SanDisk Corp. has just received one of Wall Street's most bullish endorsements.
Analyst Mark C. Newman from Bernstein-Societe Generale significantly raised the price target for the memory chip firm to $1,000, while maintaining an "Outperform" rating.
This new target represents a 72.4% increase from the previous target of $580 and suggests an approximate 50% upside from the current stock price of $665.
For context, this is currently the highest price target on Wall Street, whereas the consensus target price indicates only modest upside potential following SanDisk's recent significant rally.
Memory chip stocks have been on a sustained upswing recently, with companies including Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung seeing notable improvements in both fundamentals and share prices.
This strong momentum is largely fueled by a severe supply-demand imbalance in the memory chip market, with AI hyperscale cloud companies generating sustained excess demand. However, after the substantial gains, valuations for many AI memory-related stocks have reached elevated levels.
For instance, Micron currently trades at a price-to-sales ratio of approximately 11.6 times its trailing twelve-month sales. In contrast, some companies in the memory sector have much lower valuations; SanDisk, for example, trades at a P/S ratio of just 3.2 times.
Timing is crucial, especially following the recent pullback in precious metals, as the market searches for a new narrative, and SanDisk precisely offers that.
The current juncture is particularly critical—after the recent correction in the precious metals market, investors are eagerly seeking a new thematic driver, and SanDisk has恰好 become that focus.
SanDisk's Stellar Quarterly Results Highlight Robust NAND Flash Recovery
SanDisk's latest quarterly results, which surpassed expectations across the board, have forced analysts to completely reassess the company's earnings growth trajectory.
The company reported quarterly revenue of $3.03 billion, a 61% increase year-over-year and a 31% increase sequentially; profitability also improved substantially, with GAAP net income reaching $803 million, or $5.15 per share. Non-GAAP earnings per share surged to $6.20, a massive increase from $1.23 in the same period last year.
Furthermore, the company's non-GAAP gross margin skyrocketed to 51.1%, up 21.2 percentage points sequentially and 18.6 percentage points year-over-year. This figure also highlights the effective operating leverage achieved due to higher product pricing, an optimized product mix, and improved capacity utilization.
SanDisk's Key Quarterly Metrics
Revenue: $3.03 billion (YoY +61%, QoQ +31%) Non-GAAP EPS: $6.20 (vs. market expectation of $3.33) Gross Margin: 51.1% (significantly higher both sequentially and annually) Data Center Business Revenue: $440 million (QoQ +64%, YoY +76%) Behind the impressive performance is the company's continuous optimization of its product portfolio and steady growth in enterprise solid-state drive shipments, with demand in the data center business being particularly strong—AI infrastructure clients are expanding computing power while simultaneously increasing deployments of storage equipment.
SanDisk CEO David Goeckeler signaled to investors, succinctly summarizing this industry shift: "We are engaging with customers to transition our collaboration models from quarterly pricing negotiations to multi-year agreements that include clear supply and pricing commitments."
Newman praised SanDisk's quarterly results as "significantly exceeding expectations with impressive guidance, setting a perfect stage for the Year of the Fire Horse." Based on the current "extremely strong product pricing environment," he raised the company's price target. Concurrently, he also lifted his non-GAAP EPS estimates for fiscal year 2026 to $38.92 and for fiscal year 2027 to $90.96, a staggering 188% above the market consensus.
SanDisk also provided guidance: for the third quarter of 2026, revenue is projected to be in the range of $4.4 to $4.8 billion, non-GAAP EPS is estimated between $12 and $14, and the gross margin could reach a high of 65% to 67%. In contrast, peer Micron's current gross margin is only about 45%, underscoring the impressiveness of SanDisk's margin level.
Why This Memory Cycle is Different for SanDisk
SanDisk occupies a unique and highly advantageous position within the memory chip landscape.
Since its separation from Western Digital, SanDisk has become a pure-play company focused exclusively on NAND flash and storage products. Unlike other memory chip giants, the company is not entirely reliant on the capital-intensive arms race for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM).
Although the AI boom is a significant growth driver for its business, SanDisk also has a comprehensive portfolio of NAND flash-related products, including consumer and enterprise SSDs, embedded flash, and removable storage devices. Prices for products in this segment experienced a sharp decline in 2023-2024 but are now witnessing a powerful rebound.
Reviewing industry trends, TrendForce previously forecasted that the average selling price of NAND flash would fall nearly 15% quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2023, dragging industry revenue down 16.1% sequentially. In Q4 2024, NAND flash contract prices were still declining by 3%-8%, indicating the downturn was ongoing. However, a turning point emerged in mid-to-late 2025; TrendForce data showed that NAND flash contract prices rose 5%-10% quarter-over-quarter in Q3 and again by 5%-10% in Q4.
Recently, TrendForce further upgraded its industry outlook for Q1 2026, projecting NAND flash contract prices to increase by over 55%-60% quarter-over-quarter, confirming the recovery trend.
SanDisk is the Prime Vehicle for Betting on NAND Flash Recovery
This is precisely the core reason why SanDisk is the purest play for capitalizing on the classic cyclical rebound in memory chips—as NAND flash prices bottom and rise, the company's revenue and profits have experienced a significant rebound.
SanDisk currently stands out due to three key advantages:
Pure NAND Flash Focus: The company is not involved in DRAM or HBM businesses, insulating it from volatility in other segments and allowing the benefits of product pricing recovery to directly translate into strong fundamentals. Lower Operational Execution Risk: It avoids the competition for HBM market share and does not need to continuously justify massive AI-related capital expenditures. Re-rated Market Expectations: Previously, the stock price reflected industry challenges rather than peak earnings expectations, making this core NAND recovery play an under-owned stock among institutions, which is now attracting significant investor attention.
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