Western Digital announces financial results for third fiscal quarter 2017

Western Digital reported revenue of $4.6 billion, operating income of $525 million and net income of $248 million, or $0.83 per share, for its third fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2017. The GAAP net income for the period includes charges associated with the company's recent acquisitions. Excluding these charges and after other non-GAAP adjustments, third quarter non-GAAP operating income was $1.0 billion and non-GAAP net income was $716 million, or $2.39 per share.

In the year-ago quarter, the company reported revenue of $2.8 billion, operating income of $88 million and net income of $74 million, or $0.32 per share. Non-GAAP operating income in the year-ago quarter was $347 million and non-GAAP net income was $317 million, or $1.35 per share.

The company generated $1.0 billion in cash from operations during the third fiscal quarter of 2017, ending with $5.8 billion of total cash, cash equivalents and available-for-sale securities. On Feb. 1, 2017, the company declared a cash dividend of $0.50 per share of its common stock, which was paid to shareholders on April 17, 2017.

"We reported strong financial performance in the March quarter, enabled by excellent operational execution by our team in a healthy market environment with good demand for all NAND based products, as well as for capacity enterprise and client hard drives," said Steve Milligan, chief executive officer. "We also achieved targeted cost and efficiency improvements and improved our liquidity position with strong cash flow generation.

"With three consecutive quarters of strong financial results since completing the SanDisk acquisition, we are seeing continued validation of our growth strategy and our ongoing transformation into a comprehensive provider of diversified storage products and technologies. We have constructed a powerful platform with the broadest set of products, enabling us to be a leader in the storage industry. Our transformation provides us with the opportunity to not only compete in today's marketplace but also to be positioned to grow and thrive into the future."