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Western Digital Corp (WDC 1.51%)
Q2Â 2020 Earnings Call
Jan 30, 2020, 5:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good afternoon, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Western Digital's Second Quarter of Fiscal 2020 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
Now I will turn the call over to Mr. Peter Andrew. You may begin.
T. Peter Andrew -- Investor Relations
Okay. Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Joining me today are Steve Milligan, Chief Executive Officer; Mike Cordano, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Bob Eulau, Chief Financial Officer.
Before we begin, let me remind everyone that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements, including product development expectations, business plans, trends and financial outlook based on management's current assumptions and expectations, and as such, does include risks and uncertainties. We assume no obligation to update these statements. Please refer to our most recent financial report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC for more information on the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. We will also make references to non-GAAP financial measures today. Reconciliations between the non-GAAP and comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the press release and other materials that are being posted in the Investor Relations section of our website.
With that, I'll now turn the call over to Steve.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Peter, and good afternoon. Western Digital delivered solid results in the second quarter as revenue came in at the midpoint of the guidance range and non-GAAP EPS was at the upper end of the range. Our performance reflects strong execution in our product roadmap, success in increasing our hard drive gross margin and an improving flash environment. Notably, these results reinforce our prior comments that the June quarter marked the bottom of this flash cycle. We extended our capacity enterprise product leadership as we started sampling 18-terabyte and 16-terabyte CMR and 20-terabyte SMR drives in December. These drives feature our energy-assisted magnetic recording technology, providing unrivaled aerial density and TCO benefits. We expect to commence revenue shipments of the CMR drives in the March quarter and ramp shipments through the rest of calendar 2020.
Our 14-terabyte platform is performing well. And customer interest in our air-based 10-terabyte drive is quite high. The capacity -- the strength of our capacity enterprise product portfolio will continue to allow us to maintain our leading market share position. We achieved our goal of high-single-digit enterprise SSD market share and secured additional NVMe design wins, including at another major hyperscale customer, positioning us for continued revenue growth and share gains.
We made an important announcement this afternoon of our next generation 3D NAND technology, BiCS5 with 112 layers of vertical storage. BiCS5 joins a full portfolio of 3D NAND technologies as our highest density and most advanced 3D NAND to-date, delivering exceptional performance and reliability. Our team executed well in the quarter, increasing our hard drive non-GAAP gross margins to approximately 31% from 28.5% in the prior quarter. We now expect an accelerated recovery in our flash gross margins in the first half of calendar 2020 with continued improvement through the end of the year.
I will now ask Mike to share our business highlights.
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Thank you, and good afternoon. Our December results reflect solid product execution, an increase in hard drive gross margin in an improving flash market environment. Data Center Devices and Solutions, we executed well in delivering new products, positioning us for continued share gains and profitable growth in calendar year 2020. In capacity enterprise drives, close collaboration between our heads, media and mechanical design teams, allowed us to simultaneously introduce energy-assisted magnetic recording technology and a triple-stage actuator and our new 16-terabyte, 18-terabyte and 20-terabyte drives. These innovations provide us with continued aerial density leadership and a greater design margin resulting in best-in-class product quality and reliability. Our focus on introducing the right technology at the right time, while delivering the best TCO and highest product quality to hyperscale and OEM customers makes us their trusted partner.
In calendar year 2019, the success of our capacity enterprise product line, led by our 14-terabyte drives drove over 40% year-over-year exabyte growth. We also started sampling our 18-terabyte and 16-terabyte CMR and 20-terabyte SMR drives and plan to commence revenue shipments of the CMR drives in the current quarter. As these drives ramp along with our 10-terabyte air-based drives, we're well positioned for continued leadership.
In flash, we achieved our goal of high-single-digit enterprise SSD market share, as our NVMe-based enterprise SSD revenue grew over 50% sequentially. Supply constraints limited our upside as demand was better than expected. I am encouraged to see the significant investments we have made in expanding our product portfolio over the past several years are enabling us to increase participation in higher margin, higher growth and lower volatility parts of the flash market.
We have secured additional design wins, including another major hyperscale customer, which demonstrates our success in broadening our product portfolio and diversifying our customer base. In calendar year 2020, we expect to double our enterprise SSD revenue as we move toward our goal of 20% market share. Our competitive position within the data center is unrivaled, built on the breadth of our product portfolio, strong customer relationships, technology leadership and superior product quality. We look forward to another year of strong growth in the data center market.
