Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC) filed an 8-K after the close on August 5, 2026 to report its fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year results, for the quarter ended July 3, 2026. The short version: the hard-drive maker beat Wall Street on both revenue and profit, and guided for an even bigger quarter ahead as AI and cloud data centres soak up high-capacity storage.

The numbers

• Revenue: $3.75 billion, up 44% year-over-year (and +12% versus the prior quarter) — ahead of the roughly $3.7B analysts expected.
• Non-GAAP EPS: $3.56, versus about $3.30–$3.34 expected — a clear beat, and more than double the $1.70 from a year ago.
• GAAP EPS: $8.21 — but read this one carefully. It is inflated by a roughly $2.05 billion non-cash gain on WD's leftover stake in Sandisk (the flash-memory business it spun off in early 2025). Strip that out and the ~$3.56 non-GAAP figure is the truer picture of the operating business.
• Margins jumped: gross margin reached 54.1% (from 41.0% a year ago) and operating margin 41.7% (from 26.1%). Higher prices and tight drive supply did the heavy lifting.
• Cash: $1.39B operating cash flow and $1.28B free cash flow; the board kept its $0.15 quarterly dividend.
• Guidance (next quarter): revenue of about $4.1B (up ~42–49% YoY) and non-GAAP EPS near $4.00 — i.e. WD expects growth to keep accelerating.

What is an 8-K "Item 2.02"?

An 8-K is the form US companies use to tell the SEC about a material event between their bigger quarterly and annual reports. Item 2.02 — "Results of Operations and Financial Condition" is the specific line companies use to release earnings, with the actual press release attached as an exhibit (Exhibit 99.1). So whenever a US company reports quarterly results, this is the filing that makes it official — the primary source, straight from the company, before the news headlines summarise it.

Why it matters

Western Digital is now a pure-play hard-disk-drive (HDD) company after spinning off its flash-memory arm, Sandisk, in February 2025. That makes this report a clean read on one question: how strong is demand for the big spinning drives that store the world's data? The answer here was "very." Hyperscalers and cloud providers building out AI infrastructure need enormous amounts of cheap, high-capacity "nearline" storage, and supply of the newest drives is tight. Strong demand plus limited supply is exactly what let WD raise prices and push margins to multi-year highs.

The guidance for even faster growth next quarter is the part investors tend to focus on, because it suggests management sees demand continuing rather than peaking. The things worth watching: whether that tight supply and pricing lasts, how much of the demand is durable versus a one-time AI build-out, and the risks WD itself flags — tariffs, dependence on a few big customers, and the historically cyclical nature of storage. None of this is a prediction about the share price; it is about the business underneath.

Beginner takeaway

WD sold a lot more storage at much better prices, beat expectations, and told investors to expect an even bigger quarter next. Just be careful with the headline "$8.21 EPS" number — most of that came from a one-off accounting gain, not from selling drives, which is why analysts and the company point to the ~$3.56 figure instead. When a company reports two very different EPS numbers, it is always worth asking which one reflects the actual business.

FAQ

Why are there two different EPS numbers? "GAAP" follows strict accounting rules and includes one-off items like the Sandisk stake gain; "non-GAAP" strips those out to show underlying operations. Here GAAP was $8.21 but non-GAAP was $3.56 — the gap is almost entirely that one non-cash gain.

What does "beat estimates" mean? Analysts publish forecasts before earnings. WD's $3.56 non-GAAP EPS and $3.75B revenue both came in above the consensus (~$3.30 EPS, ~$3.7B revenue), so it "beat."

What is a "nearline" hard drive? It is the high-capacity drive type used in data centres for data that must be stored and available but isn't accessed every second — exactly what AI and cloud workloads generate mountains of.

Didn't WD and SanDisk split up? Yes. WD spun off its flash-memory business as Sandisk in February 2025, so today's Western Digital is essentially the hard-drive business, while flash and SSDs sit in the separate Sandisk company.

As of August 5, 2026. Source: official SEC filing — read it directly here. We summarise filings for education and may make errors, so always verify against the official document. Educational content only — not investment advice, not a buy/sell recommendation.