Seagate misses Q4 revenue, earnings targets
The hard drive market has been considerably hampered since the floods in Thailand last fall, and now it is looking those problems could be catching up to Seagate.
The storage solutions provider reported a net income of $1.0 billion, or $2.37 a share (statement). Non-GAAP earnings were $2.41 a share on a revenue of $4.5 billion.
Wall Street was expecting Seagate to report fourth quarter earnings of $2.51 per share on revenue of $4.56 billion.
CEO and chairman Steve Luczo commented in prepared remarks:
As we announced previously, we were disappointed not to meet our revenue and margin plan for the fourth quarter as a result of the industry’s faster recovery from the supply chain disruption and an isolated supplier issue that we experienced. Nevertheless, we are pleased to have achieved record revenue and unit shipments for the June quarter, which enabled Seagate to continue to return significant value to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
The Q4 report is quite a contrast to the third quarter earnings statement in April when Seagate hit the revenue target on the mark but soared a bit higher when it came to earnings per share.
Before that in February, it was reported that Seagate led the hard disk drive market through the end of 2011 with 46.9 million HDD units shipped worldwide in Q4 2011, followed by Western Digital.
However, it looks like the two hard drive market leaders are starting to switch places. Western Digital reported stellar Q4 earnings last week with non-GAAP earnings of $3.35 per share on a revenue of $4.8 billion -- compared to Wall Street's projection of just $2.47 a share on revenue of $4.25 billion.
Nevertheless, there are other things to take into account for Seagate. In May, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company bought out a controlling interest in French competitor LaCie, giving Seagate a better foothold in international markets, especially Europe and Japan.
Seagate did not provide guidance for the first fiscal quarter of 2013 in its fiscal Q4 earnings statement that was published after the bell on Monday afternoon.