Client Devices, strong growth in client SSD and smart video along with growth in mobility and desktop hard drives, drove the sequential revenue growth in the December quarter. As we enter the March quarter, flash pricing continues to improve. Furthermore, starting in the June quarter, we expect to begin shipments into a new gaming platform. The gaming console market is expected to be a multi-exabyte opportunity this calendar year.
Within Client Solutions, strong holiday demand for both our flash and hard drive solutions enabled revenue to grow on a sequential basis. At CES 2020, we demonstrated a range of innovative products, including the world's highest capacity, pocket size portable SSD and the world's first USB 3.2 SSD exclusively for gaming.
This afternoon we announced our 5th generation 3D NAND technology, BiCS5. Utilizing a wide range of new technology and manufacturing innovation, BiCS5 has significantly increased accelerated density horizontally across the wafer. These laterals scaling advancements in combination with 112 layers of vertical memory capability enables BiCS5 to offer up to 40% more bits of storage capacity per wafer compared to Western Digital's 96 layer BiCS4 technology. We have commenced shipping initial consumer products built on BiCS5 with mass production expected to begin later this calendar year.
We believe inventory in the flash supply chain has returned to normal levels, and with strong demand for our products, we are experiencing pockets of tightness. These dynamics combined with continued product execution in both flash and hard drives, position us well for continued profitable growth.
I will now turn the call over to Bob for details on our financial performance.
Robert Eulau -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. Revenue for the December quarter was $4.2 billion, up 5% sequentially and flat from a year ago. Please recall that the September quarter was a 14-week quarter. High-end markets, Data Center Devices and Solutions revenue of $1.5 billion was down 3% sequentially and up nearly 40% year-over-year. On a sequential basis, growth in enterprise SSD is offset by a decline in capacity enterprise drives and the impact of our exit from the storage system business.
Client Devices revenue of $1.8 billion was up 11% on a sequential basis and decreased nearly 20% year-over-year. As Mike noted earlier, the sequential growth was driven by client SSD, smart video, mobility and desktop HDD. The year-over-year decline was primarily due to pricing in flash, our decision to limit our participation in mobility and a decreased TAM for notebook and desktop hard drives.
Client Solutions revenue was $948 million, up 6% sequentially and flat year-over-year. Sequential growth was driven by strength in hard drives. By product category, flash revenue was $1.8 billion, up 13% sequentially and down 15% year-over-year. Flash ASPs were down 8% sequentially, primarily related to our increased participation in mobility. Bit shipments were up 24% sequentially. Hard drive revenue was $2.4 billion, roughly flat sequentially and up 16% year-over-year. Average price per hard drive was flat sequentially at $81 and exabyte shipments were down 1% sequentially.
As we move on to costs and expenses, please note all of my comments will be related to non-GAAP results unless stated otherwise. Gross margin for the December quarter was up 1.1 percentage point sequentially to 25.9%. Our flash gross margin was 19.5%, up slightly from last quarter as a better pricing environment was offset by our increased participation in mobile. The hard drive gross margin grew more than expected to almost 31% from 28.5% the prior quarter. This improvement was due to the full realization of the cost benefits of the KL [Phonetic] closure and a stable pricing environment as overall ASP per drive sequentially flat at $81.
Operating expenses were $765 million. Operating expenses with normal incentive compensation expense would have been closer to $720 million. Operating cash flow for the December quarter was $257 million and free cash flow was $377 million. Capital expenditures, which include the purchase of property, plant and equipment and activity related to Flash Ventures on our cash flow statement were an inflow of $120 million. As previously noted, we are benefiting from the timing of the funds going back and forth between us and the joint venture.
For the full fiscal year, we expect cash capital expenditures to be close to zero. Gross capital expenditures, which includes our portion of joint venture leasing and self-operating funding is expected to be between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. In an effort to provide greater transparency and clarity into our capital expenditures, we've added a few new slides to our earnings presentation available on our Investor Relations website.
In the December quarter, we distributed $149 million in dividends to our shareholders. We reduced debt by $388 million, which included an optional $325 million debt pay down. From a capital allocation perspective, our first priority is to reinvest in the business to maximize long-term shareholder value. After that, paying our dividend and reducing our debt are the next priorities. At the end of the quarter, we had $3.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Our $2.25 billion revolver remains unused. And our gross debt outstanding was just under $10 billion. Total inventory dollars were down $165 million on a sequential basis as both hard drive and flash inventory decreased.
