Western Digital Corp. WDC

Western Digital Corporation (Western Digital), incorporated on October 26, 2000, is a developer, manufacturer and provider of data storage devices and solutions that address the needs of the information technology (IT) industry and the infrastructure that enables the proliferation of data in virtually every industry. The Company's portfolio of offerings addresses three categories: Datacenter Devices and Solutions (capacity and performance enterprise hard disk drives (HDDs), enterprise solid state drives (SSDs), datacenter software and system solutions); Client Devices (mobile, desktop, gaming and digital video hard drives, client SSDs, embedded products and wafers), and Client Solutions (removable products, hard drive content solutions and flash content solutions). The Company also generates license and royalty revenue related to its intellectual property which is included in each of the three categories.

The Company develops and manufactures a portion of the recording heads and magnetic media used in its hard drive products. It develops and manufactures solid state storage products in different form factors for a range of different markets, including enterprise or cloud storage, client storage, mobile devices and removable memory devices. The Company has relationships with a range of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and datacenter customers addressing storage opportunities, including storage subsystem suppliers, server OEMs, Internet and social media infrastructure players, and personal computer (PC) and Mac OEMs. The Company markets its products primarily under the HGST, SanDisk and WD brands, and its products are sold through distribution, retail and direct channels across the world. Its devices and solutions are made using rotating magnetic or non-volatile memory storage technologies (NAND). The Company's operations outside the United States include manufacturing facilities in China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, as well as sales offices throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.

Datacenter Devices and Solutions

Datacenter devices and solutions consists of high-performance HDDs that are optimized for performance applications providing a range of capacity and performance levels primarily for use in enterprise servers, supporting online transactions, data analysis and other enterprise applications. Its datacenter solutions also include a range of high-capacity HDDs and drive configurations which are primarily for use in data storage systems, in tiered storage models and where data must be stored reliably for years. Its enterprise SSDs include NAND-flash SSDs and software solutions designed to improve the performance in various enterprise workload environments. Its enterprise SSDs encompass all storage interface protocols, including serial attached SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) (SAS), peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe), and serial advanced technology attachment (SATA). It also provides data storage platforms and systems to the market through its vertically integrated scale-out object storage active archive systems. The Company also offers system solutions, such as the InfiniFlash System, which provides petabyte scalable capacity.

Client Devices

Client devices consist of HDDs and SSDs for desktop PCs, notebook PCs, gaming consoles, set top boxes, security surveillance systems and other computing devices, embedded NAND-flash storage for mobile phones, tablets, notebook PCs and other portable and wearable devices, as well as in automotive and connected home applications, and NAND-flash wafers. Its embedded storage is designed to meet the demand for internal storage for mobile phones, tablets, notebooks and other portable and wearable devices, as well as in automotive and connected home applications. Its embedded NAND-flash storage products include custom embedded solutions and iNAND embedded flash products, which include its multi-chip package, or MCP, solutions that combine NAND and mobile dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) in an integrated package.

Client Solutions

Client solutions consist of HDDs embedded into WD- and HGST-branded external storage products and SanDisk-branded removable NAND-flash products which include cards, universal serial bus (USB) flash drives and wireless drives. Its external HDD storage products provide storage for backup and capacity expansion in both mobile and desktop form factors that are designed to keep digital content secure while providing portable storage. Its removable cards are designed primarily for use in mobile products, such as smartphones, tablets, imaging systems, action video cameras, security surveillance systems and other consumer applications. Its USB flash drives are used in the computing and consumer markets. Its wireless drive products allow in-field back up of created content, as well as wireless streaming of movies, photos, music and documents to tablets, smartphones and PCs.

The Company competes with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, Seagate Technology LLC, Toshiba Corporation, SK Hynix, Inc., Intel Corporation and Micron Technology, Inc.