What To Expect From Western Digital’s (WDC) Q1 Earnings

Leading data storage manufacturer Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) will be reporting results tomorrow after market hours. Here's what to look for.

Last quarter Western Digital reported revenues of $3.03 billion, down 2.4% year on year, in line with analyst expectations. It was a strong quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts' EPS estimates and a significant improvement in its operating margin.

Is Western Digital buy or sell heading into the earnings? Read our full analysis here, it's free.

This quarter analysts are expecting Western Digital's revenue to grow 19.5% year on year to $3.35 billion, improving on the 36% year-over-year decline in revenue the company had recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.15 per share.

Majority of analysts covering the company have reconfirmed their estimates over the last thirty days, suggesting they are expecting the business to stay the course heading into the earnings. The company only missed Wall St's revenue estimates once over the last two years, and has on average exceeded top line expectations by 2.8%.

Looking at Western Digital's peers in the semiconductors segment, some of them have already reported Q1 earnings results, giving us a hint of what we can expect. Seagate Technology's revenues decreased 11% year on year, missing analyst estimates by 0.4% and Micron Technology reported revenues up 57.7% year on year, exceeding estimates by 8.8%. Seagate traded flat on the results, and Micron Technology was up 10.6%.

Read our full analysis of Seagate Technology's results here and Micron Technology's results here.

There has been a stampede out of high valuation technology stocks and while some of the semiconductors stocks have fared somewhat better, they have not been spared, with share price declining 4.5% over the last month. Western Digital is up 4.9% during the same time, and is heading into the earnings with analyst price target of $78.8, compared to share price of $71.5.

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