What Was Seagate Telling You Before Its Stock Ran?

Seagate Technology (STX) stock returned 232.5% in the twelve months that ended on October 2, 2026, against 16.4% for the S&P 500. The run turned out to be about AI. Cloud companies building data centers needed far more storage, and Seagate had fewer hard disks to sell than its customers wanted. So how long before the run was Seagate’s management pointing to those cloud customers?

Seagate Flagged A Cloud Customer Almost A Year Early

Management was already talking about a cloud customer on October 22, 2024, on its call for fiscal Q1 2025. It said the approval process for its products at its lead cloud customer was progressing well. It also spoke of sustained supply discipline, so both its lead cloud customer and its own supply came up that day.

The figures matched the talk. Seagate’s revenue grew 49.1% from a year earlier in fiscal Q1 2025, against 17.8% in fiscal Q4 2024. That report was filed on October 25, 2024, so anyone could read it eleven months before the run began.

Seagate Tied Its Demand To Cloud Spending In 2025

The next two calls made the link to cloud spending plain. On January 21, 2025, management said revenue from nearline products, the high-capacity disks it sells to cloud customers, had almost doubled in the December quarter. On April 29, 2025, it said demand for its mass capacity storage, which includes nearline disks, moves in line with what cloud companies spend on their data centers.

Profit was following. Seagate’s operating margin was 23.8% in fiscal Q4 2025, against 16.5% a year earlier. That report was filed on August 1, 2025.

Yet the signs were not clean. The January call referred to a production issue, and revenue growth then slowed to 31% in fiscal Q3 2025 from 50% the quarter before. Coverage in April 2025 also raised tariff uncertainty as a risk to Seagate’s costs and growth. You could have read the cloud link as it formed, but only by looking past those doubts.

Seagate Now Sells Mostly To One Kind Of Buyer

Data centers brought in $2.9 billion of Seagate’s $3.6 billion in revenue in the June 2026 quarter. That data center revenue was up 57% from a year earlier. Margins widened with it, and Seagate’s operating margin was 35% over the latest twelve months, against 21% a year before.

Seagate was not alone, though. Western Digital returned 219% and Micron Technology 491% over the same window, which suggests investors repriced these companies as a group.

Is Seagate’s Cloud Demand Still Building Today?

Demand was still building as of Seagate’s latest call, on July 28, 2026. Management guided September-quarter revenue to $4.1 billion, plus or minus $100 million, against the $3.6 billion it reported for June. It also said the vast majority of its nearline output is already promised to customers into calendar 2028 under long-term supply agreements.

More supply may be coming, though. Seagate shares fell on October 2, 2026 after a report that Toshiba plans to double its capacity for hard disks used in AI data centers in fiscal 2027. Investors worried that more supply could hurt the pricing power Seagate has enjoyed. Seagate has not yet reported its September quarter. Revenue at or above the $4.1 billion it guided would show demand still building.

Does This Mean You Should Act On STX?

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