Seagate Technology Plc (NYSE: STX) said Tuesday that its fiscal third-quarter profit dropped to $93 million, or 21 cents a share, from $518 million, or $1 a share, in the year-earlier quarter. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 25 cents a share in the latest quarter. Revenue decreased to $2.70 billion from $3.05 billion. Analysts, on average, expected the company to report earnings of 27 cents per share on revenue of $2.66 billion.
During the quarter, the company shipped 49 million disk drives, and its gross margin was 19.1 percent.
Separately, Seagate and Samsung Electronics Co. said they would expand their joint operations. Under the terms, Samsung will take a 9.6% equity interest in Seagate and nominate a director to the California company's board. Samsung, the Korean consumer-electronics major, will combine its hard-disk-drive operations into Seagate's; the companies will expand their agreements under which they cross-license patents; and Samsung will supply Seagate with flash memory for solid-state drives and other products. Seagate expects the deal to be meaningfully accretive to adjusted earnings per share and cash flow within the first full year following the closing. The deal would be closed by the end of calendar year 2011, subject to customary closing conditions.
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