Milpitas, California, May 9, 2026, 09:03 PDT
- Sandisk soared around 16.5% on Friday, closing at $1,562.34 and lifting the flash-memory company’s market cap to approximately $245 billion.
- AI stocks sent the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to fresh highs, with Micron and Sandisk each jumping over 15%.
- Investors want to see if Sandisk’s multiyear supply agreements can smooth out the swings in what’s traditionally been a volatile memory business.
Sandisk Corp shares jumped higher Friday, pushing their rally further as investors piled in, wagering that AI-driven data centers will sustain appetite for flash storage and memory products.
AI processors aren’t the only story now. Data centers also rely on NAND flash—memory that keeps data even when the power’s off—inside solid-state drives to speed up massive AI tasks. Sandisk stock (SNDK) has emerged as one of the more straightforward storage bets in this phase of the AI ramp-up.
Nvidia picked up 1.8% on Friday, Reuters said. Micron Technology and Sandisk both surged over 15%, fueling fresh records for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index rallied too, extending its big second-quarter run.
Sandisk threw some big numbers at the market last week. The company posted fiscal third-quarter revenue of $5.95 billion, a 97% jump from the previous quarter, with GAAP net income landing at $3.62 billion, or $23.03 per diluted share. Datacenter revenue didn’t disappoint either, climbing 233% quarter-over-quarter to $1.47 billion.
The company is projecting fiscal fourth-quarter revenue between $7.75 billion and $8.25 billion, with non-GAAP diluted net income per share expected to land somewhere from $30 to $33. Chief Executive David Goeckeler described the quarter as a “fundamental inflection point,” pointing to a shift in focus toward higher-value end markets, especially those driven by data centers. Sandisk Corporation
The real issue is if Sandisk can smooth out the wild swings that have plagued the memory chip sector for years. In its 10-Q, the company disclosed $41.6 billion in remaining performance obligations—industry jargon for revenue locked in but not yet counted, mostly tied to long-term customer deals. Only around 15% of that will show up as revenue in the next year.
Chief Financial Officer Luis Visoso told investors the company has inked five agreements totaling over $11 billion in financial guarantees, covering more than a third of Sandisk’s projected bit supply for fiscal 2027. According to Visoso, the deals are structured with a mix of fixed and variable pricing—so Sandisk stands to benefit if prices go up, while customers get some buffer if prices drop.
The peer read-through matters here. Reuters noted after Sandisk’s results that both Western Digital and Seagate flagged robust enterprise storage demand, hinting the AI buildout is fueling gains for several suppliers. Micron’s surge on Friday had memory names in the mix, too.
The risks here are clear enough. Sandisk, in its filing, flagged that these long-term deals carry execution, financial, and market hazards. Failing to hit agreed specs or deadlines means the company could get stuck with price reductions, penalties, damages—or even see deals scrapped. Customer guarantees, Sandisk added, might not make up for lost revenue if a buyer drops the ball.
Valuations are feeling the heat after the sharp rally. Michael Ashley Schulman, partner at Cerity Partners, described storage stocks as “failing to provide” the needed upside surprise to justify their rapid climb, speaking to Reuters after Sandisk’s April forecast. That, he said, helps explain why investors backed off earlier—even though guidance was strong. Reuters
Scarcity and clear contracts are propping up the stock for the moment. “The economy seems hard to wreck,” Rob Williams, chief investment strategist at Sage Advisory Services, said in comments to Reuters on Friday, citing productivity, consumer spending, wealth effects, and company earnings. Now, Sandisk faces a different hurdle: will AI storage demand actually keep its numbers in step with the wider market story? Reuters
