Santa Ana’s STEC Inc., a maker of flash memory for industrial uses, upped its outlook for the current quarter, citing stronger demand from its server maker customers.
The stock closed up 2% with a market value of about $330 million.
STEC said it expects third quarter results to come in at the high end of the outlook range it gave in August.
The company said it’s looking for profits of $5 million to $6 million, in line with Wall Street’s expected $6 million.
STEC is expecting sales of $61 million to $63 million, slightly more than analysts’ expected $62 million.
The company said it’s seen increased demand for its ZeusIOPS line of solid state drives that go into servers made by the likes of EMC Corp. and Dell Inc.
The servers are sold as part of large data storage systems for big corporations, including financial institutions and retailers.
“Despite the current financial crisis in the capital markets, the company believes interest and demand for the ZeusIOPS are robust,” STEC said in a statement.
STEC said its solid state drives,so named because they have no moving parts,are gaining traction in new industries, including transportation, utilities and online transaction processing, among others.
STEC’s shares are roughly flat from a year ago.
The company is set to report third quarter results Nov. 10.
