceeds Wall Street’s high expectations. Intel, on the other hand, has seen its shares fall around 53% so far this year and is now worth less than $100 billion — around 30 times less than Nvidia’s $3.4 trillion market cap.

In August, Intel shares fell 27% after it missed revenue expectations with its second-quarter earnings and announced layoffs. The company missed profit expectations partly due to its decision to “more quickly ramp” its Core Ultra artificial intelligence CPUs, or core processing units, that can handle AI applications, Gelsinger said on the company’s earnings call.

And Nvidia wasn’t the only AI darling Intel missed out on.

Over a decade after passing on Nvidia, Intel made another strategic miss by reportedly deciding not to buy a stake in OpenAI, which had not yet kicked off the current AI hype with the release of ChatGPT in November 2022.

Former Intel chief executive Bob Swan didn’t think OpenAI’s generative AI models would come to market soon enough for the investment to be worth it, Reuters reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The AI startup had been interested in Intel, sources told Reuters (TRI), so it could depend less on Nvidia and build its own infrastructure.

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