Micropolis Profits Soar on New Disk Drive Sales

Micropolis, a Chatsworth-based maker of disk drives, reported that in the third quarter ended Sept. 26, its profit increased more than tenfold to $4.9 million, or 44 cents a share. In last year’s third quarter, the company earned $453,000, or 5 cents a share.

Sales increased 151% from the same period a year earlier to $55.4 million.

Micropolis has benefited from the continuing strong demand for its high-capacity, high-speed disk drives, which store and retrieve data for personal computers. Computer maker Digital Equipment is one of the main customers for the equipment, using the drives with its so-called workstation systems that enable several people to work on a computer simultaneously.

Micropolis officials say the company’s new drives yield relatively high profit margins.

For the nine months ended Sept. 26, Micropolis’ earnings were $13.1 million, or $1.26 a share, up from $527,000 a year earlier. Sales in the nine months rose 175% to $161.3 million.