SanDisk's quarterly revenue tops expectations

Chipmaker SanDisk Corp's fourth-quarter revenue topped analysts' expectations, helped by strong growth in solid-state drives as investors look for signs of stability in NAND chip prices.

The company's stock rose over 3 percent in extended trade.

Like other memory chipmakers, SanDisk has been hurt in recent quarters by a drop in prices for NAND flash chips used in smartphones, cameras, storage drives and tablets to store data such as movies and photos.

Wall Street is looking for signs of recovery in NAND prices after Japanese chipmaker Toshiba scaled back production last year.

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In its earnings report on Wednesday, SanDisk said its growing solid-state drive business accounted for 10 percent of fourth-quarter revenue.

Sales of solid-state drives, which store data on flash chips and are faster than conventional hard drives, are growing quickly with their inclusion in Ultrabook thin laptops being promoted by Intel Corp and PC makers.

SanDisk earned USD 214 million, or 87 cents per share, in the December quarter, compared to USD 281 million, or USD 1.14 per share, in the year-ago period.

Revenue fell 2 percent over the year to USD 1.54 billion.

Analysts on average were expecting revenue of USD 1.526 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Excluding items, it earned $1.05 a share.

The company's shares rose 3.82 percent in extended trade after closing down 0.63 percent at USD 47.65 on Nasdaq.