Flash-memory card maker SanDisk Corp. (SNDK: Quote) said Thursday after the markets closed that its fourth quarter profit plunged 95% from last year amid declining sales and deteriorating margins.
However, the company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, came in above analysts' expectations as did its quarterly revenue.
"We delivered second quarter results in line with our forecast, reflecting short-term weakness in our mobile OEM sales, strength in retail, especially in international markets, and growth in our enterprise and client SSD products," said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief executive officer of SanDisk.
"We believe that strengthening industry fundamentals and our expanding portfolio of solutions will contribute to improving financial results in the second half of 2012," Mehrotra added.
SanDisk shares are currently gaining 11.17% in after hours trading after closing the day's regular trading session at $35.08, up 82 cents or 2.39%. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $30.99 to $53.46.
Sandisk makes removable cards, embedded flash products, USB flash drives and solid-state drives that are used in lieu of hard disk drives. The company sells ts products to the mobile phone, consumer electronics, and computing end markets. Its products are used in a range of consumer electronics devices, including mobile phones, digital cameras, gaming devices, laptop computers; tablets and global positioning system devices.
In recent times, the company has reported a series of profit declines, hurt mainly by lower margins reflecting increasing raw material costs, lower demand and increased selling and research overheads.
For the second quarter ended July 1, 2012, the Milpitas, California-based company reported net income of $13.0 million or $0.05 per share, compared to $248.4 million or $1.02 per share for the year-ago quarter.
Excluding items, adj sued net income for the second quarter was $51.1 million or $0.21 per share, compared to $278.0 million or $1.14 per share in the prior year quarter.
On average, 22 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.19 per share for the second quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.
Gross margin for the quarter shrank to 27.2% from 44.6% a year earlier, while adjusted gross margin fell to 28.3% from 45.3% last year.
Total revenue for the second quarter fell 25% to $1.03 billion from $1.37 billion in the same quarter last year. Second quarter revenue declined 14% sequentially. Twenty-four analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $1.02 billion for the second quarter.
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by RTT Staff Writer
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