During its 2026 Investor Day on Thursday, SanDisk Corp. (SNDK.US) unveiled its long-term growth strategy and a new multi-year financial framework. The company underscored that as artificial intelligence (AI) expands from the training phase into inference, data centers will require significantly more high-performance, high-capacity, and low-power storage. It projects the enterprise data center flash addressable market will grow to 1.2 zettabytes (ZB) by 2030. Concurrently, SanDisk Corp. expects revenue to achieve high-teen to mid-20% compound annual growth from fiscal 2028 to 2030, with non-GAAP gross margins remaining around 80% and adjusted free cash flow margins reaching approximately 50%.
SanDisk Corp. Chairman and CEO David Goeckeler attributed the company's current strong performance to the consistent execution of its established strategy over the past 18 months. Leveraging decades of NAND flash memory expertise, system-level capabilities, a diversified product portfolio, a capital-efficient operating model, and full technology-stack proficiency, the company has built a differentiated competitive advantage. This positions it to serve various end markets and generate long-term value for shareholders. SanDisk Corp. believes the rapid proliferation of AI is transforming traditional storage architectures. As AI inference workloads grow and token usage skyrockets, KV Cache (Key-Value Cache) is reshaping memory and storage tiers within AI systems, making future AI data centers far more "storage-intensive." The company projects the enterprise data center flash market will reach 1.2 ZB by 2030.
SanDisk Corp. stated that its product portfolio will focus on meeting AI infrastructure demands for higher performance, lower power consumption, and greater storage density, viewing AI inference as a key driver of future business growth. On the technology front, the company detailed a 2D scaling strategy based on CMOS directly bonded to array (CBA) technology, enabling the development of customized products tailored to rapidly shifting market demands while improving capital efficiency. The newly introduced BiCS9 QLC technology is the first example of this strategy, combining the proven BiCS8 memory array with a CMOS wafer based on BiCS10 technology to deliver the high performance required for AI workloads in a more capital-efficient manner. Meanwhile, the next-generation BiCS10 QLC node offers a 60% improvement in bit density over BiCS8, which the company claims will set new industry standards for storage density, performance, and energy efficiency.
Beyond technology upgrades, SanDisk Corp. is reducing the traditional cyclicality of the NAND industry through new Business Model Agreements (NBMs). These agreements include committed purchase volumes, binding contractual frameworks, minimum financial guarantees, and structured pricing mechanisms, which help align customer demand with the company's capacity planning. SanDisk Corp. has already signed NBMs with eight customers, and these agreements are expected to cover approximately 50% of the company's bit shipments in fiscal 2027, rising to about two-thirds by fiscal 2028. The company noted that NBMs are rapidly becoming its primary business model, promising to enhance the predictability of future revenue and cash flow while supporting more stable long-term earnings growth.
SanDisk Corp. also highlighted its HBF technology, positioning it as a critical product direction for capturing storage demand in the AI inference era. The company stated that HBF is becoming an important technology for seizing new opportunities in the AI inference age, and that an ecosystem around HBF is gradually forming to support broader future adoption. During this Investor Day, SanDisk Corp. also presented its long-term financial model for fiscal years 2028 through 2030 for the first time. It expects revenue to grow at a high-teen to mid-20% compound annual rate during this period, broadly in line with bit shipment growth. Non-GAAP gross margins are projected to remain around 80%, with non-GAAP operating margins of approximately 75% and operating expenses making up about 5% of revenue. After accounting for taxes, capital expenditures, and working capital required to support growth, the company anticipates adjusted free cash flow margins of around 50%.
SanDisk Corp. CFO Luis Visoso stated that the company operates in a large, rapidly growing market with favorable industry tailwinds. The company will focus on balancing growth, business sustainability, and capital returns. After meeting the investment needs of the business, SanDisk Corp. plans to return 100% of its remaining cash to shareholders. Management expressed confidence in the sustainability of this long-term financial model, largely due to multi-year NBM agreements with customers and customer relationships built on technological innovation and deep collaboration. Overall, SanDisk Corp.'s Investor Day positioned storage demand driven by AI inference as a key pillar of its long-term strategy. Through NAND technology upgrades, new storage technologies like HBF, and long-term customer agreements, the company aims to expand its AI data center business while mitigating the cyclicality of the traditional storage industry. The projected 1.2 ZB enterprise data center flash market by 2030, along with the targets of approximately 80% non-GAAP gross margins and about 50% adjusted free cash flow margins from fiscal 2028 to 2030, were the most closely watched metrics in this long-term strategy. As of writing, SanDisk Corp. shares surged over 13% to $1,521.9.
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