Western Digital's 2024 Financial Results and Future Outlook
TapTechNews August 1 news, Western Digital announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024 and the full fiscal year 2024 as of June 28 local time on July 31.
The financial report shows that Western Digital achieved a cumulative revenue of 13.003 billion US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 93.939 billion yuan) in fiscal year 2024, an increase of 6% compared to fiscal year 2023.
Calculated according to GAAP, Western Digital achieved a 22.6% gross margin in the previous fiscal year, an increase of 7.3 basis points year-on-year; Western Digital had an operating loss of 26 million US dollars in the previous fiscal year, a 98% reduction year-on-year.
From the perspective of the terminal market, the revenue growth of Western Digital in fiscal year 2024 mainly comes from the client and consumer segments, which increased by 7% and 9% respectively, while the revenue in the cloud segment only increased by 2% in contrast.
However, the terminal market revenue situation of Western Digital in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024 is very different from that of the whole year of 2024.
Western Digital achieved 37.64 billion US dollars (currently about 27.193 billion yuan) in revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024, an increase of 9% quarter-on-quarter and a significant increase of 41% year-on-year, which is mainly driven by the rapid growth of revenue in the cloud segment:
Western Digital obtained 18.82 billion US dollars in revenue from the cloud segment in the previous fiscal quarter, with a quarter-on-quarter increase of up to 21% and a year-on-year increase of up to 89%, and the performance is much better than that in the client and consumer segments.
Western Digital said the reason for this situation is the increase in the shipment volume and unit price of near-line mechanical hard drives, as well as the growth of the bit shipment volume of enterprise solid-state drives.
Calculated according to GAAP, Western Digital achieved a 35.9% gross margin in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024, a 6.9% quarter-on-quarter increase and a significant 32.5% year-on-year increase. In addition, it achieved an operating profit of 507 million US dollars, an 86% increase quarter-on-quarter.
David Goeckeler, the chief executive officer of Western Digital, said:
Our performance in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024 and the full fiscal year reflects the diversified and innovative product portfolio that we have developed according to the strategic road map.
This, combined with the structural changes we have made to strengthen our operations, enables us to benefit from the broad recovery in all our terminal markets and structurally improve the profitability of the entire cycle of flash memory and hard drives.
The emergence of the artificial intelligence data cycle marks a transformative period in our industry that will drive fundamental changes in our ter minal markets, increase storage demand and create new demand drivers.
Looking forward to the future, we are confident in taking advantage of our technological leadership position to seize these exciting growth opportunities and create value for our customers.
Western Digital expects to achieve 4 billion to 4.2 billion US dollars (currently about 28.898 billion to 30.342 billion yuan) in operating income in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 ending on September 27, 2024; calculated according to GAAP, the gross margin will be further increased to 36.5% to 38.5%, and the operating profit will reach 845 million to 885 million US dollars.