Moving on, our non-GAAP guidance for the third fiscal quarter is as follows. We expect revenue to be in the range of $4.1 billion to $4.3 billion. We expect gross margin to be approximately 28.5% to 29.5%. Please note, that this range includes approximately $70 million in costs associated with the K1 fab. Operating expenses are expected to be between $740 million and $760 million. The midpoint of the guidance range assumes a return to normal variable compensation expense and selective new R&D investments. We expect interest and other expense of $80 million to $85 million. And we expect the tax rate to be around -- to be between 25% and 27%. As a result of this detailed guidance, we expect earnings per share between $0.85 and $1.05, assuming approximately 305 million in fully diluted shares.
With that, I will now turn the call over to the operator to begin the Q&A session. Operator, we'll now take our first question.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Wamsi Mohan with Bank of America.
Wamsi Mohan -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch (US) -- Analyst
Yes. Thank you, and congrats on the strong guidance. When you speak of an accelerated recovery here in flash gross margins, can you layout the key drivers of that through 2020 and how you're thinking about the velocity of that recovery and any thoughts on where you might exit the calendar year?
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Wamsi, this is Steve. I'll take that question. So there's really a couple of different things that I would say are going on in terms of the flash market. One, the first thing is, as we indicated in our prepared remarks, we believe that inventory levels in -- from an industry perspective to the best of our estimation have returned in the balance or call it normal levels. So that's one thing that occurred. The other thing is, obviously we have been working very hard on improving our product line-up, which is allowing us to sell into markets that carry higher gross margin profiles, as well as the stickier business and we believe that that will help us over time to manage the volatility that is associated with the flash business.
The other thing is that, as part of all of that is, is that there is an increasing awareness on behalf of our customer base that inventory supply and demand is tightening up. In other words, demand is going to exceed supply this year. And so we're seeing customers recognizing that, prices are improving. Right now that tightness is it's kind of in pockets. It's not necessarily across the board. So we're seeing pockets of tightness in the market. And as we move through the balance of the year, we expect that that tightness will increase.
And so what that means from a gross margin perspective, last quarter we said that we thought we would see modest improvement in our gross margins in the flash area. Now we're saying that our margin profiles will -- it will accelerate in terms of that improvement. And I would expect as we move into the back half of the year, we'll see an increasing mark -- more of that as the market tightens up even more in the back half of calendar 2020. What that means from a numeric perspective is that we would say that we have the opportunity for our flash gross margins to get into the 35% to 40% range as we get into the back half of the calendar year.
Wamsi Mohan -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch (US) -- Analyst
Okay, great. That's great, Steve. Thanks. I appreciate the color. And can you maybe just -- you guys obviously executed pretty well in the quarter on the HDD side as you had guided to sort of have those margin step-up as well. Can you talk about the path of the HDD gross margins from here as well? Thank you.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I think the way to think about those is we're in a range where we're comfortable going forward. So we will continue to operate around the range that we reported.
Wamsi Mohan -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch (US) -- Analyst
All right, great. Thank you.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
With a bias -- Wamsi, I would add to that. With a bias for those margins improving over time as an increasing amount of our hard drive volume shifts to capacity enterprise. So what we've talked about is something in the mid-30% range. We're not necessarily saying that that will happen in this calendar year, but that should be the bias over a period of time.
Wamsi Mohan -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch (US) -- Analyst
Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo.
Aaron Rakers -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Yeah. Thanks for taking the questions. First, kind of keeping on the hard disk drive business. I know you talked about in the press release or the slide deck, a 100% plus growth year-over-year in near line HDD capacity shipments. But given the competitive landscape and the questions, I'm curious, what did that -- how did that perform on a sequential basis? And how are you currently seeing the competitive environment?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. So I think in general, we maintain our leading market share position, call it in the -- kind of low-to-mid '50s. We'll see where this all settles out once everybody reports. We expect that to continue right through the first half of this calendar year. And then in the back half, we obviously think we have some opportunity to continue to grow slightly. So from a product positioning standpoint, we feel very good about not only our 14-terabyte, which continues to be the highest volume shipper, but the expected ramp of our 16-terabyte, 18-terabyte and 20-terabyte, which will occur throughout the year. And as we noted in the prepared remarks, we will begin initial revenue shipments in the current quarter.
Aaron Rakers -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Okay. And then on the gross margin on the flash side, mix can be a meaningful driver to gross margin. But I'm curious is as -- as you continue to execute on BiCS, I guess it would be BiCS4 and now we start to talk about BiCS5. Can you just update us on how we think about the cost curve relative to that mix shift effect to kind of take you back to that, as you said, 35% to 40% gross margin? And just where are we at currently in the mix of BiCS4 in terms of bits shipped right now?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. BiCS4 is the overwhelming majority of bits, we're just starting the initial BiCS5 ramp. The way to think about, Aaron though, is really in this kind of 15% plus or minus annualized cost take down, and certainly we would expect that to continue as we move through this next product transition. Relative to mix, I would say both product and market segment exposure and then of course the broader ASP pricing environment are going to be the drivers of the margin enhancement through the calendar year 2020.
