SanDisk's Q1 results mixed but satisfy already reduced outlook

SanDisk published a mixed bag of first quarter financial results after the bell on Wednesday.

The flash storage maker reported a net income of $39 million, or 17 cents per share (statement).

Non-GAAP earnings were 62 cents per share on a revenue of $1.33 billion, down 12 percent year-over-year and down 23 percent sequentially.

Wall Street was looking for earnings of 66 cents per share with $1.31 billion in revenue.

Just a few weeks ago, SanDisk cut its revenue outlook, attributing the lower expectations to product qualification delays, weaker enterprise sales and pricing.

The company projected sales would fall around $1.3 billion versus previous estimates between $1.4 billion and $1.45 billion.

SanDisk also said it couldn't provide a 2015 forecast at that time either.

"We are disappointed with our financial and operational performance and are quickly taking aggressive measures to regain the excellence in execution that we have delivered in the past," wrote SanDisk CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, in prepared remarks. "Our top priorities for 2015 are to strengthen our product roadmap and rebuild our momentum across the business."

SanDisk previously reduced fourth quarter expectations in January due to lower retail and iNAND product sales.

Continuing to bet flash storage will eventually replace hard drives, SanDisk recently unveiled Infiniflash, an all-flash storage platform promising to slash enterprise costs down to $1 to $2 per gigabyte.

SanDisk embarked on a more enterprise-geared focus as early as 2011, positioning itself as an early example of consumer companies shifting toward corporations for more lucrative profit margins.

For the current quarter, Wall Street expects SanDisk to deliver earnings of 87 cents per share and $1.45 billion in revenue.