By Richard Menta 2/3/09

In these lean times SanDisk is reporting sharp losses for Q4 2008. SanDisk reported a net loss of $1.86 billion, or $8.25 a share. Last year at this time the company reported a net income of $105.8 million, or 45 cents a share, which was the last quarter SanDisk saw positiive ground. Revenue dropped 31% to $863.9 million.

Said founder and Chief Executive Eli Harari, "We are very disappointed with our fourth-quarter bottom-line results, which included significant asset impairment and inventory-related charges." SanDisk saw revenue related to products like MP3 players and flash memory sink 34%. This compared with Apple, which saw an upswing this quarter.