Good morning, everyone. I'm Bob Switz, Chairman of the Board of Micron, and I would like to welcome our shareholders here in Boise. Despite the weather, if you've come from any distance, I hope you get out. This morning, we'll first conduct the formal part of the meeting, followed by some remarks by our CEO, Mark Durcan. We will also allow some time for questions and answers. First, I'd like to introduce the directors that are up for re-election. Bob Bailey, former Chairman and CEO of PMC-Sierra. Rich Beyer, former Chairman and CEO of Freescale Semiconductor. Pat Byrne, Senior Vice President of Fortive Corporation. Mark Durcan, who you all know, CEO of the company. Mercedes Johnson, former Senior VP and CFO of Avago Technologies and Lam Research. Larry Mondry, President and Chief Executive Officer of Stream Gas & Electric, Ltd..
In addition, members of our independent public accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, are here as well. I'd like to introduce Tim Carey and Wendy Jackson. Okay. I'd now like to call the meeting to order. First, the formal part of the business meeting. I have received affidavits stating that notice of this meeting and a proxy statement have been given to all shareholders of record as of November 21st, 2016. The Inspector of Election, John Seaman of D.F. King & Co., has signed the oath of inspection of election. The Inspector of Election has reported to me that we have present, in person or by proxy, not less than 84% of the outstanding shares entitled to vote at this meeting, which does constitute a quorum. I therefore declare this meeting duly convened. Today, we will vote by ballot.
If you have turned in a valid proxy and do not intend to change your vote today, it is not necessary for you to vote again. We will vote your proxy. If you did not turn in a proxy or wish to change your vote, please raise your hand now, and we will distribute a ballot to you for your vote. Is there anybody that needs a ballot? Okay. The proxy statement describes the items to be voted on today. The first item of business is the election of directors. Bob Bailey, Rich Beyer, Pat Byrne, Mark Durcan, Mercedes Johnson, Larry Mondry, and I have been nominated to serve until the next annual meeting or until our successors are duly elected and qualified. Any discussion on the first item?
The second item of business is the approval of our amended and restated 2007 Equity Incentive Plan, which, among other things, provides for an increase in the number of shares reserved for issuance by 30 million shares. Is there any discussion? Okay. Third item of business is to ratify the adoption of our Section 382 Rights Plan. Any discussion on the third item? Okay. Fourth item of business is the ratification of the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the independent registered public accounting firm of the company for fiscal 2017. Any discussion? Okay. Our fifth item of business is to approve a non-binding resolution to approve the compensation of our named executive officers as described in our proxy statement. Any discussion? Okay. The company has not received notice of any other matter to be presented and voted upon at this meeting. Therefore, this concludes the voting for this session.
There being no other formal business to be presented, I will now declare the meeting adjourned. I'd like to introduce Mark Durcan, who will provide a brief presentation this morning. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you, Bob. Thank you all for coming today. It's a pleasure to see so many familiar faces again here in the room. Before I start, I'd like to introduce, as a group, the executive team here at Micron. I see a large number of them here in the room. Rather than go through person by person this year, if you guys could all just stand and be recognized by the shareholders. Thank you. Fantastic, strong team here at Micron that's working hard for you every day. Before I get started, I may say certain forward-looking statements as I move through the presentation, although that's not my intent. Were I to do so, please take notice of the safe harbor language here on the screen, which informs you that the company is not under any obligation to update as time moves forward.
2016 was a trying year for the company. Certainly, we faced strong headwinds in the markets, eroding ASPs throughout the year. We worked hard as a team for the shareholders to drive our cost structure and to drive manufacturing efficiency into the business. We took significant actions to restructure a number of programs we were working on. We were careful about costs. We worked very, very hard on deploying leading-edge technology, both in our DRAM piece of business as well as in NAND flash technology and 3D XPoint. We achieved a number of significant milestones in terms of the ramping of those technologies. As we moved through the year, we were able to drive to a point where at year-end, despite the very challenging conditions we faced, we did post a non-GAAP profit for the year, albeit a small one.
While we expect that as we move forward in time, we will continue to build on the momentum that we started to generate in 2016 and deliver better results for the company as we move through 2017. We are happy that we were able to take the actions we were, in order to drive the positive result for the fiscal year as a whole. Finally, I'll mention that we also worked throughout the year to close a transaction which is of significance for the company. I'll come back to it in a minute. The Inotera acquisition in Taiwan, which I think will drive significant shareholder value on a go-forward basis. Looking at the numbers for fiscal 2016, you can see the challenge we face as sales eroded in a very negative ASP environment.
