SanDisk Announces Third Quarter 2015 Financial Results 

MILPITAS, Calif., Oct. 21 -- SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced results for the third quarter ended September 27, 2015.  Third quarter revenue of $1.45 billion decreased 17 percent on a year-over-year basis and increased 17 percent sequentially.

On a GAAP basis, third quarter net income was $133 million, or $0.65 per share, compared to net income of $263 million, or $1.09 per share, in the third quarter of 2014 and $81 million, or $0.38 per share, in the second quarter of 2015.

On a non-GAAP basis, third quarter net income was $223 million, or $1.09 per share, compared to net income of $336 million, or $1.45 per share, in the third quarter of 2014 and net income of $136 million, or $0.66 per share, in the second quarter of 2015.  For a reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP results, see accompanying financial tables and footnotes.

“SanDisk completed several important product qualifications in embedded and SSD solutions in the third quarter, contributing to our strong sequential revenue growth,” said Sanjay Mehrotra, president and chief executive officer, SanDisk.  “Our mix of 15 nanometer, three-bit-per-cell (X3) technology helped drive substantial cost reduction in the quarter. We are making excellent progress in expanding our product portfolio and building our customer engagements.”

News Highlights

• SanDisk and Toshiba Corporation announced the start of equipment installation in the New Fab 2 facility at Yokkaichi Operations and their entry into definitive agreements for joint manufacturing of 3D NAND and investment in New Fab 2.  New Fab 2 is primarily intended to provide the clean room space necessary to transition a significant portion of the current Yokkaichi 2D NAND capacity to 3D NAND.
• SanDisk announced a long-term partnership with HP to collaborate on a new technology within the Storage Class Memory category and create enterprise-wide solutions for Memory-driven Computing.  The partnership will center around SanDisk’s ReRAM technology and manufacturing and design expertise and HP’s Memristor technology.  SanDisk and HP will also partner to enhance data center solutions with SSDs.
• SanDisk announced the world’s first 256 Gigabit (Gb), 3-bit-per-cell (X3), 48-layer 3D NAND chip and began 3D NAND pilot line operations in Yokkaichi, Japan. SanDisk’s 256Gb X3 3D NAND chip is designed for wide applicability in consumer, client, mobile and enterprise products and is expected to begin shipping in SanDisk products in 2016.
• SanDisk entered into several agreements with SK Hynix, Inc. including an expanded and extended IP licensing agreement, a multi-year commercial relationship under which SK Hynix will supply its leading-edge DRAM products to SanDisk and a settlement of the trade secret misappropriation suit filed by SanDisk in 2014.
• SanDisk introduced its iNAND 7232, a high-performance embedded mobile storage solution optimized for best-in-class imaging performance in flagship mobile devices. The iNAND 7232 leverages SanDisk’s 15 nanometer X3 NAND flash storage and features SanDisk’s second-generation SmartSLC technology architecture that quickly and intelligently responds to mobile users’ changing needs.
• SanDisk introduced three new reference architectures for VMware Virtual SAN 6 utilizing SSDs and Fusion ioMemory PCIe application accelerators. These reference architectures help customers gain exceptional performance on VMware’s Virtual SAN software-defined storage infrastructure.
• SanDisk shipped its 2 billionth microSD card since beginning commercial shipments ten years ago. The introduction of the microSD card by SanDisk in 2004 significantly reduced the size of removable memory cards, helping to propel the growth of the smartphone market.
• As a result of SanDisk’s pending acquisition by Western Digital Corporation, SanDisk’s capital return program, consisting of quarterly cash dividend and share repurchases, is suspended effective at the start of the fourth quarter of 2015.

SanDisk will not host a third quarter 2015 earnings conference call, previously scheduled for today.  SanDisk has posted its third quarter 2015 financial results, CEO and CFO commentaries, and earnings results presentation on its investor relations website at http://investor.sandisk.com.

About SanDisk

SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, is a global leader in flash storage solutions.  For more than 25 years, SanDisk has expanded the possibilities of storage, providing trusted and innovative products that have transformed the electronics industry.  Today, SanDisk’s quality, state-of-the-art solutions are at the heart of many of the world's largest data centers, and embedded in advanced smartphones, tablets and PCs.  SanDisk’s consumer products are available at hundreds of thousands of retail stores worldwide.  For more information, visit www.sandisk.com.

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Source: SanDisk