Overview
Company Historically Provides H1B Sponsorship
Western Digital, which goes by WD, designs and makes hard disk drives, mostly the high-capacity models that cloud and AI data centers use to store huge amounts of data cheaply. In 2013, its HGST unit shipped the first helium-filled hard drives, which fit more disks into each drive and use less power. Its drives store data on stacks of spinning magnetic disks, and the lineup runs from Ultrastar data center drives to WD Red and WD Purple drives for home servers and security cameras. WD makes its money selling these drives to cloud companies, PC makers, and retail shoppers. Western Digital was founded in 1970 and is based in San Jose, California, and in 2025 it spun off its flash memory business as Sandisk.
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About Western Digital
Industries
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
San Jose, California
Founded
1970
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Sales are accelerating: revenue rose 44% in the quarter ended July 2026, and WD forecast up to 49% growth next.
- Demand is locked in: in January 2026, WD said 2026 was nearly sold out, with contracts into 2028.
- Room to grow: WD listed 346 open roles in October 2026, including 31 internships and 92 US jobs.
What critics are saying
- A few buyers drive the business: three customers made 44% of fiscal 2026 revenue; the top 10, 73%.
- WD trails on denser drives: Seagate's 44TB laser-heated drives reached two cloud giants by March 2026; WD's come in 2027.
- Job cuts continue despite growth: WD booked $103 million in severance costs in the nine months to April 2026.
What makes Western Digital unique
- It sells mostly to data centers, not shoppers: cloud customers made 89% of revenue in mid-2026, consumers 5%.
- Most staff work in Asia: 88% of WD's roughly 40,000 employees are in Asia Pacific, where it builds its drives.
- It stretches older drive technology further: by July 2026, WD was shipping 40TB drives without Seagate-style laser heating.
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Funding
Total Funding
$3.3B
Above
Industry Average
Funded Over
3 Rounds
Benefits
Paid sick leave & vacation time
Medical/dental/vision insurance
Life, accident, & disability insurance
Tax-advantaged flexible spending and health savings accounts
Employee assistance program
Tuition reimbursement
Employee stock purchase plan
Western Digital Savings 401(k) Plan
Stock Price
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
-3%1 year growth
-3%2 year growth
-3%Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) closed at $397.28 on October 9, up 13.4% over six months. The S&P 500 ETF returned 15.1% in that period. Most of its reported profit comes from a retained stake in SanDisk, the flash memory business it spun off in February 2025, not from drives. Free cash flow came in well below net income. The drive business is still strong. Operating margin is 43.61%, and revenue grew 43.80% as data centres bought high-capacity drives faster than makers could build them. The stock trades at 12.40 times forward earnings but 18.99 times book value. Insider Monkey calls this the profile of a cyclical at its peak, with industry capacity already being added. Hedge fund holders rose to 98 from 83, with stakes worth about $9.94 billion.
Western Digital forecasts fiscal Q1 2027 revenue of $4.1 billion, up from $3.75 billion in the previous quarter. The company's revenue grew 36% over the past twelve months, outpacing Apple's 14.2%. Western Digital reported its average price per terabyte rose by a high-teens percentage year-over-year in fiscal Q4 2026, whilst costs per terabyte fell around 8%. By contrast, Apple warned of rising memory costs during its fiscal Q3 2026 call. Western Digital maintains a 36% operating margin compared to Apple's 33%, and carries less debt relative to market value. However, cloud customers account for 89% of Western Digital's revenue, whilst Apple benefits from diversified income streams including iPhone and services. Western Digital shares returned 224% over twelve months, significantly exceeding Apple's 32%.
Western Digital is attracting new customers from AI labs, emerging cloud companies, and autonomous vehicle manufacturers, though the scale of these purchases remains uncertain. Cloud customers accounted for 88% of the company's fiscal Q4 2026 revenue, generating $3.3 billion — a 44% year-over-year increase. The company shipped 231 exabytes of storage capacity in fiscal Q4 2026, up 22% annually, whilst overall revenue grew 44% in the same period. Management attributed this growth to both increased shipment volumes and higher pricing, with the average price per terabyte rising by a high-teens percentage. Western Digital expects storage demand to grow over 25% annually. The company projects fiscal Q1 2027 revenue of $4.1 billion, plus or minus $100 million, compared to $3.75 billion in fiscal Q4 2026.
Seagate, Western Digital stocks sink as rival Toshiba's expansion plans hit storage highfliers Ines Ferré · Senior Business Reporter Fri, October 2, 2026 at 10:32 AM EDT
Western Digital and Seagate shares fell sharply on Friday after Toshiba announced plans to double its hard disk drive production capacity by fiscal 2027. Toshiba will invest roughly 60 billion yen ($380 million) in expanding its Philippines facility, its first major HDD investment in about five years. Western Digital stock declined approximately 10%, whilst Seagate dropped nearly 15%. Toshiba currently holds just over 10% of the HDD market by storage capacity and aims to reach 30% over the medium term. Western Digital and Seagate each control more than 40% of the global market, compared with Toshiba's 17%. The expansion targets AI data centres, where HDDs remain cost-effective for storing massive volumes of training data.
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About Western Digital
Industries
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
San Jose, California
Founded
1970
Western Digital is Hiring for 284 Jobs on Simplify!
Find jobs on Simplify and start your career today