Shares of Lake Forest-based hard disk drive maker Western Digital Corp. rose Wednesday after the company’s profits beat analysts’ expectations for the three months ended Dec. 28.
Shares closed Wednesday up nearly 4% on a market value of about $5.5 billion.
Western Digital posted revenue of $2.2 billion, up 46% from $1.4 billion in the year-ago quarter and in line with analysts’ expected $2 billion in sales.
The company reported $305 million in profits, more than double the prior year’s profits of $128 million and beating analysts’ expectations of about $229 million.
Western Digital said it shipped more than 34 million disk drives during the quarter, up from 25 million a year earlier.
About 54% of its drive revenues were from what Western Digital calls “non-desktop PC sources,” meaning drives for notebook PCs, consumer electronics and the company’s drives sold at stores.
A year earlier, non-desktop PC hard drive sales made up 42% of revenue, the company said.
Western Digital is sitting on about $967 million in cash and short-term investments, according to the company.
During the December quarter it used $240 million of its cash stores to pay down debt from its $1 billion buy of San Jose-based Komag Inc. in September.