Notwithstanding that, as I mentioned, we cut costs, we drove efficiencies, and maintained a non-GAAP positive situation in terms of $0.06 per share non-GAAP earnings. We established a lot of momentum so that as we move into 2017, we believe you'll continue to see improved cash flow, free cash flow from the company, and improved operating earnings as we move through the year and reap the benefits of the technology work we've already done. The Inotera acquisition in Taiwan is something we've been working on for over a year. This is the culmination of a long relationship with Formosa Plastics and Nanya Technology in Taiwan, an operation that already had a significant amount of Micron's advanced DRAM technology deployed in it.
The acquisition is immediately accretive to the company and provides significant enhancements in terms of our operational flexibility and our ability to deliver advanced products and different technologies to our customers on a go-forward basis. We're very gratified to have successfully completed that in the December timeframe. Moving forward, the company continues to be very, very focused on advanced technologies and advanced products for a differentiating and diversifying set of end market segments, and a product portfolio that increasingly is differentiated from our customers, more value add, and slightly stickier, and potentially over time, less volatile and less subject to the vagaries of a commoditized end marketplace. Memory, it really is, I believe, the best place to be in the semiconductor industry today.
The demand for our products continues to grow and diversify and become increasingly important in terms of our customers' ability to drive differentiated value for their customers. From a shareholder perspective, we believe we're in the right spot. We think we've got the right foundation and the right technology. Our job as we move through 2017 is to keep driving now new advanced technologies into our manufacturing fabs in order to drive enhanced manufacturing efficiency and lower costs, but also deliver these advanced products that are changing the world, whether it's in automotive or artificial intelligence or advanced data analytics. In summary, we think the memory market's the place to be. We executed well in 2016, now as we move into 2017 and we are getting some relief in the end markets, you can see the share is starting to react.
Our job as an executive team here at Micron is to make sure that we actually deliver the results, we generate the cash flow, we generate the return on equity for the shareholders, and that's what we're very focused on doing as we move through the year. With that, I'd like to take any questions that are in the room. Yep.
For years-
Can you get some pricing?
Okay. For years we were overbuilt and too much capacity in that. Where do we stand today?
Yeah. I think the situation is pretty good as we think about at least 2017 and probably beyond. Our view of what will happen from a DRAM supply in 2017 is that it will grow from, on a bit basis, by between 15% and 20%. Could be a little more than that if competitors add new wafers to the market, otherwise it's going to be in that 15%-20% range. As we look at demand, we think it grows faster than that. As we look at the marketplace overall with the segmentation that occurs and the time it takes to move supply from different market segments to different market segments and to get the balance just right product by product and market segment by market segment, we think that leads to a pretty beneficial situation in 2017. Likewise, on NAND, really exploding demand.
We see supply growing in the 35%-40% range this year with demand north of 40%. Can we get that exactly right all the time? It's very difficult to know exactly what the supply is going to be. It's very difficult to know exactly what the demand's going to be. As we look at the marketplace today, we think it's a positive situation for us. Any other questions? Yeah. Here we go. Here's a microphone. We have people online listening as well, so that's why we're using this.
It seems that the supply-demand equation is in your favor, and I noticed that chip prices have practically doubled in the last four or five months. It would seem that you're going to have an incredible year. Wouldn't this be a great opportunity for you to reward the loyalty of your investors and declare a dividend this year? The question is: have you considered this?
We've given guidance for the second fiscal quarter that we're in right now. Yes, that guidance is better than the first fiscal quarter, so we have some momentum. We do have a lot of demands for the cash that we are generating in the business, whether it's reinvestment for future earnings in order to maintain these advanced technology positions and build the products that the customers want next year. We do have debt on the balance sheet, so we've talked publicly about as we generate cash, one of the focuses of the company is to de-lever the company to some extent to pay down some of that debt. We'll also look at the investments we need to make in order to maintain a healthy company for the future.
Yes, we talk about all the various possibilities for the company's cash, but a dividend's not in the offing this year.
Thank you.
All right. If there are no further questions, I'd like to thank you all for coming, and we'll go from there. Thank you very much.