Aaron Rakers -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mehdi Hosseini with SIG.
Mehdi Hosseini -- Susquehanna International Group -- Analyst
Yes. Thanks for taking my question. Two follow-ups for Mike and Steve. First on the NAND side, and on a game console rather, a new game console. This is incremental as I imagine the prior generations are hard disk drive-based and now is migrating to SSDs, and there are some figures out there. I'm just trying to see what is your assumption for the kind of a NAND supply that the new game console is going to consume given the fact that this is incremental? And I have a follow-up.
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. I think you're right. It is all incremental. And from an industry standpoint and certainly from our standpoint because we were not participating in the gaming market in 2019 calendar year on the hard drive side. I don't think we want to go any farther than what we said in our prepared remarks. This is going to be a large multi-exabyte market and we wouldn't want to comment any more specifically.
Mehdi Hosseini -- Susquehanna International Group -- Analyst
Okay, fair. Moving on to hard disk drive, obviously you're introducing a new 18-terabyte. Can you help me understand how you're cost competitive? I understand your product has a fewer number of plates? And as we migrate from 16-terabyte to 18-terabyte, how that cost competitiveness is going to be used to increase market share?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. So I think from our standpoint, we think we have a significant time to market lead on 18-terabyte and 20-terabyte. And so the platter count to our understanding is system [Phonetic] with next generation. So our benefit relative to market share is always about bringing the right products to the market in a leading way, getting smoothly through customer qualification and ramping quickly. We've been doing that generation over generation for several years. We will do that again on the 18-terabyte, 16-terabyte and 20-terabyte product that we'll be ramping this year.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. And we -- and Mehdi, we do have a cost advantage. And we would think that -- I mean that's represented in our underlying hard drive gross profit performance. And one of the things that you're alluding to is that our capacity enterprise drive and this continues for 16-terabyte, 18-terabyte and 20-terabyte drives that we are using aluminum media versus glass media and that is at a lower cost.
Mehdi Hosseini -- Susquehanna International Group -- Analyst
Got it. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Karl Ackerman with Cowen.
Karl Ackerman -- Cowen & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Hi. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I have two if I may. The first question is regarding your NAND supply outlook. We're calling for 30% growth for the industry in calendar 2020. Is most of that coming from process conversions and what's sitting in inventory? Or is it going to be dictated by adding substantial greenfield capacity at the K1 facility? And in addition to that, your South Korean peer last night spoke about NAND demand, industry NAND demand growing kind of high-20s for 2020. How does that play in your capital planning process?
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Hey, Karl. One thing I want to comment is when they were talking about high-20%, I believe that was supply growth not demand growth. So -- but anyway, I'll let Mike comment on the specifics.
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. So all the growth, both ours and the industry is technology transition. So our K1 expansion is all about technology -- room for technology transition. There is no wafer capacity in our plans going in. And that's really, I think that's the theme [Phonetic] across the industry. And just to comment further on where we think -- we talked about low-30s in terms of supply growth. Steve commented on what Samsung's comments were. We believe demand growth will be in the 35% plus range for this year.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Hence, the shortage.
Karl Ackerman -- Cowen & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Very helpful. Last one if I may. Your enterprise SSD market share opportunity is quite significant and I think impressive. But when we think about that, how much of that is driven by a new server architecture launched this year versus retrofitting existing servers? And I ask because a Tier 1 U.S. based hyperscaler just announced after the close that the depreciation will be lower for them in March due to an increase in useful life of their server. So if I could just -- kind of talk about that a little bit that would be great? Thank you.
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. So, no, we're not dependent on any specific server transition. So what we are able to do with our NVMe products is win both new server and existing socket design wins in the NVMe space. And then of course similarly in SaaS, there will be a series of new products announced where we will be designed in. So we're not dependent on any particular server transition. And it's really the power of and strength of the product portfolio, as well as the customers' view of us as a preferred supplier that's driving that share growth.
Karl Ackerman -- Cowen & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Thank you.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Tim Long with Barclays.
