Seagate: Fiscal 4Q11 Financial Results

Seagate Technology plc reported financial results for the quarter ended July 1, 2011.

The company shipped 52 million disk drives and reported revenue of $2.9 billion, gross margin of 19.3%, net income of $119 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.27. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the net impact of restructuring, write-down of an equity investment, gain on the sale of one of its facilities, and expenses related to the previously announced transaction with Samsung, Seagate reported net income of $126 million and diluted earnings per share of $0.28 for the quarter ended July 1, 2011.

For the fiscal year ended July 1, 2011, the company reported revenue of $11.0 billion, gross margin of 19.6%, net income of $511 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.09. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the net impact of loss on redemption of debt, purchased intangibles amortization, restructuring, write-down of an equity investment, gain on the sale of one of its facilities, expenses related to the previously announced transaction with Samsung and tax adjustments related to prior fiscal years, Seagate reported net income of $578 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.24. Additionally, Seagate returned $77 million to shareholders in the form of a dividend and repurchased $822 million of Seagate ordinary shares.

"Seagate and the industry are benefitting from the significant demand for storage related to new applications and architectures associated with mobile and connected devices," said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO. "Because hard disk drive storage is a fundamental technology for cloud service providers, data centers and all other network-based content providers, total industry demand grew almost 40% in fiscal year 2011 to 330 million terabytes. For the June quarter, Seagate’s average capacity per drive shipped grew to approximately 590GB, an increase of 39% year-over-year. As more online content and services become available to billions of connected mobile devices, we expect demand for storage capacity to continue to grow and Seagate to benefit from this growth."

Dividend
The Board of Directors has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.18 per share which will be payable on August 26, 2011 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on August 5, 2011. The payment of any future quarterly dividends will be at the discretion of the Board and will be dependent upon Seagate’s financial position, results of operations, available cash, cash flow, capital requirements and other factors deemed relevant by the Board.