Western Digital Corp Stock

Western Digital Corporation (Western Digital) operates as a developer, manufacturer, and provider of data storage devices and solutions based on both NAND flash and hard disk drive technologies. With dedicated flash-based products (Flash) and hard disk drives (HDD) business units driving advancements in storage technologies, its broad and ever-expanding portfolio delivers powerful Flash and HDD storage solutions for everyone from students, gamers, and home offices, to the largest enterprises and public clouds to capture, preserve, access, and transform an ever-increasing diversity of data.

The company’s broad portfolio of technology and products in Flash and HDD address multiple end markets of Cloud, Client and Consumer. Through the Client end market, the company provides its original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and channel customers a broad array of high-performance flash and hard drive solutions across personal computer, mobile, gaming, automotive, virtual reality headsets, at-home entertainment, and industrial spaces. The Consumer end market is highlighted by the company’s broad range of retail and other end-user products, which capitalize on the strength of its product brand recognition and vast points of presence around the world.

The company has one of the technology industry’s most valuable patent portfolios with approximately 13,000 active patents worldwide.

The company enables cloud, Internet, and social media infrastructure players to build more powerful, and efficient data centers. The company helps OEMs address storage opportunities and solutions to capture and transform data in a myriad of devices and edge technologies. The company has also built strong consumer brands with tools to manage vast libraries of personal content and to push the limits of what’s possible for storage. At Western Digital, the company continues to transform itself to address the growth in data by providing what is to be the broadest range of storage technologies in the industry with a comprehensive product portfolio and global reach.

Data Solutions

The company’s broad portfolio of technology and products address multiple end markets of Cloud, Client and Consumer and consists of the Western Digital, SanDisk and WD brands.

Cloud represents a large and growing end market consists primarily of products for public or private cloud environments and enterprise customers, which it is uniquely positioned to address as the only provider of both flash and hard drive products. The company provides the Cloud end market with an array of high-capacity enterprise HDD and high-performance enterprise SSD, and platforms. The company’s capacity enterprise hard drives provide high-capacity storage needs and a low total cost of ownership per gigabyte for the growing cloud data center and smart video system markets. The company’s high-performance enterprise class SSD include high-performance flash-based SSD and software solutions that are optimized for performance applications providing a range of capacity and performance levels primarily for use in enterprise servers and supporting high-volume online transactions, data analysis and other enterprise applications. The company also provides higher value data storage platforms to the market.

Through the Client end market, the company provides numerous data solutions that it incorporates into its client’s devices, which consist of HDD and SSD desktop and notebook PCs, gaming consoles and set top boxes, as well as flash-based embedded storage products for mobile phones, tablets, notebook PCs and other portable and wearable devices, automotive applications, Internet of Things, industrial and connected home applications. The company’s HDD and SSD are designed for use in devices requiring high performance, reliability and capacity with various attributes such as low cost per gigabyte, quiet acoustics, low power consumption and protection against shocks.

The Consumer end market provides consumers with a portfolio of HDD and SSD embedded into external storage products and removable Flash, which include cards, universal serial bus (USB) flash drives and wireless drives, through its retail and channel routes to market. The company’s external HDD storage products in both mobile and desktop form factors provide affordable, high quality, reliable storage for backup and capacity expansion that are designed to keep digital content secure. The company offers client portable SSD with a range of capacities and performance characteristics to address a broad spectrum of the client storage market. The company’s removable cards are designed primarily for use in consumer devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, imaging systems, cameras and smart video systems. The company’s USB flash drives are used in the computing and consumer markets and are designed for high-performance and reliability. The company’s wireless drive products allow in-field backup of created content, as well as wireless streaming of high-definition movies, photos, music and documents to tablets, smartphones and PCs.

Competition

In Flash, the company competes with vertically integrated suppliers, such as Kioxia, Micron Technology, Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., SK hynix, Inc., Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. and numerous smaller companies that assemble flash into products. In HDD, the company competes with Seagate Technology Holdings plc and Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation.

Business Strategy

The company’s overall strategy is to leverage its innovation, technology and execution capabilities to be an industry-leading and broad-based developer, manufacturer and provider of storage devices and solutions that support the infrastructure that has enabled the unabated proliferation of data. The company strives to successfully execute its strategy through the following foundational elements in order to create long-term value for its customers, partners, investors and employees.

The company continues to innovate and develop advanced technologies across platforms for both Flash and HDD to deliver timely new products and solutions to meet growing demands for scale, performance in the market.

The company leverages its capabilities in firmware, software and systems in both Flash and HDD to deliver compelling and differentiated integrated storage solutions to its customers that offer the best combinations of performance, cost, power consumption, form factor, quality and reliability, while creating new use cases for its solutions in emerging markets.

The company focuses on delivering the best value for its customers in Cloud, Client and Consumer end markets through a relentless focus on appropriately scaling its operations across both Flash and HDD technologies to efficiently support business growth; achieving best in class cost, quality and cycle-time; maintaining industry leading manufacturing capabilities; and having a competitive advantage in supply-chain management.

Patents, Licenses and Proprietary Information

The company has approximately 13,000 active patents worldwide and have many patent applications in process. The company continually seeks additional United States (U.S.) and international patents on its technology.

Manufacturing

Ventures with Kioxia

Substantially all of its flash-based supply requirements for Flash is obtained from the company’s ventures with Kioxia, which provide it with leading-edge, flash memory wafers.

The company and Kioxia operates three business ventures in 300-millimeter flash-based manufacturing facilities in Japan, which provide it leading-edge, flash-based memory wafers for its end products. Through Flash Partners Ltd., Flash Alliance Ltd., and Flash Forward Ltd., which the company collectively refers to as Flash Ventures, it and Kioxia collaborate in the development and manufacture of flash-based memory wafers using semiconductor manufacturing equipment owned or leased by each of the Flash Venture entities. The company holds a 49.9% ownership position in each of the Flash Venture entities. Each Flash Venture entity purchases wafers from Kioxia at cost and then resells those wafers to the company and Kioxia at cost plus a small markup. The company co-develops flash technologies (including process technology and memory design) with Kioxia and contribute IP for Flash Ventures’ use.

Materials and Supplies

The company’s Flash consists of flash-based memory, controllers and firmware and other components. Substantially all of the company’s flash-based memory is supplied by its business ventures with Kioxia. Controllers are primarily designed in-house and manufactured by third-party foundries or acquired from third-party suppliers. The company has developed deep relationships with these vendors and Kioxia to establish a continuous supply of flash-based memory and controllers.

The company designs and manufactures substantially all of the recording heads and magnetic media required for its products.

Sales and Distribution

The company sells its products to computer manufacturers and OEMs, cloud service providers, resellers, distributors and retailers throughout the world. The company maintains sales offices in selected parts of the world including the major geographies of the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. The company’s international sales, which include sales to foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies.

The company performs its marketing and advertising functions both internally and through outside firms utilizing both consumer media and trade publications targeting various reseller and end-user markets. The company also maintains customer relationships through direct communication and by providing information and support through its website. The company also provides distributors, resellers and OEMs with other sales incentive programs.

Seasonality

The company has historically experienced seasonal fluctuations in its business with higher levels of demand in the first and second quarters (year ended June 30, 2023) as a result of increased customer spending.

History

Western Digital Corporation was founded in 1970. The company was incorporated in 2000.