Tim Long -- Barclays -- Analyst
Thank you. Just going back -- two for me as well. On the HDD side, could you talk a little bit about as 16-terabyte, 18-terabyte and 20-terabyte ramp through the year, just for your near line business, what do you think the gross margin in ASP impacts will be there? And then on the NAND side there was a earlier comment, you talked a little bit about mix. Could you just give us a sense as to the dilution from mobile and should we expect more or less participation in that market as we move through calendar '20? Thank you.
Robert Eulau -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Tim, this is Bob. So the first one on the hard drives and we have not been giving specifics on capacity enterprise margins, but they are better than average. And as we've said before, as our mix trends toward more and more capacity enterprise, we do expect our hard drive gross margins can get up into the mid-30% range. So that will be a benefit to us. And from -- on the mix question, I mean we're not -- also not able to get specific in terms of exactly what the numerical implication was at mobile, but it obviously was dilutive to us this quarter. And over time, we'll always participate some in the mobile market. But we'll continue to manage that.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. And as the flash supply demand situation tightens up, we will see the mobile market become more attractive for us from a gross margin perspective.
Tim Long -- Barclays -- Analyst
Okay. Good point. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Joe Moore with Morgan Stanley.
Joseph Moore -- Morgan Stanley & Co, LLC -- Analyst
Great. Thank you. I wonder if you could talk about the planning process behind the capex at the JV level on NAND? To the extent that you guys are feeling better about the business and where profitability is going, do you feel the need to change capex at the JV? And then, I guess, second half of that question. You said earlier that earlier in the year that you can sort of get the industry bit growth without a lot of capex because you won't have the fab shutdown, you won't have the power outage. Could you just update us on your thinking of how that impacts your supply growth for the calendar year?
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I'll comment overall on the capex in terms of bit growth and that sort of thing. I mean, from an overall philosophical perspective, I mean, we want to be adding bit supplied to the market that is consistent largely with the overall growth from a demand perspective. So we're not -- as a result of the improving environment, we're not looking at accelerating or decelerating our plans. But over a longer period of time, we would want to try to manage our growth from a supply perspective to growth in demand. And so that hasn't changed.
Joseph Moore -- Morgan Stanley & Co, LLC -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. And our next question comes from Mitch Steves with RBC Capital Market.
Mitch Steves -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hey guys. Just two questions for me. I just want to try to clarify or at least get some numbers around this or any way to think about it. So when you look at the SSD opportunity, just trying to double your share there for the NVMe, the statement you guys made in the slide deck and you combine that with the gaming platforms coming in. How much of that is adding to kind of the overall demand? You guys gave out a 35% number. I'm just trying to understand how much of this you guys have clean visibility on so we can get an understanding of how much that demand is gaming plus your share gains on the enterprise side?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
So the broader sort of industry demand number we gave you is independent of our own share growth, right? So -- in any one of these particular segments. So our view of 35% demand side growth on the year is an aggregate across the industry for bit. When we talk about segment share gains in enterprise SSD and in gaming, that's obviously product segment-related gains. So we're not going to talk specifically about that. I think you can kind of calculate where we think we're going on the enterprise SSD side given my comment.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. And I'd add kind of further context to that. I mean what we're trying to do is we're trying to place our bits in those markets that characterize, I call it, one or two elements. One, opportunities for us to add more value from a product perspective, thereby driving higher gross margin. Refer to that as, let's call it, enterprise market. And then also those areas of the market that are either stickier, less volatile so that we can manage the ups and downs that tend to occur in this kind of market. Gaming, yes, it's incremental from a flash perspective and also tends to be stickier business, more predictable. And so it has some of those characteristics that are attractive to us as we look to place our bits in more attractive parts of the market, as opposed to let's call it more transactional or price-driven areas of the market.
Mitch Steves -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got it. Understood. And then just last one. You guys have mentioned like 40% kind of NAND gross margins kind of the goal you guys want to get to. I'm just trying to get a better understanding for other RAM [Phonetic]. So is that something you guys think you can exit at in calendar year or is it going to take a lot longer than that? Just looking for any sort of help on when you guys think you can get to the kind of 40% number you've talked to in the past?
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, what I commented on is that given the trajectory of our business and where we see it playing out in calendar year, we expect that our flash gross margin rate will move into the 35% to 40% range as we get into the back half of the year. Now that's not being specific as that calendar Q3 or calendar Q4 want to see exactly how the market evolves. But we clearly continue to believe that 40% range is the right level for us. And we believe that we'll begin to approach that in the back half of the calendar year.
Mitch Steves -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Perfect. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from C.J. Muse with Evercore.
