Western Digital Corp. (Nasdaq: WDC) today reported fiscal second quarter 2021 financial results. "The team delivered solid results this quarter, especially as we continue adapting our business and technology portfolio to take advantage of the immense opportunities in the storage industry," said, David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO. "During the quarter, we captured strength in the retail business and also delivered on our target outcome to complete qualification of our energy-assisted hard drives and second-generation enterprise SSD products with some of the world's largest data center operators. While there is still more work to be done, we remain extremely focused on meeting the needs of our customers and ramping our next-generation products throughout calendar 2021."

In the fiscal second quarter of 2021, Western Digital's revenue decreased 7% year-over-year to $3.9 billion. The decrease is largely attributable to a decline in our Data Center Devices & Solutions end market, more than offsetting growth in Client Devices and Client Solutions.In Client Devices, Western Digital's industry leading NVMe-based client SSDs and strong relationships with major PC OEMs drove a record level of exabyte shipments. The pandemic has not only accelerated the digital transformation, but it has also spurred technological innovation, driving the ability to access the cloud using very powerful and advanced end-devices. The ability to access, store, and share data from anywhere, on any device, has resulted in robust storage demand for notebook, tablet, and Chromebook devices.

In Data Center Devices & Solutions, qualifications of the second-generation eSSD products have progressed well, with nearly 150 qualifications completed, including at one cloud titan. There has been solid progress made completing the qualifications of our energy-assisted hard drives, including at three of the four US cloud titans. While one now-completed cloud titan qualification slipped beyond our anticipated timeline in the fiscal second quarter, another cloud titan qualification was completed, ahead of schedule. With cloud digestion abating and the stabilization of OEM demand, we believe the demand in capacity enterprise bottomed in the fiscal second quarter and are anticipating a rebound in the fiscal third quarter.

In Client Solutions, revenue increased during the seasonally strong quarter, to a two-year high. This solid performance was driven by continued growth in retail, supported by the strength of our brand and the breadth of our portfolio.