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$SNDK
SanDisk has skyrocketed nearly 600% in a year, with AI turning NAND into the 'new oil'
Last Friday, semiconductors took a nosedive, with SanDisk (SNDK) plummeting over 14% at one point. But on Monday, it rebounded 5.3%, closing at $1642, with a year-to-date gain of 591.72%. Mizuho raised its target price from $1825 to $2200, while Bank of America increased its forecast from $1500 to $2100, both maintaining a 'buy' rating.
What’s driving this surge? AI is reshaping the foundational logic of the storage industry.
SanDisk is one of the top five global NAND flash memory suppliers, offering enterprise SSDs, consumer SSDs, memory cards, and more. It spun off from Western Digital and went public in February 2025, focusing exclusively on NAND.
Historically, NAND has been a highly cyclical industry—crashing when supply exceeds demand and skyrocketing when demand outstrips supply. However, three structural changes are breaking this cycle:
First, the explosive growth in AI computational power is directly driving demand for enterprise SSDs. Mizuho predicts that TPU shipments will surge eightfold by 2028 compared to 2026, with Google renting out TPUs to AI companies like Anthropic, leading to a simultaneous spike in storage demand. The CEO has clearly stated, 'Data centers will become the largest market for NAND by 2026.'
Second, supply-side constraints are extreme. SanDisk is resisting the urge to expand production blindly, with new capacity expected to come online gradually until 2028. Goldman Sachs predicts a 4.6% NAND shortage in 2027, with storage prices likely to rise at least until the first half of 2027.
Third, long-term agreements are changing the pricing model. Customers are shifting from quarterly negotiations to multi-year contracts that include prepayments and supply commitments, reducing price volatility.
Performance validation:
In Q3 of FY2026, revenue surged 250% year-on-year, with gross margins soaring from 22.5% to 78.4%. Q4 gross margin guidance is as high as 67%, with expected earnings per share between $12 and $14. The company anticipates nearly 70% growth in data center bit demand by 2026, whereas just two quarters ago, this figure was still over 20%.
SanDisk is no longer a cyclical stock. It is a core component of AI infrastructure. While the market is still discussing GPUs, storage is becoming the next asset to be revalued.
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