By Elias Schisgall

Sandisk and Western Digital posted higher fiscal third-quarter profits, reporting ravenous demand for their data storage products amid the rapid buildout of artificial-intelligence data centers.

Both companies have significantly benefited in recent months as data storage products, especially the NAND memory technology produced by Sandisk, have emerged as a key bottleneck in efforts to scale up AI infrastructure.

"The demand drivers are clear: Virtually every AI workload, from training, inference, agentic AI to physical AI, creates data that is stored persistently and cost-efficiently on HDD," Western Digital Chief Executive Officer Irving Tan said, referring to the company's hard disk drive products.

Sandisk's stock price has soared since it spun out of Western Digital as a standalone company in February 2025. The stock closed Thursday at $1,096.51, up nearly thirtyfold since it debuted at $36. Western Digital closed at $434.52, up more than 150% year-to-date.

Shares of both companies dropped after the bell on Thursday. Sandisk was down 3% to $1,063 a share, while Western Digital fell 3.8% to $418.

Sandisk on Thursday logged a profit of $3.62 billion, or $23.03 a share, compared with a loss of $1.93 billion, or $13.33 a share, a year earlier. That loss included a $1.83 billion goodwill impairment charge.

On an adjusted basis, the company reported earnings of $23.41 a share, ahead of the $14.62 analysts were expecting, according to FactSet.

Revenue jumped to $5.95 billion, up from $1.7 billion a year prior. Analysts were expecting $4.72 billion.

Data center revenues more than tripled during the quarter, the company said.

Sandisk said its revenue growth was driven by a mix-shift toward higher value customers and higher prices.

Western Digital's profit came in at $3.21 billion compared with $520 million a year earlier. Per-share earnings from continuing operations rose to $8.20 a share from $2.11 a share.

Adjusted earnings from continuing operations were $2.72 a share, beating analyst projections of $2.39 a share.

The company's revenue rose to $3.34 billion, up from $2.29 billion a year prior. Analysts were expecting $3.25 billion.

For the current fourth quarter, Western Digital said it expects adjusted earnings of $3.10 to $3.40 a share on revenue between $3.55 billion and $3.75 billion. Analysts are expecting adjusted earnings of $2.75 a share on revenue of $3.46 billion.

Sandisk said it expects adjusted fourth-quarter earnings between $30.00 and $33.00 a share on revenue between $7.75 billion and $8.25 billion. Analysts are expecting adjusted earnings of $23.38 on revenue of $6.62 billion.

Sandisk also said its board approved a $6 billion stock buyback program, while Western Digital also said it was boosting its quarterly dividend by 20% to 15 cents a share.

The new payout, equal to 60 cents a year, represents a 0.1% annual yield based on the Western Digital's Thursday closing price.

Write to Elias Schisgall at elias.schisgall@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 30, 2026 16:36 ET (20:36 GMT)

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