(By Balaseshan) SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK) reported a 24.1% drop in quarterly earnings as weak demand and lower pricing hurt revenue and margins. Results exceeded Street's expectations.
Earnings for the fourth quarter were $214 million or $0.87 per share, down from $281 million or $1.14 per share last year. Non-GAAP EPS dropped to $1.05 from $1.29, beating consensus estimate of $0.76.
Revenue fell 2% to $1.54 billion, trailing market expectations of $1.53 billion for the fourth quarter.
In the previous third quarter, SanDisk posted adjusted EPS of $0.48 on revenue of $1.27 billion.
Product revenue fell to $1.44 billion from $1.47 billion, while revenue from license and royalty declined to $96.78 million from $103.48 million.
Gross margins shrank to 39.1% from 42.0%.
The Milpitas, California-based company designs NAND flash memory storage for use in consumer electronics products. The company also offers high-capacity storage solutions, such as solid-state drives that are used in lieu of hard disk drives.
SNDK shares, which have been trading in the 52-week range of $30.99 to $52.64, closed Wednesday's regular session down 0.63% at $47.65.