bit-tech.net

AMD sees 18 percent revenue increase

Published on 19th October 2007 by Phil Cogar

AMD is making money even with bargain bin prices for its CPUs and fierce competition from Intel.

If you're judging by revenue results from the two major processors manufacturers, then it'd be safe to say that the processor market is on a steady incline. Not only has Intel seen an increase of revenue lately but so has AMD. AMD reported an increase of 18 percent in third-quarter results as compared to the second-quarter.

However that wasn't enough to save it from the red as it still lost a whopping $396 million, with a reported revenue of $1.63 billion and an operating loss of $226 million. The results also included a negative impact of $120 million due to the merger of ATI and AMD.

“We are encouraged by the progress we made in our third quarter financial results. We delivered a strong revenue increase, gained eight percentage points of gross margin and reduced our operating loss by more than half,” said Robert Rivet, chief financial officer. “We sold a record number of microprocessors through our distribution channel and began revenue shipments of Quad-core AMD Opteron processors in the quarter."

Mobile chip sales are up thanks primarily to OEM sales, but we're still waiting on new desktop parts which may see AMD still in the red for a little while to come.

Should we be worried about AMD's continual downturn? How long can a company sustain such a trend until it's forced to cut back? Or perhaps as soon as Phenom and future CrossFire arrives it'll change the tides and bring AMD back into the black? Without a doubt it'll be bad for everyone (except Intel and Nvidia) if AMD changes as we know them. Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

13 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

completemadness 19th October 2007, 16:29

How can they survive with such losses

Its getting quite worrying, if AMD dies we will be stuck with intel crap and nvidia crap for some time :( lack of competition sucks (a-la Internet Explorer)

Tyinsar 19th October 2007, 17:37

Even though a reduced AMD would still push Intel (like the relatively tiny Mac & Linux force Windows to improve) I'd like to see them closer to equal. I'm Really hoping their next move puts them back on top (or at least back in the black).

completemadness 19th October 2007, 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyinsar
Even though a reduced AMD would still push Intel .....

The problem is, can they get back in the black by reducing themselves, i think not in the long run

Ok maybe for a year or 2, but then as they will have cut back crucial stuff, their technology will fall further behind and they will just die, they need to make some good products, and fast

A gfx chip that competes with Nvidia, and decent drivers, and a processor that competes with intel

Although everyone says AMD sat on their ass when they were ahead, Intel's R&D is massive, and AMD really had no chance of keeping up with that behemoth

devdevil85 19th October 2007, 19:47

and you don't think AMD was expecting such an immense loss from the merger? c'mon people they aren't stupid and with CPU's on the incline (during a rough time) imagine Phenom.....give them until Xmas.....

cyrilthefish 19th October 2007, 22:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by completemadness
and decent drivers

Personally i find this to be the exact opposite, i went with ATI soley for the better drivers

(i've had so many problems with nvidia graphics drivers)

HourBeforeDawn 20th October 2007, 08:00

actually there as far as the consumer market is concerned AMD cant and wont be allowed to shut down it would actually get aid if that was to happen as that would make intel a monopoly and thats a no no here in the states so you dont have to worry about something like that happening.

fakeN 20th October 2007, 16:59

not good, we need the competition between intel and amd for more progression

Yemerich 20th October 2007, 19:26

AMD have the stigma of being "the second". As Intel's CPUs droped their price, people start to get more for the same price. I think AMD need to get rid of this image with perhaps a heavy marketing campaign a a really good cut on its prices.

Buying ATI was a great move on a bad time. By now AMD would be out of the "red light" and perhaps in a good time to buy the GPU company. I am no AMD fanboy, buy if the company crashes, we all loose. Both with CPU and GPU - at least for some time as ATI would surely be bought from another huge company. Wasn't Sansung trying to buy it?

Max Spain 21st October 2007, 07:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by HourBeforeDawn
actually there as far as the consumer market is concerned AMD cant and wont be allowed to shut down it would actually get aid if that was to happen as that would make intel a monopoly and thats a no no here in the states so you dont have to worry about something like that happening.

It's actually in Intel's best interests to keep AMD wounded, but still alive because of that. That being said, I think that AMD mgmt has been doing a bang-up job since the AM2 socket came out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyrilthefish
Personally i find this to be the exact opposite, i went with ATI soley for the better drivers

(i've had so many problems with nvidia graphics drivers)

I have had the exact opposite experience. The last ATI card I purchased was a X800XT. I have used Nvidia in several systems running Win XP and Linux. Since AMD recently released the specs of their GPUs, I picked up some X1950Pro's and an X1650Pro (both without HDCP.) From a gamer's perspective, I have been very disappointed with the driver quality under WinXP. It takes up way more system resources than Nvidia's drivers and I'm not even using .NET or CCC, just Ati Tray Tools. Also, I have been getting crashes where I never used to. I just hope my Linux experience will be better.

Teyber 21st October 2007, 07:11

even tho at the moment, i love intel and hate amd, i do not want to see amd go out of buisness do to the constant price drops of intel. No competition=suck. watch, in 5 years intel will be in amd's spot and i bet i will say the same thing except with amd instead of intel XD

im not a bandwagon/fanboy. I buy whatevers best.

cyrilthefish 21st October 2007, 16:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Max Spain
From a gamer's perspective, I have been very disappointed with the driver quality under WinXP. It takes up way more system resources than Nvidia's drivers and I'm not even using .NET or CCC, just Ati Tray Tools. Also, I have been getting crashes where I never used to. I just hope my Linux experience will be better.

Odd...

CCC is a little bloaty, but i never had a single crash or driver problem with my old 9600pro then x800pro cards except the times i tried overclocking them.

well, with computers it's not that unusual to have people with completely different problems on similar hardware :)

completemadness 21st October 2007, 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyrilthefish
Odd...

CCC is a little bloaty, but i never had a single crash or driver problem with my old 9600pro then x800pro cards except the times i tried overclocking them.

well, with computers it's not that unusual to have people with completely different problems on similar hardware :)

Ive had terrible experience with ATI, Firstly, the CCC is horrible, its like putting aids on your computer, Next, The drivers aren't that good IMO, and the support isn't great either
I had a problem with my X1900XT where it wouldn't play any source games, after about a month of chatting with ATI rep's, they basically just said bad luck ....

They tried sure, but that was basically a £300-400 card down the drain

Also ATI's drivers for Linux are a joke

In the end, Nvidia's stuff has worked great out the box, and i haven't had an issue with my 8800GTX once, and the nvidia control panel is pretty nice, and the whole lot seems to work quite fast

Ive had a couple of ATI cards, and a lot of nvidia cards (I'm using 3x FX5600's ATM in Linux PC's) i had a couple of FX cards during their prime, a couple of geforce 4's, a 6800GT, and a 8800GTX
And the ATI card's have been the only ones Ive ever had issues with, and actually really disliked the drivers - so for the near future, i will not buy an ATI card

8igdave 21st October 2007, 23:13

With all the info ive been looking about the new ATI cards coming out it looks like they have only put the 2900 on a smaller die but because the 2900 is pritty much a fail compared to its compeition they had to give it a new name. Sothey are pritty much selling the 2900 again on a new name. What with nvida shrinking the die and adding more stream processors to the GTS looks like tahts going to be the card to buy what with it already overclocking to the clock speeds of gtx and now closing the gap further with more stream processors :p