Western Digital Corporation
CorpDigest
Western Digital Corporation
Financial Performance
Last reviewed: June 2025 · By Swet Parvadiya
Revenue
$12.32B
Market Cap
$22.0B
Employees
51,000
Revenue peaked at $18.8 billion in fiscal 2022 during the pandemic-era demand surge, then fell sharply to $12.32 billion in fiscal 2023 as NAND flash prices collapsed under oversupply conditions. Fiscal 2024 revenue of $12.32 billion was flat — the NAND cycle bottomed and began recovering while HDD revenue held steady from cloud demand. The net loss of $450 million in fiscal 2024 followed much larger losses in fiscal 2023, when NAND pricing was at multi-year lows and inventory write-downs compounded the operating losses. The recovery in flash pricing through late 2024 has improved the profitability picture significantly heading into fiscal 2025. The $22 billion market capitalization against $12.32 billion in revenue implies a price-to-sales multiple approaching two — a premium to where the company traded during the trough, reflecting market expectations of the post-separation valuation upside and the improving NAND cycle. The $16 billion SanDisk acquisition carried significant debt that has burdened the balance sheet. Credit rating downgrades in 2023 reflected concern about the combined debt load and flash cycle exposure — a risk that the separation into two companies addresses by allowing each business to be financed independently, matching each company's cash flow profile to an appropriate capital structure rather than requiring both to share one.
Revenue Trend Analysis
YoY Change
+0%
2-Year CAGR
-19%
Peak Year
2022
Trend
Declining Trend
Western Digital Corporation has reported revenue across 3 fiscal years, compounding at -19% annually over 2 years. The most recent year saw a 0% increase versus the prior year. Revenue peaked in 2022 at $18.8B. Out of 1 reported periods, 0 showed growth and 1 showed a decline.
| Fiscal Year | Revenue | YoY Change |
|---|---|---|
| FY2024 | $12.3B | +0.0% |
| FY2023 | $12.3B | -34.5% |
| FY2022 | $18.8B | — |
Source: SEC EDGAR filings, annual earnings releases, and verified financial disclosures.
Click any row to see year details.
Western Digital reported revenue of approximately $12.32 billion for fiscal year 2024, covering both the hard disk drive business and the SanDisk flash memory business before the February 2025 separation. The revenue figure represents a meaningful rebound from fiscal 2023 lows that reflected the cyclical downturn in HDD and NAND flash demand as enterprise customers paused capacity buildouts and consumer demand for personal computers softened. Mass-capacity nearline HDDs sold to cloud and enterprise customers including Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud contributed the largest share of HDD revenue. The flash business, which had been growing rapidly through fiscal 2022 before the cyclical correction, also showed signs of recovery as NAND average selling prices stabilized into 2024. The market capitalization of the combined company sat at roughly $22 billion before the February 2025 SanDisk spinoff. The post-separation Western Digital, focused exclusively on HDDs and led by CEO Irving Tan from March 2025, operates at a smaller revenue base because flash revenue moved with SanDisk. The HDD industry has consolidated into a two-supplier market with Seagate Technology, which supports pricing discipline as both companies invest in capacity roadmaps.
Western Digital carried a market capitalization of approximately $22 billion immediately before the February 2025 SanDisk spinoff, reflecting the combined valuation of the hard disk drive and NAND flash businesses. The market cap had been pressured during 2022 and 2023 by the cyclical downturn in both HDD and NAND demand, the failure of the proposed Kioxia merger in late 2023 and ongoing activist pressure from Elliott Management for a structural separation. As cyclical conditions improved through 2024 and the separation transaction approached, the valuation gradually recovered. The post-separation Western Digital, focused exclusively on HDDs, and the spun-off SanDisk Corporation, focused on NAND flash, each trade as separate public companies with their own valuations after February 2025. Investors had argued for years that the combined valuation suppressed the inherent worth of each business because of different capital intensity, customer bases and cyclical patterns. The HDD business benefits from the two-supplier market structure with Seagate Technology while flash competes in a more crowded field with Samsung, Micron, SK Hynix and Kioxia. CEO Irving Tan, who took the role at the post-spin Western Digital in March 2025, succeeded David Goeckeler, who served as combined-company CEO from 2020 to 2025 and moved to lead SanDisk after the split.
The 2022 and 2023 storage industry downturn significantly compressed Western Digital's revenue and earnings as both hard disk drive and NAND flash demand softened simultaneously. Cloud customers including Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud paused capacity buildouts after over-ordering during the 2021 pandemic surge, leaving inventory backed up across the channel. Personal computer shipments declined materially in 2022 and 2023, reducing demand for client HDDs and SSDs. NAND flash average selling prices collapsed across the industry, pressuring SanDisk operating margins. Western Digital responded by cutting capital expenditure, reducing wafer starts at the Kioxia joint venture flash fabs, trimming HDD production capacity and pursuing cost reductions. Revenue declined materially during the downturn before recovering to approximately $12.32 billion in fiscal 2024. The downturn also intensified Elliott Management's activist pressure to separate the HDD and flash businesses, arguing that the cyclical synchronization made the combined company harder to value. The board ultimately approved the separation, and the SanDisk spinoff was completed in February 2025. CEO David Goeckeler, who led the company through the downturn from 2020, moved to lead SanDisk after the split, while Irving Tan was named CEO of the HDD-focused Western Digital in March 2025.
Western Digital has been one of the more acquisitive storage technology companies in recent decades, with major deal values that include the 2003 IBM hard disk drive business acquisition that brought enterprise drives and intellectual property, the 2007 Komag captive media producer purchase that vertically integrated platter manufacturing, the 2012 Hitachi Global Storage Technologies acquisition for approximately $4.8 billion that consolidated the HDD industry into a two-player market alongside Seagate Technology, and the 2016 SanDisk acquisition for approximately $19 billion that pushed the company into NAND flash memory. The 1988 Tandon Corporation hard disk drive assets acquisition was the foundational move that turned Western Digital from a chip company into an HDD manufacturer. The 2023 attempted Kioxia merger, which would have combined the SanDisk flash business with the Japanese NAND supplier, failed when SK Hynix vetoed the proposed structure. Cumulative acquisition spending across the major deals exceeds $24 billion over four decades. The February 2025 SanDisk spinoff effectively unwound a portion of the 2016 SanDisk acquisition, separating the flash and HDD businesses into independent public companies. CEO Irving Tan took the role of the HDD-focused Western Digital in March 2025, succeeding David Goeckeler.
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CorpDigest. "Western Digital Corporation Revenue & Financials." CorpDigest, https://corpdigest.com/company/western-digital/financials.<div style="font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:1.5;border:1px solid #e2e8f0;border-radius:8px;padding:12px 16px;max-width:520px"><strong>Western Digital Corporation reported $12B in revenue (FY2024).</strong><br>Source: <a href="https://corpdigest.com/company/western-digital/financials" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CorpDigest — Western Digital Corporation financials</a></div>