Shares of Western Digital (WDC) are up $3.49, or 12%, at $32.74, in early trading after the company said last night it would beat its prior forecast for revenue this quarter based on progress in the repair of its facilities in Thailand that were shuttered because of flood damage.
The company now thinks it will make $1.8 billion in revenue for the fiscal Q2 ending this month, substantially above the range $1.05 billion to $1.25 billion, which the company had offered back on October 19th, at the time of its Q1 report. It also expects gross margin to be above its expected range of 18% to 23%.
The company re-started production at one building in Thailand ahead of schedule, after six feet of water was pumped out of the facility, it said. There are other buildings that will take more time to bring back on line.
Western said total industry drive shipments will likely total 120 million this quarter, as competitors are also limited by the floods’ effects upon components used in drive production. That’s below the 170 million to 180 million units of demand Western believes is in the market. And the company expects supply constraints to continue through March, it said.
There was at least one upgrade this morning, that I can see: Rajesh Ghai of Think Equity raised his rating to Buy, and raised his price target to $40 from $25.
“WDC appears to be managing the crisis very effectively and hence appears unlikely to lose as much share as we had previously anticipated,” writes Ghai. He also thinks the company can look forward to the closing of its acquisition of Hitachi’s disk drive business, which is supposed to happen in March, Western said last night.
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