C.J. Muse -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Yeah. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. I guess first question. You talked about industry bit supply growth in the low-30s and you would be in line with that. Can you share with us what you expect to revenue on a bit basis? And as part of your thinking there, how are you contemplating bits for mobility versus elsewhere?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Well, the one thing I'll say relative -- we don't comment specifically, but we would expect to have our own inventory positions to be in being quite balanced state. We are entering the year and we expect to be exiting the calendar year. To the extent you want to calculate that that will give you a feel for it.
C.J. Muse -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Okay. And your thinking on the mobility side? Is that something that you're thinking maybe it will stick more to enterprise and consoles?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
No. We like -- yeah, the mobility side is not all created equal. And part of our effort over the last several years is getting more product diversification, as Steve talked about, some of the newer areas. But we will continue to maintain exposure to mobility. We will just manage that exposure and make sure we're making or we're able to make good choices as the market continues to evolve. So we see it as a long-term area of investment. We see there are some very attractive parts within the mobile marketplace. So we'll continue to be investing there. We'll just be able to manage our bit allocation more broadly through this calendar year and into the future.
C.J. Muse -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Excellent. And as my follow-up, another question on the NAND gross margins, shocking. But if you could, I guess, speak to the K1 charges. When you think they might roll-off and how accretive that might be? And also given kind of the state of the industry today, are you running a 100% utilization? What kind of tailwind do you see there? Thank you.
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. So in terms of K1, I mean, we're now having real production runs and we'll continue to have more production as we progress through the year. This last quarter we didn't have quite as larger charges without going to, I think it came in around $65 million. And I think we had said on this call last quarter to be around $75 million. In the current quarter, in the March quarter, we're expecting around $70 million in terms of a period expense charge. And that should start to go down after this quarter. And it's really a function of how we ran production and are obviously ability to absorb those costs. But it will start to get better I think from here.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. And one thing, just to comment on, when I talked about 35% to 40% flash gross margins in the back half of the calendar year, that is inclusive of any potential start-up cost that still remain in the back half of the year.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Munjal Shah with UBS.
Munjal Shah -- UBS Securities, LLC -- Analyst
Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my question. So two questions. One, could you just update us on the CEO search? And then secondly on HDD exabyte. They were down 1% sequentially, but then you talk about 100% growth on an exabyte basis year-on-year. So if you could tie those two as to why on a sequential basis the exabyte could be down? And related to near line, what's the visibility into 2020?
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. So I'll take the CEO search comment or question and then Mike can comment on capacity enterprise. So regarding the search, the search process is ongoing. And one of the things that I will add to that is, the board is very pleased with the progress that they're making to-date. And so that's all the update we have for now.
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
And relative to the capacity enterprise marketplace, our fiscal quarter one was a record shipment for us. Our exabyte share was around 57%. We were operating to optimize both profit and maintain our kind of leading share position in this space. So some of that would be a little bit of a share drop, and I talked about that 53% to 55% depending on where things settle out. But as we look into the first half of this calendar year, we see demand across the breadth of the market remaining fairly strong. And we think we're in a good position to maintain this leading market share position that I just talked about. So visibility is good. Obviously different customers have different plans, but when we aggregate it, we feel pretty comfortable with continued strength of demand through the first half of the calendar year.
Munjal Shah -- UBS Securities, LLC -- Analyst
Yeah. Thanks a lot.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Steven Fox with Cross Research.
Steven Fox -- Cross Research -- Analyst
Hi. Good afternoon. Just a couple of quick questions for me. First of all, you mentioned that you became supply constraint on the NVMe SSDs during the quarter. Can you just sort of talk about how you work that through and what it implies for future growth, maybe this quarter, next quarter? And then secondly, I was wondering if you could expand on your comment about the pockets of tightness you're currently seeing. What exactly would you call out, I guess besides enterprise. But anything that you can elaborate on there and where maybe those pockets expand to in the coming quarter? Thank you.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. So I'll take the question on the NVMe supply constraint. It was not a flash supply constraint issue. Basically what happened is demand was better than we had expected and it was some of the components that we used in our NVMe SSD product. We've worked to resolve those and it should not be an issue as we move forward through calendar 2020. And then the other question?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. So I think what we're seeing is in general demand has been very strong across client SSD, particularly in the performance categories. So in some parts of the world, there is constraints there and that's being reflected in the movement on pricing in a positive direction.
Steven Fox -- Cross Research -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Harlan Sur with J.P. Morgan.
