SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) shares are soaring 11.80% in Friday's trading session following the release of its impressive first-quarter earnings report that significantly exceeded analyst expectations. The flash memory storage solutions provider demonstrated robust financial performance amid growing demand for its products, particularly in AI-related applications.

SanDisk reported first-quarter revenue of $2.31 billion, surpassing the consensus estimate of $2.15 billion. More impressively, the company's adjusted earnings per share (EPS) came in at $1.22, substantially beating the analyst consensus of $0.89. This strong performance was largely driven by a 26% quarter-over-quarter increase in data center revenue, supported by supply agreements with two hyperscale operators.

Looking ahead, SanDisk provided an optimistic outlook for the second quarter, projecting revenue between $2.55 billion and $2.65 billion, well above the consensus estimate of $2.36 billion. The company's focus on high-capacity enterprise SSDs for AI workloads has clearly paid off, as SanDisk continues to benefit from the ongoing "storage super cycle" in the tech industry. As a result, several analysts have raised their price targets for SanDisk, with some targets reaching as high as $280 per share, further fueling investor optimism.