David Goeckeler on capital expenditure
From Western Digital Corporation $WDC Q2 2023 Earnings Call · · Earnings Call
“We have further reduced our capital expenditures across Flash and HDD to moderate our supply — our projected cash capital expenditure for fiscal 2023 has declined nearly 40% from six months ago; in Flash we reduced wafer starts by 30% in January and in HDD we idled certain media production lines, reducing client hard drive capacity by approximately 40%.”
On , David Goeckeler, Former Chief Executive Officer & Director at Western Digital Corp, spoke about capital expenditure during Western Digital Corporation $WDC Q2 2023 Earnings Call on Earnings Call.
About David Goeckeler
David Goeckeler, former CEO of Western Digital, has been focused on navigating the company through a period of significant market volatility and product transitions. In fiscal Q2 2023, he reported revenue of $3.1 billion and a non-GAAP operating loss of $119 million, with the company expecting further revenue declines in the next quarter. Goeckeler stated that the company was managing for profitability and noted that its 22-terabyte drive had shipped in significant volume. He also announced that Western Digital had secured $900 million in convertible preferred equity investments from Apollo Global Management and Elliott Investment Management, and an additional $875 million in financing, to provide financial flexibility during its strategic review. Goeckeler said the company had reduced capital expenditures, cut wafer starts by 30% in flash, and idled certain hard drive production lines to moderate supply. Earlier in his tenure, Goeckeler emphasized the company's focus on innovation and debt reduction. He stated that Western Digital had paid down $2.7 billion in debt over three years and was working to settle a tax dispute. He described the company as a diversified storage provider, with hard drives serving as a proxy for cloud growth and flash storage addressing endpoint markets like gaming consoles. Goeckeler noted that the company's next-generation 3D NAND node, Bix8, had entered the productization phase. He also commented on industry challenges, including supply chain disruptions and demand softness from major customers, and described the pandemic as having accelerated the adoption of cloud-connected devices.