Tuesday, 31 July 2012 11:08
Seagate posts disappointing quarter, shares drop
Written by Fuad Abazovic
Set to pounce on OCZ to cheer itself up
Seagate released its fourth quarter earnings yesterday and the figures missed Wall Street expectations.
On the plus side, Seagate earned $1.01 billion in the fiscal quarter ending in June. The figures are an improvement over last year’s abysmal fiscal fourth quarter, but at the time it had the excuse of a flood wiping out most of its production. The profits this quarter were lower than even most Wall Street analysts could dream up.
Seagate’s revenue jumped to $4.48 million, but analysts were hoping for a bit more. Wall Street thought, on average, that Seagate should have been making $4.55 billion of revenue. Following the report, Seagate’s shares fell about 8 percent in after-hours trading.
In what could be described as effort to cheer up investors, Seagate Chief Financial Officer Pat O’Malley confirmed that the company is interested in buying an SSD maker with a “significant” share of the enterprise market.
Although O’Malley did not directly name OCZ, everyone knew who he was talking about. He told Reuters that Seagate will look at “all technology product providers” in the enterprise SSD market.
“There's probably only one of them that really makes any significant money," he said.
OCZ shares gained almost 40 percent in value since we first reported on Seagate’s plans earlier this month, here.h, here.
Fuad Abazovic
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