Western Digital Corp. (WDC) said Wednesday after the markets closed that its fourth quarter profit more than quadrupled from last year, as revenue surged and margins improved sharply amid strong growth in hard-drive shipments.
The company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, also breezed past Wall Street expectations as did its quarterly revenue.
"In the June quarter, demand was in line with our forecast as industry shipments reached 157 million units, bringing total HDD shipments for the year to 599 million units. Our WD and HGST subsidiaries both performed ahead of plan in Q4, delivering great products with consistent execution, resulting in strong revenue growth, gross margin and cash flows," said John Coyne, chief executive officer of Western Digital.
Western Digital shares are currently gaining 18.63% in after hours trading after closing the day's regular trading session at $32.47, up 70 cents or 2.20%. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $22.64 to $44.44.
The results reflect a phenomenal recovery by Western Digital from the impact of last year's devastating floods in Thailand.
In March, the Irvine, California-based company completed its acquisition of Viviti Technologies Ltd. (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) for $3.9 billion in cash and 25 million shares of common stock valued at about $0.9 billion.
For its fourth fiscal quarter ended June 29, 2012, Western Digital reported net income of $745 million or $2.87 per share, compared to $158 million or $0.67 per share for the year-ago quarter.
Excluding items, adjusted net income for the third quarter was $872 million or $3.35 per share, compared to $193 million or $0.81 per share in the prior year quarter.
On average, 20 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $2.47 per share for the fourth quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.
Gross margin for the quarter improved to 31.0% from 19.5% a year earlier, while operating margin increased to 17.0% from 7.2% last year.
Net revenue for the fourth quarter jumped 98% to $4.75 billion from $2.40 billion in the same quarter last year. Eighteen analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $4.25 billion for the fourth quarter.
The company shipped 71.0 million hard-drives during the fourth quarter quarter, up 32% from 53.8 million units in the prior year quarter.
During the quarter, the company repurchased more than 16 million shares of its common stock for $604 million.
In May, Western Digital's board of directors increased the company's share repurchase authorization by an additional $1.5 billion.
The company transferred its stock exchange listing to Nasdaq Global Select Market from the New York stock exchange, effective June 1.
Rival Seagate Technology plc (STX) earlier this month lowered its fourth quarter revenue guidance to about $4.5 billion from its prior guidance of at least $5 billion, citing lower shipments and a quality issue with a component supplier.
Cupertino, California-based Seagate is scheduled to report fourth quarter financial results on July 30. Analysts expect the company to earn $2.51 per share on revenue of $4.56 billion for the quarter.
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