Western Digital Reports Profit As Cloud Computing Drives Demand
Western Digital has beat analysts’ estimates as it reported a profit of $493 million (A$746.34 million), or $1.35 (A$2.04) a share, for the fiscal first quarter ended September 27, compared with a loss of $700 million (A$1.05 billion), or $2.17 (A$3.29) a share in the same period last year.
The earnings report sent its shares up nearly 5 per cent at the end of last week compared to close of trade on Wednesday.
The company’s profit climbed mainly on demand for its data-storage products from cloud service providers.
Earlier this month, it confirmed that its enterprise SSD memory storage device has been certified to support Nvidia’s AI server system.
Revenue from the cloud market climbed 17 per cent to $2.21 billion (A$3.35 billion) sequentially.
Its first-quarter revenue was $4.10 billion (A$6.21 billion), compared with an estimate of $4.12 billion (A$6.24 billion).
For the current quarter, Western Digital expects revenue between $4.2 billion (A$6.36 billion) and $4.4 billion (A$6.66 billion), and adjusted per-share earnings between $1.75 (A$2.65) and $2.05 (A$3.10).
“With the continued proliferation of the AI Data Cycle, our Flash and HDD product portfolios are well-positioned to capitalise on significant opportunities as adoption continues to grow,” said CEO David Goeckeler.
This month, the company announced the shipment of Ultrastar DC HC690, the world’s highest-capacity UltraSMR HDD with storage of up to 32TB.
Alongside, it began dispatching a high-capacity ePMR CMR HDD offering up to 26TB that is aimed at enterprise and channel customers seeking drop-in capacity upgrades.