Shares of Irvine’s Western Digital Corp., a maker of disk drives for computers, servers and consumer electronics, rose on Tuesday after the company reported results for the December quarter that bested Wall Street’s expectations.
Investors sent shares up more than 3% in afterhours trading on a recent market value of $7.8 billion.
For the December quarter, Western Digital report sales of $2.48 billion, down 5% from a year earlier and beating analysts’ average estimate of $2.36 billion in sales.
Western Digital reported profits of $225 million, down 48% from a year earlier and beating analysts’ expectations of $136 million in profits.
The company said it shipped some 52 million drives during the quarter, up 5% from the same quarter a year ago.
“We are pleased to deliver better-than-expected revenues, profitability and gross margin in the December quarter, reflecting solid execution and an improvement in hard drive industry conditions compared with the prior two quarters,” Chief Executive John Coyne said.
For the current quarter, analysts are expecting Western Digital to post adjusted profits of $133 million on sales of $2.28 billion.
Western Digital ended the year with some $3 billion in cash and short-term assets.
