Western Digital (WD), the world's second largest hard-disk drive maker, said fourth quarter profit has nearly doubled due to a tax gain and strong sales growth.

It reported a significant jump of $113m with Q4 net income of $233m, which represented $1.03 a share. For the same period a year ago the firm saw net income of $120m, or 53 cents a share.

WD's reported profit included a $147m income tax benefit.

Revenue also rose, said to be up 26 per cent to $1.4bn on shipments of 24.9 million units.

WD, which has been pushing to become vertically integrated like its rivals Seagate and Hitachi GST, agreed to acquire media supplier Komag in a $1bn deal in June this year.

The full press release is here. ®