Why Is Western Digital Stock Sinking Thursday?

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC ) stock traded lower Thursday despite reporting fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street estimates. Despite the earnings beat, Western Digital’s outlook fell short of elevated investor expectations, triggering a sector-wide pullback in AI memory and storage stocks. Peers including Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ: STX ) and Sandisk Corp.

(NASDAQ: SNDK ) also traded lower Thursday. 29. 69 billion. Revenue, gross margin and adjusted earnings met or exceeded the company’s guidance.

Shipments totaled 231 exabytes, up 22% from a year earlier, driven by strong nearline demand. 3 billion and accounted for 89% of total revenue. Client revenue increased 61% to $225 million, while consumer revenue climbed 38% to $187 million. 4%, supported by a higher mix of high-capacity hard disk drives, favorable pricing and manufacturing execution.

1% a year earlier. 1 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. 8 million Western Digital shares. 3 million shares for about $1 billion.

That included $328 million used to settle convertible notes in cash, avoiding the issuance of about 773,000 new shares. The company declared a quarterly dividend of 15 cents per share, payable Sept. 17, 2026, to shareholders of record as of Sept. 8, 2026.

Key Updates Western Digital said it remains on track to launch its 44TB HAMR hard disk drive in the first half of calendar 2027. Management said customer qualification has exceeded expectations for capacity, performance and reliability. The company also began shipping next-generation 40TB EPMR hard disk drives during the fourth quarter, with volume production underway for two customers. Management said Ultra SMR technology is expanding to a third hyperscale customer and is expected to account for about 60% of nearline exabyte shipments by the end of fiscal 2027.

Executives also cited continued demand from AI training, AI inference, agentic AI and physical AI workloads, noting that about 80% of hyperscale data center data remains stored on hard disk drives because of cost, scalability and power-efficiency advantages. 1 billion, plus or minus $100 million, representing roughly 45% year-over-year growth. 81. 04 billion.

Management said it expects demand across AI, cloud and storage markets to remain strong, supported by long-term growth in data creation. The company also plans to increase exabyte shipments through technology improvements and operational efficiencies without significantly expanding manufacturing capacity, while continuing targeted investments in heads, media operations and automation. 66 during premarket trading on Thursday, according to Pro data. Image via Shutterstock Read Also: Stock Market Today: Dow Futures Gain, Nasdaq 100 Slips as Hormuz Deal Talks Progress—SpaceX, SanDisk, AppLovin in Focus