Harlan Sur -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Hi. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question. Good to see the sharp growth in the enterprise NVMe SSD platforms. Given the strong momentum on these products in the strong cloud spending environment, do you think that you guys actually exited the calendar year tracking at low-double-digits percentage market share or are you still somewhat constrained on the supply exiting the year?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. To Steve's comment, we actually saw demand in excess of our availability of the actual other components. So had we been able to fully realize that, frankly we had been in the low-double-digits on share. That remedies itself as we're now inside lead time. We continue to see strong demand for those products. And as I talked about, we expect to double revenue in that category year-over-year.
Harlan Sur -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Great, thanks. And then on the HDD side, on the outlook for capacity enterprise exabytes shipments up kind of 35% year-over-year this year. Seems a bit conservative, I mean, we're hearing that it's more likely in the mid-40% range with 60% type year-over-year growth in the first half of this year just given the continued strong cloud spending trend. So wondering if you can kind of layout your assumptions may be here in the first half of the year for exabyte consumption, just given that cloud and hyperscale spending still seems to be quite strong?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. We haven't been too specific on that. I will say, I will give you a comment that we do see at this time a bias up in demand. So I think that's reflected in your comments. So relative to a 35% or so annual expectation, I think our current view is a bias up from there.
Harlan Sur -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Ananda Baruah with Loop Capital.
Ananda Baruah -- Loop Capital -- Analyst
Hi. Thanks guys for taking the question. Congratulations on the solid performance and it's good to see the guide really amplifying here. I'll just stick with near line. Steve, could you just give us a little more context about how you see the aesthetic? And then Mike as well, of the cloud cycle through the year. Mike, it sounds like you're saying you expected through the balance of calendar year '20 now to some extent. Stephen, like do you see it potentially continuing? Is there the potential? I'm not asking for a guide, but the potential to continue exabyte demand going up sort of into the back half of the year or is this sort of one where it gets up to a peak sooner, but then maybe is sort of an extended kind of the cycle? Any context there would be great? I appreciate it.
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Let me try to clarify a little bit. We certainly see the first half of the calendar year remaining strong. I'll reference back to the comments I just made. On an annualized basis, we've been talking about 35% annualized growth. We do see on an annualized basis a bias up from there. I wouldn't want to comment kind of any further on the way that -- the way the full year or the shape of each of the individual quarters grow.
Ananda Baruah -- Loop Capital -- Analyst
Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate that clarification. Thank you, guys.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Srini Pajjuri with SMBC Nikko Securities.
Srini Pajjuri -- SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. -- Analyst
Thank you. Just a follow-up on the previous question, Steve. I guess, we have had pretty strong two quarters from the cloud end market here and there is some concern that there may be a digestion period as we head into the first half, and I think Intel did say that they expect somewhat of a digestion period. I'm just wondering, you tend to have a pretty long visibility in especially on the drive side. I'm just wondering if you're seeing any signs of slowdown out there that causes you to kind of believe that there is going to be a digestion period?
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. So again all customers not created equal. There are some that are doing that. But when we aggregate it, the demand remains quite strong through the first half of the calendar year.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Vijay Rakesh with Mizuho.
Vijay Rakesh -- Mizuho Securities USA -- Analyst
Yeah. Hi guys. Just wondering, I saw your capex is down for fiscal '20 keeping that discipline. I'm just wondering, as you look at the rest of the ecosystem, are you seeing any aggressive capex or how do you view that? And also on the China side with YMTC continue to expand, what are your thoughts in terms of supply coming in with increased or aggressive capex given how NAND pricing has been trending? Thanks.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I'll comment in terms of overall industry to the extent that there is public information. But as Samsung indicated and others have indicated, we're all circling at a bit supply growth rate that's kind of in a similar neighborhood with Samsung talking about high-20% growth rate and we're talking low or mid, low-30s. And so we're kind of all aggregating. And we're not seeing anybody adding capacity from a NAND supply perspective that would concern us. Certainly not in the short-term because it would take up to 18 months for that to become productive capacity. And so we're not seeing anybody behave in a way that we think that would upset the balance from a supply demand perspective. So we feel pretty good about that.
YMTC, no real change in terms of our expectations there. We do not think that -- see them having any material impact in terms of the market for the next several years. And we'll continue to evaluate that depending upon their ability to ramp, not only from a pure production standpoint, but from a technology perspective. But certainly no concerns I would say over the next two to three years in that regard. And that's kind of within the planning cycle that we would have visibility to.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Sidney Ho with Deutsche Bank.
