Shares of Western Digital Corp. WDC, +1.93% dropped 2.1% in premarket trading Thursday, after the data storage company reported fiscal first-quarter profit that was well below expectations even as revenue beat, and also provided a downbeat outlook for the current quarter. Net income fell to $27 million, or 8 cents a share, from $610 million, or $1.93 a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share dropped to 20 cents from $2.49, and missed the FactSet consensus of 38 cents. Revenue fell 26.0% to $3.74 billion, but was above the FactSet consensus of $3.59 billion. Cost of revenue fell, but less than sales, down 18.6% to $2.76 billion as gross margin contracted to 26.3% from 33.0%. For the fiscal second quarter, the company expects to report a range from a per-share loss of 25 cents to EPS of 5 cents, compared with the FactSet EPS consensus of 27 cents, and revenue is estimated to be $2.90 billion to $3.10 billion, below the FactSet consensus of $3.44 billion. Chief Executive David Goeckeler said the “consumer-led downturn” in the industry is “showing signs of stabilization.” The stock has plunged 27.2% over the past three months through Wednesday, while the SPDR Technology Select Sector ETF XLK, +0.03% has dropped 10.2% and the S&P 500 SPX, +0.15% has lost 4.8%.
