San Francisco, Jan 22 (IANS): US data storage company Seagate Technology surpassed market expectation as the company posted revenue of $2.62 billion for its fiscal second quarter ended January 1, 2021.

Seagate was expected to report revenue of $2.56 billion during the quarter, according to a report in ZDNet on Thursday.

"Seagate delivered strong, double-digit revenue, earnings and free cash flow growth in the December quarter supported by broad-based improvement across nearly every served market and geography, and we had solid customer demand for our mass capacity products," Seagate CEO Dave Mosley said in a statement.

"We also achieved our technology milestone by shipping 20-terabyte HAMR drives in calendar 2020."

The company generated $473 million in cash flow from operations and $314 million in free cash flow during the fiscal second quarter 2021.

During the fiscal second quarter 2021, the company paid cash dividends of $167 million and repurchased 18 million ordinary shares for $1 billion.

Additionally, the company raised $1 billion of debt and ended the fiscal second quarter with cash and cash equivalents totalling $1.8 billion.

Seagate expects to post revenue of $2.65 billion (plus or minus $200 million) in its fiscal third quarter in 2021.