Western Digital (WD), the leading hard drive manufacturer, has announced total revenues of US$ 1 billion on shipments of approximately 17.1 million units, and net income of US$ 68.8 million, or US$ .31 per share, including US$ 4.6 million of expenses for stock options, for the first fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2005. The rapidly expanding Middle East hard drive market was one of the key drivers of this remarkable performance.
For the first quarter, gross margin was 17.7 percent. These results represent strong year-over-year performance, including 20 per cent unit growth, 23 per cent growth in revenue and 126 per cent growth in net income. During the same period last year, the company reported earnings of US$ .14 per share in the fiscal first quarter, shipped 14.2 million units, and posted gross margin of 13.7 percent.
In the first fiscal quarter, the company shipped more than one million of its WD ScorpioÔ 2.5-inch mobile hard drives to the industry’s fastest-growing high-volume market - notebook PCs. WD also shipped approximately 1.3 million 3.5-inch hard drives for utilization in personal and digital video recorders (PVR/DVR).
“Western Digital’s Q1 performance continues to demonstrate the sustainability of the company’s business model,” Hafeez Khawaja, WD’s Senior Regional Director, Middle East, Africa and South Asia. “WD has shown the industry’s most consistent financial performance over the last two years, while expanding its vertical integration and making major investments in new technologies and new products.”
WD said that 25 per cent of its Q1 revenue was derived from non-desktop PC sources including notebook PCs, consumer electronics, enterprise applications, and retail sales, as against 20 per cent last year, while 75 per cent of the company's first quarter revenue came from hard drives configured into desktop PCs, a market that remains strong.
From a balance sheet perspective, Western Digital generated US$ 40 million in cash from operations during the quarter, ending with total cash and short-term investments of US$ 581 million. During the quarter, the company repurchased 1.1 million shares for approximately US$ 14 million. Since the inception of the share repurchase program in May 2004, WD has repurchased 7.8 million shares for approximately US$ 75 million.
WD, one of the storage industry’s pioneers and long-time leaders, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company’s core business produces reliable, high-performance hard drives that keep users’ data close-at-hand and secure from loss.
WD was founded in 1970. The company’s storage products are marketed to leading systems manufacturers and selected resellers under the Western Digital and WD brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company’s Web site (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.
