Western Digital Corp

Intel’s (INTC) profit margins started to fall in the fourth quarter of 2018 after reaching a peak in the third quarter of 2018.

Micron Technology (MU) and stocks related to the memory market and China (FXI) fell due to a temporary injunction in China.

Apple’s revenues could rise more than 14.0% YoY to $261.5 billion in fiscal 2018.

Of the 27 analysts covering storage technology (QQQ) company NetApp (NTAP), 13 gave it a “buy” recommendation, two recommended a “sell,” and 12 recommended a “hold.”

AMD stock is on fire this week. AMD reached a 52-week high of $47.31 on December 26, crushing its December 24 high of $46.61.

Micron Technology (MU) reported impressive fiscal 2020 first-quarter earnings results on December 18 after the market bell.

In the first week of January 2018, Microsoft (MSFT) announced the acquisition of Avere Systems, which provides caching and file storage services in private data centers and the public cloud.

Micron Technology reported upbeat fourth-quarter fiscal 2019 results on September 26 after the market closed. Micron stock fell 1.76% to $48.60 on the day.

In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone sales rose 29% YoY (year-over-year) to $37.2 billion.

There has been an industry-wide transition in the storage space over the last few years.

Micron expects NAND industry supply to grow at an average annual rate of 40% beyond 2018.

WDC is optimistic about its technology leadership in storage and extensive IP (intellectual property) portfolio.

Broadcom (AVGO) failed to crack the technology industry’s biggest acquisition of Qualcomm for $117 billion due to intervention by President Trump.

Micron Technology’s (MU) fiscal 1Q18 revenues were driven by strong demand for server, mobile, and SSD (solid-state drive) memory solutions.

At the end of fiscal 1Q18, 3D NAND accounted for 80% of Micron’s total NAND output. The company expects to increase this mix to 95% by the end of fiscal 2018.

For fiscal 2Q18, Micron expects to improve its gross margin to 56.0% at the midpoint.

In September 2017, Western Digital’s (WDC) brand HGST was named in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Distributed File Systems and Object Storage as a niche player.

Micron expects the SSD (solid-state drive) attach rate to increase to ~50% in 2018 and 75% in 2020.

Western Digital (WDC) is one the major players in the global storage market.

According to Statista, HDD (hard disk drive) shipments are expected to fall 7% YoY (year-over-year) in 2017 to 395 million units from 425 million units in 2016.

Micron expects the NAND industry supply to grow 30%–40%, with its NAND supply expected to grow at the higher end of the industry supply range.

Garmin (GRMN) recorded three-year annualized growth of 5.3%, and its five-year annualized growth fell ~1%. Its growth dipped ~24% in 2016.

Currently, institutional investors own 81.1% and insiders own 0.69% of the total outstanding shares of Micron.

Broadcom (AVGO) is bidding for Toshiba’s (TOSBF) NAND (negative-AND) Flash business in order to expand in the network storage market.

Apple (AAPL) has completed $211.2 billion of its $250.0 billion ongoing capital return program and extended its capital return program by $50.0 billion.

Micron Technology’s chief financial officer, Ernie Maddock, stated that a company transitioning to 3D NAND would see negative bit growth in the first half as it puts planar capacity offline.

Micron Technology (MU) plans to spend ~$1.8 billion in capex on ramping up the 64-tier 3D NAND and developing the third-generation 3D NAND.

Micron Technology (MU) entered the 3D NAND market earlier than its competitors, as its planar NAND did not deliver good returns.

On October 25, 2016, technology heavyweight Apple (AAPL) announced its fiscal 4Q16 results. It reported revenue of $46.9 billion and quarterly net income of $9 billion, with earnings per share of $1.68.

Alken stated that in light of changing market dynamics and the capital market scenario, the $19 billion price for SanDisk, which has been posting declining earnings in fiscal 2015, is too high.

With the action on the acquisition front, including the SanDisk acquisition, Western Digital is geared up to increase and enhance its presence in the SSD arena.

Western Digital (WDC) and Micron (MU) held 10.2% and 5.1% of the market share, respectively, in the enterprise SSD space.

Macroeconomic factors like the Greek debt crisis, the declining Chinese stock market, and global growth issues have made tech stocks not so attractive.

Net shipments for Seagate Technology (STX) declined by 14% in 4Q15 to 43.1 million units in comparison to 51.15 million units in 3Q15 on a quarter-over-quarter basis.