Western Digital Reports Fiscal Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results

[GFreeman]

Western Digital Corp. today reported fiscal third quarter 2024 financial results.

"As evidenced by our excellent third quarter results, Western Digital continues improving through-cycle profitability and dampening business cycles by leveraging our strategy of developing a diversified portfolio of industry-leading products across a broad range of end markets," said David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO. "We are in the early innings of unlocking the full potential of this company, and as industry supply and demand dynamics continue to improve, we will remain disciplined around our capital spending and focused on driving innovation and efficiency across our businesses. We are confident in our strategy and the actions we have taken to-date, which successfully position us to capitalize on the promising growth prospects that lie ahead."



The company had an operating cash inflow of $58 million and ended the quarter with $1.89 billion of total cash and cash equivalents. Additional details can be found within the company's earnings presentation, which is accessible online at investor.wdc.com.

In the fiscal third quarter:

• Cloud represented 45% of total revenue. The growth was primarily attributed to higher nearline shipments and improved nearline per unit pricing with flash revenue up both sequentially and year-over-year.
• Client represented 34% of total revenue. Sequentially, the increase in flash ASP more than offset a decline in flash bit shipments while HDD revenue decreased. The year-over-year increase was driven by growth in both flash and HDD ASPs and flash bit shipments.
• Consumer represented 21% of total revenue. Sequentially, both flash and HDD were down at approximately similar rates and in line with seasonality. The year-over-year increase was driven by growth in flash bit shipments and ASP.

Revisions to Prior Period Financial Results
As previously reported, in connection with the preparation of its condensed consolidated financial statements as of and for the three and six months ended December 29, 2023, the company identified certain errors related to the company's reporting and recording of its interests in its equity method investments in Flash Ventures. These errors related to unadjusted differences between Flash Ventures' application of Japanese generally accepted accounting principles to certain lease-related transactions compared to the applicable U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. These unadjusted differences resulted in differences in the equity in earnings from these entities recognized by the company in Other income (expense), net and the carrying value of the company's equity method investments in Flash Ventures in the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements. The company evaluated the errors and determined the related impacts were not material to its financial statements for the prior periods when they occurred. The company has revised previously reported financial information for such immaterial errors, and the unaudited preliminary condensed consolidated financial statements included in this press release incorporate revisions made to correct these errors for the periods presented. Please refer to the tables outlining revisions to results of operations in the company's earnings presentation, which is accessible online at investor.wdc.com, and to the company's upcoming Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal third quarter ending March 29, 2024, for additional information related to these revisions.

Investor Communications
The investment community conference call to discuss these results and the company's business outlook for the fiscal fourth quarter of 2024 will be broadcast live online today at 1:30 p.m. Pacific/4:30 p.m. Eastern. The live and archived conference call/webcast and the earnings presentation can be accessed online at investor.wdc.com.

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[bonehead123]

Well, I am certainly not a financial wizard of any sorts, but I don't understand how a company of this size, regarded as one of the top storage producers in the world, making & selling some of the best drives anywhere in the market, can end a quarter with less than $2B in cash.....

Yea I know last qtr (and the past 8 or so) were tough on the tech sector overall, but just sayin....

Thankfully my recent dividend check was bigger than it usually is, so I'm not complaining

 

[mechtech]

"As evidenced by our excellent third quarter results, Western Digital continues improving through-cycle profitability and dampening business cycles by leveraging our strategy of developing a diversified portfolio of industry-leading products across a broad range of end markets,"

seems a bit verbose

why not just say

jacking prices 25% has improved the bottom line

??

Well, I am certainly not a financial wizard of any sorts, but I don't understand how a company of this size, regarded as one of the top storage producers in the world, making & selling some of the best drives anywhere in the market, can end a quarter with less than $2B in cash.....

Yea I know last qtr (and the past 8 or so) were tough on the tech sector overall, but just sayin....

Thankfully my recent dividend check was bigger than it usually is, so I'm not complaining

Shrinkflation glasses?

If you take one of Intel's "record years" in the early 90s and use an inflation calculator, it's not even close to their profits today.

As for WD, maybe more competition in the storage sector? Maybe getting back to pre-covid profits with not AS much gouging?

 

[chrcoluk]

Storage sector sadly is a mess I never understand when people say "storage is cheap".

I brought a couple of WD 12 TB's to replace 8+ year old 3TB's, luckily they gave me a 20% discount when I asked for it, although its more like a 10% discount as the WD store is 10% more expensive than amazon, but I will take it.

Even with them discounted, two of these is about 55% the cost of a RTX 4080.

Interestingly Ironwolf pricing has gone up more as its now almost on par with WD red plus, I brought two 8TB ironwolf drives a couple of years back, mainly because WD were I felt too expensive in comparison at the time, but regretted it as ironwolf drives are very noisy and have pretty high idle power draw. Dont know how WD are doing it but their 7200RPM WD red plus drives are on the spec sheet about 40% idle power of ironwolf drives and also quieter, I suspect they utilising dynamic RPM. (comparing air to air not helium). The 12tb's I got are helium so will be lower than 40%. My first helium drives.

As the 3tb's are still in perfect condition, no reallocated sectors etc. I will offer them on the net for a very low cost, basically covering shipping and packaging, as I dont like throwing things away that work.