Haverhill Financial Research · Deep dive · Semiconductors · October 26, 2026
Why now
SanDisk reports fiscal first-quarter results Thursday, October 29, after the close, in the same two-day window as the other memory giants. No large stock we track has had a stranger year: up more than 400% since January, briefly near $2,354, and now about $1,238 after a two-session drop of roughly 10% amid the AI-infrastructure selloff. A stock that is simultaneously a quadruple and nearly a half-off sale is a market that has not made up its mind. Thursday is the next chance to.
What the business just did
The year behind it explains the chart's first half. NAND flash went from glut to shortage as AI data centers began soaking up storage, and SanDisk, spun out of Western Digital in early 2025, caught the full force of the swing. June-quarter revenue was $8.97 billion, up 372% from a year earlier; the datacenter line went from $213 million to $2.98 billion in four quarters. Gross margin reached 84.6%, a number commodity memory is never supposed to print. By the company's own accounting, about two-thirds of the June quarter's sequential growth came from price rather than volume. That is the whole cycle in one sentence: when price is the engine, the engine can run in either direction.
The ramp. Thursday fills in the dashed bar.
Margins no one builds a memory model around.
The part that is genuinely new
The cycle is old; the contracts are not. SanDisk has now signed ten long-term supply agreements under what it calls its New Business Model, five announced in April and five more since, three of them with new customers. Customers are paying to lock in supply: prepayments and deposits under these deals reduced adjusted free cash flow by $1.9 billion in the June quarter and $2.5 billion for the year, which is what it looks like when buyers finance their supplier. Reported free cash flow was still $7.1 billion for the quarter. The company also added $14 billion to its buyback, $15.5 billion now authorized, after repurchasing $4.5 billion in the quarter.
| Measure | Q4 FY26 | Q1 FY27 guide |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $8.97B | $10.3–10.8B |
| Gross marginGAAP | 84.6% | 83.0–84.9% |
| Non-GAAP EPS | $39.25 | $44.00–46.00 |
| Datacenter revenue | $2.98B | — |
| Free cash flowBefore supply prepayments received | $7.1B | — |
| Buyback authorization | $15.5B remaining | — |
What Thursday actually decides
Beating the printed guidance is close to assumed; the company has been running ahead of its own numbers all year. The decisive disclosure is the March-quarter guide, the first quarter nobody has yet promised anything about, because it says whether management believes pricing holds into 2027. The market just watched a hard-drive neighbor beat its quarter and still sell off after flagging rising input costs and heavy capex, which is the sound of investors starting to price a peak. SK hynix reports Wednesday and Samsung Thursday, so by Friday the whole memory complex will have spoken within 48 hours.
Where we stand
The long-term contracts are a real structural change, and the balance between them and spot exposure is the number we most want Thursday's call to clarify, because it determines how much of the 84% margin is durable and how much is weather. SanDisk is a cyclical priced by a market arguing about whether this cycle is different. The risk factor the company itself lists first-order, reliance on its Kioxia joint venture for supply, is a reminder that it does not fully control its own output either. Expect the stock to move a lot on Thursday; the options market certainly does.
Sources and disclosures
All figures are from SanDisk’s fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 results of August 5, 2026, and the company’s scheduled October 29 reporting date. The two pre-Q4 revenue bars in our chart are derived from the company’s stated growth rates. Stock prices are from last week’s trading.
Disclosures. Haverhill Financial Research is a publisher of general financial commentary. This article is not personalized investment advice and does not consider any reader's financial situation; readers should do their own research. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Company figures and guidance can change. The author of this post does not hold positions in SanDisk or the other companies named. Data as of October 26, 2026.
