Shares rocketed to $1,498.57 on August 13 as SanDisk's Investor Day opened in New York and management made its boldest case yet that the memory-chip upcycle is far from over. Just over a week ago, the company reported one of the strongest quarters in its history — record revenue, record margins, a huge earnings beat — and the stock fell about 8% anyway. Today's rally erased that doubt and then some, capping a 23.6% climb from last week's $1,212 low.
The CFO Just Put a $500 Billion Price Tag on the NAND Market
CFO Luis Visoso told investors the total NAND market will pass $300 billion in 2026 and $500 billion in 2027, with demand continuing to outpace SanDisk's supply and output staying tight into 2028. For shareholders, those numbers directly attack the biggest fear: that the current pricing boom is about to crest. If supply stays scarce through 2028, SanDisk's pricing power — and fat margins — survive far longer than skeptics assumed.
Record Margins and a Massive Earnings Beat Set the Floor
Q4 fiscal 2026 delivered revenue of $8.97 billion, up 372% year over year, with adjusted earnings of $39.25 per share against a $34.52 estimate and a record gross margin of 84.6%.
Full-year revenue reached $20.25 billion with net income of $11.43 billion. The company then guided Q1 fiscal 2027 to a midpoint near $10.55 billion in revenue, with gross margins of 83% to 85%. Even at the low end, that guidance implies the profit engine is barely cooling.
AI Storage Demand Is the Story, but China Is the Risk
AI-driven inference workloads — which require high-capacity, low-latency flash storage — have become a key growth catalyst.
But aggressive competition is coming from Chinese memory makers, with China's biggest NAND company expected to go public between late 2026 and mid-2027, potentially reducing SanDisk's pricing power. Goldman Sachs's $2,200 price target, raised in July with a Buy rating , suggests Wall Street sees room to run — but only if long-term contracts with hyperscale cloud buyers keep locking in volumes and prices.
The Core Question for Investors
Whether SanDisk can break past the boom-and-bust phase or whether it is nearing the end of its best stretch in the same old cycle is precisely what today's event was designed to answer. Management's supply-tight-through-2028 forecast is the boldest bet yet that this time really is different. The stock's 400%-plus year-to-date gain says the market wants to believe it. Whether it should depends entirely on those NAND prices holding.