SanDisk Q4 FY26: $8.97B Revenue, $39.25 EPS Beat Fueled by AI Storage Demand
SanDisk Corporation closed its fiscal 2026 year with a blowout fourth quarter, posting $8.97 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings per share of $39.25, both comfortably ahead of Wall Street forecasts. Sandisk reported net income of $6.9 billion, or $43.97 per share, compared with a loss of $23 million a year earlier, with adjusted EPS coming in comfortably above the FactSet estimate of $34.96, as revenue surged to $8.97 billion from $1.9 billion. The NAND flash maker’s storage business is booming as hyperscalers race to buy up enterprise SSD capacity for AI workloads, a trend that increasingly touches everything from datacenter racks to the memory cards and SSDs gamers plug into their consoles and PCs.
Datacenter Revenue Doubles as Edge Segment Surges 392%
The quarterly numbers show just how dramatically SanDisk’s business has shifted toward AI-driven demand. Revenue of $8.97 billion was up 51% from last quarter and up 372% from a year ago, with GAAP diluted EPS of $43.97, non-GAAP diluted EPS of $39.25, and gross margin of 84.6%, up 6.2 points from last quarter and up 58.4 points from a year ago.
Broken down by end market, datacenter revenue hit $2.98 billion for the quarter, more than doubling from the prior quarter off a near-zero base a year earlier, while the edge segment — which covers removable and embedded flash used in consumer and mobile devices — climbed sharply. For the full fiscal year, datacenter revenue reached $5.15 billion, up 437% year-over-year, while edge revenue totalled $12.16 billion, up 195%, pushing full-year company revenue to $20.25 billion, up 175% from fiscal 2025.
CEO David Goeckeler Points to Datacenter as “Key Growth Pillar”
Sandisk Chairman and CEO David Goeckeler framed the year as a turning point for the standalone company, which split from Western Digital in early 2025. “We closed fiscal 2026 with a leading technology portfolio, established datacenter as a key growth pillar, and deepened our customer partnerships,” said Goeckeler, adding that “our technology and products are well positioned to create value for our customers and generate growing and durable free cash flow.”
Part of that strategy rests on so-called New Business Model (NBM) agreements — multi-year, fully funded supply contracts designed to insulate SanDisk from the notoriously volatile NAND pricing cycle. Much of the momentum was because SNDK signed five additional New Business Model agreements in the quarter, expanding long-term structured supply contracts with hyperscalers. That brings the company’s total NBM agreements to ten, with several signed with entirely new hyperscale customers since April.
Stock Slides Despite the Beat on Softer Guidance
Despite the headline beat, SanDisk shares fell sharply in the hours following the report. Sandisk delivered extraordinary Q4 growth and easily beat earnings expectations, yet SNDK stock plunged below $1,300 as investors increasingly question whether AI-driven storage demand can sustain its explosive trajectory, falling 5.5% during the US session before dropping another 3.5% after hours.
The selloff appears tied less to the quarter just reported and more to management’s outlook for the next one. The earnings beat is real, but the stock is down mainly because revenue guidance missed by roughly $270 million at the midpoint, mostly reflecting timing from new hyperscaler structured supply deals. SanDisk’s own guidance for fiscal Q1 2027 called for revenue between $10.30 billion and $10.80 billion, alongside non-GAAP EPS of $44.00 to $46.00 — strong numbers in isolation, but not enough to satisfy a market that had already priced in an even bigger jump.
$14 Billion Buyback Expansion Signals Confidence
Alongside the results, SanDisk’s board approved a significant expansion of its capital return program. The company’s Board of Directors approved an additional $14 billion buyback program, bringing total remaining authorization higher. The board’s addition of $14 billion to buybacks, bringing the total to $15.5 billion, shrinks the share count and supports EPS even when a single quarter’s revenue pacing is choppy. SanDisk had already bought back $4.52 billion of stock during the fourth quarter alone, underlining how much free cash flow the AI storage boom is generating even as NAND pricing remains historically tight.
Why Gamers Should Care About NAND Flash Economics
For gamers, SanDisk’s results are more than a Wall Street curiosity. The same NAND flash shortage and pricing power fuelling the company’s datacenter windfall also underpins the microSD cards, external SSDs and internal drives gamers rely on to expand storage for consoles like PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Switch 2, as well as gaming PCs and handhelds. When hyperscalers are willing to pay premium, contracted prices for flash capacity, that tight supply can flow through to retail storage prices in markets including New Zealand and Australia, where import costs already add a premium to memory and SSD hardware.
SanDisk’s own commentary suggests this dynamic isn’t going away soon. Analysts covering the stock have noted that hyperscale demand for AI inference workloads — including retrieval-augmented generation and agentic AI systems — is expected to keep pressure on high-capacity NAND supply for years, meaning gamers eyeing a storage upgrade may want to budget for a market where flash memory remains a premium commodity rather than a steadily cheapening one.
Read also: AMD Braces for Softer PC Market in H2 2026, Still Sees Ryzen Beating the Slump
Join the Conversation