ARM vs. Sandisk: Comparing Steady Historical Revenue Generation Against Rapid Sequential Revenue Expansion
Key Points
Sandisk shows a larger overall revenue base and a faster growth trajectory than ARM.
Over the past eight quarters, Sandisk's quarterly revenue has sky rocketed, while ARM's revenue has maintained a more stable pattern featuring minor sequential variations.
As these divergent financial trajectories continue to develop, prospective investors should carefully observe whether the current revenue gap between the two companies continues to widen or begins to narrow in upcoming quarters.
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ARM: Examining the Relatively Steady Revenue Generation Trends Over the Past Year
ARM (NASDAQ:ARM) primarily generates revenue through licensing and royalty collection on its proprietary chip designs. It conceptualizes, engineers, and licenses its core processing unit (CPU) designs, system intellectual property solutions, graphics processing units (GPUs), and supplementary software development tools to original equipment makers globally.
It published its quarterly financial results while engaging with external analysts on the broader computing infrastructure landscape, and recorded an operating margin of approximately 7.6% for the quarter ended June 30, 2026.
Sandisk: Tracking the Recent Acceleration in Overall Revenue Generation Trends
Sandisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) earns its revenue by designing, manufacturing, and supplying a broad and diverse array of digital storage solutions, embedded memory components, solid-state drives, and removable memory cards that rely entirely on advanced flash memory technology.
While it commenced manufacturing operations for its newest generation of flash memory at a facility in Japan and executed several regional workforce reductions, it reported an operating margin of approximately 78% for the quarter ended July 3, 2026.
Why Understanding Corporate Revenue Trajectories Matters for Everyday Retail Investors
Revenue here refers to the standardized income-statement revenue line item. Tracking this metric helps retail investors understand the absolute size and current growth trajectory of a company's operations before accounting for operating costs, corporate taxes, employee salaries, or other internal business expenses.
Comparing Quarterly Revenue Trends for ARM and Sandisk
| Calendar quarter | ARM Revenue | Sandisk Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 2024 | $844.0 million (quarter ended Sept. 30, 2024) | $1.9 billion (quarter ended Sept. 30, 2024) |
| Q4 2024 | $983.0 million (quarter ended Dec. 31, 2024) | $1.9 billion (quarter ended Dec. 27, 2024) |
| Q1 2025 | $1.2 billion (quarter ended March 31, 2025) | $1.7 billion (quarter ended March 28, 2025) |
| Q2 2025 | $1.1 billion (quarter ended June 30, 2025) | $1.9 billion (quarter ended June 27, 2025) |
| Q3 2025 | $1.1 billion (quarter ended Sept. 30, 2025) | $2.3 billion (quarter ended Oct. 3, 2025) |
| Q4 2025 | $1.2 billion (quarter ended Dec. 31, 2025) | $3.0 billion (quarter ended Jan. 2, 2026) |
| Q1 2026 | $1.5 billion (quarter ended March 31, 2026) | $6.0 billion (quarter ended April 3, 2026) |
| Q2 2026 | $1.3 billion (quarter ended June 30, 2026) | $9.0 billion (quarter ended July 3, 2026) |
Data source: Company filings. Data as of Aug. 26, 2026.
Foolish Take
Sandisk is on a much sharper growth trajectory, largely due to higher selling prices for its products. Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) is extremely high for high-capacity solid-state storage. The key factor to watch for Sandisk is whether its long-term supply agreements with customers can remove the historical quarter-to-quarter volatility in selling prices and drive more stable revenue generation over the next several years.
ARM's revenue shows consistent year-over-year growth, although it fell sequentially in the second quarter. While ARM is known for supplying chip designs widely used in consumer devices like smartphones, it is gaining momentum in expanding into the data center market. This will be a key source of growth for the company.
Whether Sandisk can maintain its massive revenue size and continue to grow comes down to demand and selling prices for storage products. The more long-term agreements it signs and the more the AI infrastructure boom continues, the more likely Sandisk will continue to scale its business.
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John Ballard has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Arm Holdings. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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