Western Digital Corp Q2 2021 Earnings Call Summary

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Mitchell Toshiro Steves - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst : I had 2 questions. I'm actually going to focus a little bit more on the hard disk drive side. So first is just kind of on the margins. If I look at the kind of the run rate of the business right now and I compare it to 2018, it was back then, it was kind of a 27% gross margin business on roughly $2 billion of revenue. So if I assume that COVID-related headwinds and kind of the supply chain issues were about 100 basis points of headwind to gross margin, am I roughly accurate there? So I'll start with that one, I have a follow-up after that.

Question: Mitchell Toshiro Steves - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst : So the number would have been kind of 27.2%, 27.3% in that rough range?

Question: Mitchell Toshiro Steves - RBC Capital Markets, Research Division - Analyst : Okay. And then secondly, you guys used to disclose a little bit more detail on the non-compute units. I think those were up pretty significantly Q-over-Q, 8.2 going to 10.1. I'm just curious if you can give us any sort of like directionality in -- was it more consumer electronics? Or was it more your branded units are doing better for the quarter?

Question: Nikolay Todorov - Longbow Research LLC - Analyst : I understand, David, I think you talked about seeing continued momentum in retail and PCs. But maybe we can extend a little bit. I would like to hear your thoughts about how you see those trends persisting as we look forward. I know visibility is probably not as good. But I just want to hear your thoughts, how you're thinking as we go into the following quarters, the demand from PCs and