Sidney Ho -- Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. -- Analyst
Great. Thank you. My question is if you kind of look at your calendar Q1 guide being roughly flat quarter-over-quarter, which seems to be better than seasonal, especially on the NAND side. Can you talk about your expectations, maybe by products, hard drives, SLC [Phonetic] drives or by segment? Just curious how much of that above seasonal guide is a function of ASP improvement?
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So let me -- I'll comment at a really high level and then Mike or Bob can add a little bit more specifics. But I mean if you look at -- first thing I want to answer it in kind of a back door sort of way. If you look at our gross margin improvement quarter-on-quarter, which is pretty significant in terms of 25.9 to 28.5 to 29.5 in terms of the range, almost all of that is driven by improving flash environment. So namely pricing, all right? And so -- and yes, there is mix improvements and that sort of thing. And so that directly impacts revenue.
So when you look at an improving pricing environment that's helping us to keep our revenues, let's call it, flattish on a quarter-on-quarter basis. And then beyond that, we continue to see the overall demand environment to be solid. I mean, just kind of solid, not great, not necessarily -- but not bad. And so it's just kind of there and that's both a flash and a hard drive statement. And so that's allowing us to kind of work against what would be normal seasonality drop in revenue in calendar Q1. So those are really kind of the two big factors.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Nehal Chokshi with Maxim Group.
Nihal Chokshi -- Maxim Group -- Analyst
Yeah. Thank you, and great to see the accelerating NAND flash recovery in the gross margins. I did want to make sure I understand the dynamic that is going on there. Do you expect your own NAND flash inventory to decline Q-over-Q for the March quarter, which I think as Micron has comment that they were expecting their NAND flash inventory to accumulate, but for NAND flash prices to increase. So just wondering if you had some color there as far as your expectations on that?
Robert Eulau -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. This is Bob. I can make a couple of comments, and I don't want to start giving guidance for inventory by quarter. But we're still not satisfied with where we are on inventory in spite of the reduction that we saw this quarter. And our goal over the next few quarters is to get to at least five turns, and that's what we're focused on internally as a company. So it won't be strictly linear getting there, but we think we can achieve that fairly soon.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question will come from Patrick Ho with Stifel.
Patrick Ho -- Stifel -- Analyst
Thank you very much. Maybe as a follow-up to some of the questions about your 18 and 20 gigabit drive -- terabyte drives that have been released. Can you discuss how the gross margin acceleration or the path to your target gross margin is impacted by your ability to get those out sooner in terms of the development of those drives. You talked about I think the last quarter that 9-platter was pulling somewhat in terms of development. How does that help in the acceleration of the gross margin progression?
Robert Eulau -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. This is Bob. I guess the first thing I would say is our gross margins are already very good in terms of capacity enterprise. And as I said earlier, as our mix tends more and more toward capacity enterprise that will pull up our overall hard drive mix. Our mix was not as good as prior quarters, as this past quarter, but you still saw the margin improvement. You saw that ASPs stayed flat in spite of a tougher mix. So overall I think margins are very solid on capacity enterprise. And I think as we introduce the new product that trend will continue.
Operator
Thank you. And our final question will come from Mark Miller with Benchmark before we end with a short statement by our CEO.
Mark Miller -- Benchmark Co. -- Analyst
Thank you. But I believe the questions I wanted to address about the second half strength in data center and also near line have been posed, so I don't need to pose those again.
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Mark. Good to hear your voice. All right. So thank you all for joining us today. And we look forward to seeing you at the upcoming Goldman Sachs Technology Conference in San Francisco. Have a good rest of the day.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 51 minutes
Call participants:
T. Peter Andrew -- Investor Relations
Stephen D. Milligan -- Chief Executive Officer
Michael D. Cordano -- President and Chief Operating Officer
Robert Eulau -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Wamsi Mohan -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch (US) -- Analyst
Aaron Rakers -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Mehdi Hosseini -- Susquehanna International Group -- Analyst
Karl Ackerman -- Cowen & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Tim Long -- Barclays -- Analyst
Joseph Moore -- Morgan Stanley & Co, LLC -- Analyst
Mitch Steves -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
C.J. Muse -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Munjal Shah -- UBS Securities, LLC -- Analyst
Steven Fox -- Cross Research -- Analyst
Harlan Sur -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Ananda Baruah -- Loop Capital -- Analyst
Srini Pajjuri -- SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. -- Analyst
Vijay Rakesh -- Mizuho Securities USA -- Analyst
Sidney Ho -- Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. -- Analyst
Nihal Chokshi -- Maxim Group -- Analyst
Patrick Ho -- Stifel -- Analyst
Mark Miller -- Benchmark Co. -- Analyst
