Western Digital Posts Record Earnings, Sales in 2nd Quarter

IRVINE —  Shares of Western Digital Corp. shot up 8% to close at $72 per share Monday after the Irvine maker of computer disk drives reported what executives called “the finest financial performance in company history.”

Western Digital, which over the past few years has remade itself into one of the most efficient disk drive manufacturers in the industry, posted record earnings of $64.2 million, or $1.35 per share, for its second fiscal quarter. That was 76% higher than the $36.4 million, or 75 cents per share, recorded in the comparable quarter of 1996.

The company also reported $1.1 billion in sales for the three months ended Dec. 28, surpassing the billion-dollar mark for the first time. Revenue in the second quarter a year ago was $758 million.

Chuck Haggerty, chief executive of Western Digital, said the company shipped a record number of disk drives for desktop computers in the second quarter.

“We also saw good demand in the retail channel for our upgrade drives,” said Haggerty, who added that the company began shipping its first disk drives designed for high-powered “server” computers in the second quarter.

Servers store much of the information available on the Internet and represent a growing market.

For the first six months of its fiscal year, Western Digital’s profit more than doubled to $97.1 million, or $2.06 a share, from $44.7 million, or 89 cents a share, for the first half a year ago.

Revenue rose 54% to $2 billion from $1.3 billion.

Haggerty also said that the company continued a stock repurchase program, buying back about 750,000 shares in the second quarter for an average price of $53 per share.

The company’s stock has soared since January 1996, when it was trading for about $16 per share.