Post

SanDisk's earnings report is scheduled for tomorrow night. The market expects Q4 revenue of $8.39 billion, a 41% quarter-over-quarter increase, and earnings per share of $33.01, up 43.33% quarter-over-quarter. This should have been a celebration banquet—the company's official guidance already indicated another record-breaking quarter. However, the harsh reality of a 47% stock price plunge in July shows that the market has long looked beyond the immediate numbers, focusing instead on a more distant question: how much longer can this AI-driven NAND boom cycle last? Let's first look at the Q4 official guidance—it’s already very strong. SanDisk’s official Q4 guidance is revenue between $7.75 billion and $8.25 billion. Using the midpoint of $8 billion, this represents about a 34% quarter-over-quarter increase and a more than 320% surge compared to $1.9 billion in the same period of fiscal 2025. Non-GAAP gross margin is expected to be between 79% and 81%. Non-GAAP diluted EPS is forecasted at $30 to $33, compared to an adjusted EPS of only $0.29 in the prior year period. Now, let's rewind to Q3 and see what really happened. After the Q1 earnings report, SanDisk’s stock jumped 8.5% in after-hours trading, significantly boosting market capitalization. This was not due to short-term sentiment-driven speculation but a solid earnings report that thoroughly crushed all market expectations and fully realized the pure AI storage dividend. Total revenue was $5.95 billion, nearly doubling quarter-over-quarter (+97%) and soaring 243% year-over-year, far exceeding the market expectation of $4.72 billion. Non-GAAP EPS was $23.41, nearly 60% higher than the market expectation of $14.51. Gross margin surged to 78.4%, up 55.7 percentage points year-over-year and 27.5 percentage points quarter-over-quarter, showing significant profitability improvement. The data center business became the core growth engine, with quarterly revenue of $1.467 billion, up 645% year-over-year and 233% quarter-over-quarter. Edge business revenue was $3.663 billion, up 295% year-over-year and 118% quarter-over-quarter. Consumer business revenue was $820 million, up 44% year-over-year. SanDisk CEO David Goeckeler stated in the Q3 earnings report that this quarter marked a fundamental turning point for the company, consciously shifting its business structure toward high-value end markets like data centers. The business model has also undergone a fundamental restructuring. SanDisk has signed multi-year supply agreements with five major AI giants, locking in minimum contract revenue of about $42 billion and securing over $11 billion in financial guarantees, covering more than one-third of shipments for fiscal 2027. NAND is transforming from a cyclical product into a long-term locked resource similar to infrastructure, greatly smoothing industry cyclicality. At the same time, the company has zero debt on its balance sheet and strong cash generation capabilities. Recently, the board authorized a $6 billion stock repurchase program. The technological moat is also deepening. SanDisk’s self-developed SPRandom technology compresses the high-capacity SSD pre-processing time from 144 hours to about 6 hours, significantly improving production efficiency and reducing costs. SanDisk has completed PCIe Gen 5 high-performance TLC SSD certification with a second hyperscale data center customer, with more hyperscale customer certifications expected in the future. What do institutions think? Goldman Sachs clearly predicts that SanDisk’s upcoming Q4 results will be a "very strong quarter." The core logic has three points: First, the global NAND flash chip supply shortage will continue into 2026, with synchronized demand recovery across mobile, PC, and data center segments. Capacity is constrained by the high-end AI storage track, leading to insufficient supply of conventional products and a continued upward trend in market prices. Second, long-term supply agreements transform NAND from a cyclical product into a long-term locked resource similar to infrastructure, greatly smoothing industry cyclicality. Third, SPRandom technology significantly improves production efficiency and reduces production costs. Risks certainly exist—high expectations also mean commensurate risks. If the actual results only "meet guidance" rather than "exceed the upper limit of guidance," the market may not be satisfied. The fiscal 2026 Q1 earnings report exceeded expectations across the board, but the stock price fell as much as 6% in after-hours trading because the good news had already been priced in. The storage chip industry is highly cyclical. If AI demand growth slows or major customers cut capital expenditures, the supply-demand balance could reverse. Competitors like Micron are also increasing investments, and new technologies such as HBM and CXL may change the storage market landscape. But reversals often hide where expectations differ the most. When the market maxes out expectations, crushes prices, and dissects the logic thoroughly, any slightly stronger data becomes the moment of the most intense valuation recovery. Tomorrow night, watch for two points: beyond the usual numbers, how management describes the supply-demand landscape for 2027. The latter is far more valuable than the former. $SNDK #闪迪财报前夕，HBF与存储紧缺引发热议