SanDisk Makes a Strong Comeback: AI Drives Flash Memory Demand, Revenue May Soar 76% in Two Years

SanDisk Makes a Strong Comeback: AI Drives Flash Memory Demand, Revenue May Soar 76% in Two Years

Since returning to the public market in February this year, SanDisk has experienced explosive growth driven by strong demand from artificial intelligence. Institutions predict that its revenue is expected to grow by as much as 76% within two years, and its stock performance has far surpassed the industry average. This flash memory manufacturer, which spun off from Western Digital, is fully benefiting from the structural opportunities created by AI’s data-intensive workloads and a market environment with relatively constrained supply.

Since the beginning of this year, SanDisk’s stock price has surged by about 560%. Recently, boosted by Micron Technology’s better-than-expected financial report, its stock trend has further strengthened. The company was officially included in the S&P 500 Index in November last year.

Benchmark Research analyst Mark Miller pointed out in his latest report that the current high-demand supply and demand pattern driven by AI is expected to last beyond 2026. Based on this, the institution maintained its “buy” rating for SanDisk and a target price of $260, while simultaneously raising earnings forecasts for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

The outlook for SanDisk’s performance highlights the strong pull of the upstream storage industry from the AI infrastructure investment boom. It is estimated that by 2030, investments in data centers and AI-related infrastructure will surpass $1 trillion, providing a long-term and broad market for SanDisk’s high-capacity, high-efficiency SSD products.

BiCS8 Technology Builds Competitive Moat

Although SanDisk's enterprise SSD (eSSD) business is still in its early stages, its BiCS8 technology is gradually building a differentiated competitiveness. Citi analysts pointed out that such products, as the mainstream flash memory solution for data centers, will continue to benefit from the overall tight supply situation in the industry, especially the strong demand from hyperscale cloud providers for generative AI training and inference services, which will strongly support the long-term growth of the eSSD market.

In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, BiCS8 technology already accounted for 15% of the company's total shipped storage capacity, and it is expected to become the dominant part of production by the end of this fiscal year. The commercialization of this technology has directly driven the growth of the data center business, with revenue for this segment reaching $269 million in the quarter, up 26% quarter-over-quarter. Currently, global attention to BiCS8 products is steadily rising among hyperscale cloud providers, emerging cloud service providers, and OEM customers.

Looking ahead, SanDisk’s high-performance SSD product line Stargate, designed for data centers, is expected to further expand its share among existing customers. In addition, the high-bandwidth flash memory technology being developed jointly with SK Hynix will provide higher performance storage support for AI inference applications in data centers and edge devices.

PC Upgrade Cycle Boosts Edge Business

The edge business has become an important growth driver for SanDisk. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, this segment achieved revenue of $1.39 billion, up 26% quarter-over-quarter and 30% year-over-year. Growth was mainly driven by the PC replacement cycle from Windows 11 upgrades, with global PC shipments expected to maintain low single-digit growth from 2025 to 2026, and average storage per unit expected to achieve mid-single-digit growth.

At the same time, the rapid adoption of generative AI in PCs and smartphones has opened new growth opportunities for SanDisk. It is expected that the average smartphone storage capacity will maintain high single-digit growth over the next two years. The company believes that as the pace of device upgrades accelerates, the edge business will continue to expand and further increase NAND storage volume per device.

The consumer segment also performed brilliantly. In the first quarter, sales reached $652 million, up 27% year-over-year and 11% quarter-over-quarter. Growth was mainly attributed to its partnership with Nintendo—co-branded Switch 2 microSD Express cards sold 900,000 units in the first quarter. In addition, the company recently released dedicated storage cards for ROG Ally and Xbox, further solidifying its competitiveness in the gaming storage market.

Risk Warning and DisclaimerThe market has risks, investment requires caution. This article does not constitute individual investment advice and does not take into account the specific investment goals, financial status, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article fit their particular circumstances. Investments made based on this information are at users’ own risk.