The third fiscal quarter has ended in the calendar of Western Digital Corporation. Revenue rose 14% to $4,2 billion. Notebook drives were in predictably strong demand, and the customer segment saw record revenue from SSD sales. In the data center segment, revenue increased by 22%, in the segment of client devices - by 13%.
Until the end of the third quarter, according to management , 14TB hard drives will be the most popular product in the data center segment. The company has already begun to generate revenue from sales of 16TB and 18TB hard drives using "energy assisted" recording technology. In the corporate segment, shipments of solid state drives have grown, models based on 96-layer memory with support for the NVMe protocol have already been tested by 20 client companies, and another 100 clients are currently undergoing such tests.
Customer Solutions increased revenue by 2% to $800 million, as the traditional seasonal weakness in demand was exacerbated by the spread of the coronavirus and the accompanying store closures. Declared in mid-February, a dividend of $0,5 per share will be paid to those who were on the registry on April 17 of this year, but WDC will suspend further dividend payments to focus "on investment in business growth and innovation."
Demand for client SSDs will continue to grow in the current quarter, according to WDC management. Revenue from the sale of desktop hard drives has declined, as well as in the direction of video surveillance systems. In contrast to the same period last year, WDC avoided losses in the past quarter, although operating income did not exceed $153 million, and net income was $17 million.
The cumulative number of the hard drives shipped by the company for the first calendar quarter decreased to 24,4 million pieces, from them 7,3 million were the share of a segment of data processing centers. At the same time, the average selling price of a hard drive has grown to $85, which is quite natural given the migration towards the "cloud". The gross capacity of hard drives in the corporate segment has increased by one and a half times over the year.
In the current quarter, WDC expects to earn from $4,25 to $4,45 billion, achieve a profit margin of 25-27%, keep operating expenses within $850-870 million. in their power. On the other hand, dividend payments will be frozen, but many companies are doing the same in the face of economic uncertainty.
Source: 3dnews.ru