NEW YORK, March 10, 2026, 09:10 EDT
Sandisk surged 11.6% to close at $588.73 on Monday, leading gains among memory and AI storage plays as buyers jumped back into the sector late. Micron added 5.2%. Western Digital, Sandisk’s former parent, climbed 6.8%. 1
It’s become a bigger deal now: Sandisk, which Western Digital spun off last year, has a business that’s more sensitive to NAND flash prices than the industry giants. NAND powers solid-state drives by storing data even when they’re unplugged, and the recent surge in AI data-center budgets has only made those chips scarcer. Investors will be watching closely when Sandisk executives present at Cantor’s tech and industrial growth event this Wednesday, March 11, for fresh signals on how supply and demand are holding up. 2
The sector stayed in the spotlight Tuesday, with new analyst notes drawing attention. Susquehanna’s Mehdi Hosseini stuck with his Buy call on Sandisk and kept his $1,000 price target, pointing to firmer pricing and improved demand in both DRAM and NAND, TipRanks reported. He described Sandisk’s January guidance as a “game changer.” 3
Sandisk kicked off its latest move in late January, projecting fiscal third-quarter revenue between $4.4 billion and $4.8 billion, with adjusted earnings landing in the $12 to $14 per share range—numbers that easily cleared LSEG’s Wall Street consensus. Back then, Chief Executive David Goeckeler summed up the market’s mood: “Customers prefer supply over price,” underscoring just how tight things had gotten. 4
The company logged $3.03 billion in second-quarter revenue, a 31% jump from the previous period. Datacenter revenue climbed 64% sequentially as AI infrastructure demand picked up. Goeckeler pointed to Sandisk’s products playing an increasingly “critical role” in powering AI. 5
Supply is still front and center here. Back in January, Sandisk and Kioxia pushed out their joint venture deal to 2034, locking in additional flash production out of Japan. Goeckeler claimed the partnership has given both sides “the highest performing, lowest cost NAND technology” so far. 6
Peers are following, though the moves aren’t uniform. S&P Global notes that Sandisk’s heavy tilt toward NAND makes it more vulnerable to flash price swings than broader-based competitors like Micron and Samsung. That leaves Sandisk’s shares acting as a more direct play on AI storage appetite. 7
The picture isn’t entirely one-directional. Hosseini is looking for memory supply and demand to edge back toward equilibrium by the middle of 2027 as fresh clean-room facilities are added. Western Digital, after last month’s $3.17 billion Sandisk sell-down, still holds about 1.7 million Sandisk shares, which it intends to offload—potentially keeping an overhang in place. According to S&P Global, ongoing Middle East conflict and pricier LNG could mean elevated production costs for Asian memory supply chains. That risk comes as Reuters noted the war has already triggered volatile intraday moves in U.S. chip stocks. 3
Investors are sticking with the demand narrative for now. Sandisk’s turn at Cantor on Wednesday is shaping up as the next checkpoint—will management still talk up tight supply, hot enterprise SSD demand, and AI-fueled spending, just like they did in January? 8
