SanDisk Q1 2027 earnings: AI storage demand drives another big beat
SanDisk's revenue and profit again topped Wall Street estimates as AI-related demand for flash memory chips kept surging, though shares fell after the report.
| Q1 2027 | Reported | Expected | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPS | $49.51 | $47.15 | +5.0% |
| Revenue | $11.03B | $10.85B | +1.7% |
Key takeaways
- Both revenue and earnings per share beat analyst estimates, continuing a run of upside surprises as demand for the NAND flash memory chips used in AI data centers keeps outpacing expectations.
- Growth was led by data centers: revenue from that segment jumped roughly 61% as cloud providers and AI companies bought more flash storage to handle growing AI workloads, making memory chips an increasingly important part of AI infrastructure spending.
- Coverage of the release attributed the growth mainly to shipping more chips, with higher prices for NAND flash as a secondary factor — roughly 60% volume and 40% pricing, by one estimate.
- The very high margins and returns shown in the fundamentals table — gross margin near 71%, net profit margin above 56%, and return on equity above 93% over the past year — reflect how much pricing power SanDisk has gained as memory-chip demand has outstripped supply; revenue over that same period roughly tripled from a year earlier.
- CEO David Goeckeler described the quarter as a strong start to the fiscal year, pointing to growing and durable free cash flow, and said that as AI systems increasingly run trained models rather than just training them, the need for large amounts of storage is making NAND flash increasingly central to AI infrastructure.
- For the current quarter, SanDisk guided revenue to a range of $12.2 billion to $12.6 billion, pointing to further sequential growth from the $11.03 billion just reported.
- The company also announced an 8-for-1 stock split effective in mid-November, which increases the number of shares outstanding without changing the overall value of an existing shareholder’s stake.
- Despite beating estimates and raising guidance, SanDisk shares fell after the report, a reaction coverage linked to concerns that NAND flash supply could grow faster than demand later in 2027, which could eventually cool the pricing gains behind recent profit growth.
Q1 2027 in context
| Metric | Oct 2026 | Oct 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $11.0B | $2.3B | +377.9% |
| Net income | $8.1B | $112M | +7133.0% |
| Free cash flow | $6.3B | $438M | +1340.4% |
| Diluted EPS | $52.60 | $0.75 | +6913.3% |
| Gross margin | 85.0% | 29.8% | +55.2 pts |
| Operating margin | 79.6% | 7.6% | +72.0 pts |
| Net margin | 73.4% | 4.9% | +68.6 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Oct 2026 and the quarter ended Oct 2025, as reported to the SEC.
How the stock took it
SanDisk Corporation closed at $1404.77 on Oct 28, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $1150.89 on Oct 30, 2026, the first session after it — -18.1% across the report.
| Earlier report | Close before | Close after | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 5, 2026 | $1427.62 | $1258.58 | -11.8% |
| May 1, 2026 | $1096.51 | $1255.86 | +14.5% |
| Jan 30, 2026 | $539.30 | $665.24 | +23.4% |
| Nov 7, 2025 | $207.69 | $267.95 | +29.0% |
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Fundamentals
| Metric | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Gross margin | 71.5% | Trailing 12 months |
| Operating margin | 61.2% | Trailing 12 months |
| Net profit margin | 56.5% | Trailing 12 months |
| Pretax margin | 64.3% | Trailing 12 months |
| EPS | $72.89 | Trailing 12 months |
| Revenue growth (YoY) | 175.3% | Trailing 12 months |
| Return on equity | 93.1% | Trailing 12 months |
Sources: company report · 247wallst.com · Investing.com · earnings call · BigGo Finance