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Maker of hard-disk drives for data centers and consumers, after spinning off its SSD unit as SanDisk.
Maker of hard-disk drives for data centers and consumers, after spinning off its SSD unit as SanDisk.
Sells hard-disk drives mostly to cloud providers and enterprises in volume, so shipments follow data-centre storage spending. It separated its flash and SSD business as SanDisk in 2025 and is now a pure disk-drive company, one of three disk-drive makers worldwide with Seagate and Toshiba.
Moat: narrow (scale, IP / patents). Duopoly HDD maker alongside Seagate with deep recording-technology patents.
Headquarters: San Jose, California, US · Founded: 1970 · Employees: 40,000
Size Western Digital (WDC) is a United States Information Technology company (Computer Peripherals) with a market value of $98.7B, the 126th largest of 3,117 United States companies the cockpit tracks. Shares closed at $263.78 on 6 Nov 2026.
Performance Over six months the shares fell 45.0%, against +18.1% for the median peer and -1.1% for the United States market (cap-weighted) — 2nd lowest of 8 in its peer set.
Growth Revenue grew 20.7% over the last twelve months (peer median +27.2%); the operating margin is 40.7% (peer median 26.0%).
Valuation It trades at 9.2× forward earnings against a peer median of 12.2× (2nd cheapest of 8).
Price implies For today's price to make sense, revenue must grow about 21% a year for seven years (Req g). Recent delivered growth is -5%, so the hurdle is +26 pp: the price needs faster growth than the company has been delivering — of companies that just grew 25–50% a year, 93.8% slowed down over the next four years.
Capital Return on invested capital runs 35.9 points above its cost of capital (16.2% WACC).
Short interest Short interest is 5.2% of the free float (15 Oct 2026).
Next results Next results expected around 3 Feb 2027 (exchange calendar; dates can move).
| TTM | FY2026 | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $14.5B | $12.9B | $9.52B | $6.32B | $12.3B |
| Revenue growth | — | +36% | +51% | -49% | — |
| Gross profit | $7.62B | $6.31B | $3.69B | $1.77B | $1.89B |
| EBITDA | $6.29B | $4.97B | $2.46B | $444M | -$264M |
| Net income | $9.93B | $9.30B | $1.75B | -$798M | -$1.68B |
| Free cash flow | $4.29B | $3.51B | $1.45B | -$781M | -$1.23B |
| Capital expenditure | $572M | $418M | $412M | $487M | $821M |
| Total debt | $922M | $1.19B | $5.08B | $7.82B | $8.23B |
The default views of Competitor Analysis ▸ Charts, drawn from the same data. Open them in the cockpit to change the axes, pin companies and read every value.
| Company | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Western Digital WDC | $98.7B | -45% | +21% | 41% | 9.2× | 20.7% |
| Seagate Technology STX | $106B | -41% | +44% | 40% | 9.8× | 22.1% |
| Sandisk SNDK | $119B | -47% | +272% | 73% | 3.4× | 3.5% |
| Kioxia 285A.T | $88.9B | +139% | +265% | 70% | 2.5× | -3.0% |
Peer set: Industry: the same industry and sector in any market, nearest in size. This is the same default set the interactive Competitor Analysis opens with.
| Measure | WDC | Peer median | Rank in peer set |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month return | -32.9% | -26.8% | 4th lowest of 8 |
| 6-month return | -45.0% | +18.1% | 2nd lowest of 8 |
| Distance from 52-week high | -67.0% | -29.8% | lowest of 8 |
| Revenue growth (TTM) | +20.7% | +27.2% | 3rd lowest of 8 |
| Operating margin | 40.7% | 26.0% | 3rd highest of 8 |
| Forward P/E | 9.2× | 12.2× | 2nd cheapest of 8 |
| Growth the price implies (Req g, 7 yrs) | 20.7% | 18.7% | 4th least demanding of 7 |
| Growth delivered (Del g) | -5.3% | +12.4% | lowest of 7 |
| Hurdle (Req g minus delivered) | +26.0 pp | +5.0 pp | 2nd most demanding of 7 |
| ROIC minus cost of capital | +35.9 pp | +44.4 pp | 4th highest of 7 |
| EV / EBITDA | 15.6× | 16.8× | 4th cheapest of 7 |
| Net debt / EBITDA | -0.1× | -0.4× | 3rd most indebted of 8 |
| Company | Market | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g | Delivered g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Western Digital WDC | United States | $98.7B | -45% | +21% | 41% | 9.2× | 20.7% | -5.3% |
| Hon Hai Precision Industry 2317.TW | Taiwan | $95.6B | -3% | +25% | 4% | 10.5× | n/a | n/a |
| Seagate Technology STX | United States | $106B | -41% | +44% | 40% | 9.8× | 22.1% | +2.7% |
| Sandisk SNDK | United States | $119B | -47% | +272% | 73% | 3.4× | 3.5% | +49.3% |
| Arista Networks ANET | United States | $215B | +20% | +41% | 44% | 30.4× | 29.8% | +31.2% |
| NetApp NTAP | United States | $33.2B | +43% | +12% | 26% | 17.0× | 15.2% | +3.8% |
| Everpure P | United States | $32.2B | +24% | +27% | 5% | 29.6× | 58.7% | +16.8% |
| Canon 7751.T | Japan | $28.4B | +18% | +4% | 10% | 12.2× | -0.6% | +7.9% |