Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) reported first quarter revenue of $5.35 billion, a 9% decline from a year ago, due to the global slowdown in the client PC market. CEO Lisa Su believes this downturn will soon be reversed, especially in the back half of the year. She pointed to signs of improvement in China and indicated that the client market should improve as well. In after-hours trading, AMD’s stock fell 5% to $84.93 per share. Although AMD saw lower than anticipated revenues, it still clearly exceeded analyst predictions of 56 cents per share, with a first quarter earnings per share of 60 cents. The company also expects a second quarter revenue of $5.3 billion, slightly lower than the expectation of $5.48 billion. The net loss for the first quarter was $139 million, with a net income of $786 million during the same quarter last year.
The biggest decline recorded in the first quarter was in AMD’s client group, which includes PC processor sales that dropped an immense 65% to $739 million in comparison to $2.1 billion in sales a year before. IDC reported that PC shipments decreased 30% in the first quarter. The data center group saw slight growth to $1.295 billion as compared to $1.293 billion last year, while the embedded segment, which includes networking chips, soared from $595 million to $1.56 billion, partly due to increased sales after AMD acquiring Xilinx. AMD’s gaming segment, which includes gaming consoles graphics chips, was reported to have sales of $1.76 billion, a subtle decline from the $1.88 billion the year before. However, Intel, AMD’s primary competitor, saw an overall decline of 36% in sales.
At AMD, Su believes there is an increased demand for AI processing chips, and that she is confident her company is well-positioned for the same. She is also optimistic about generative AI driving the market forwards.
AMD is a computer processor manufacturer founded in 1969 with headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. Initially forming a partnership with IBM, the company produced a range of processors for the original IBM PC. AMD is most-famous for their work in the personal computer processor market and continues to compete with Intel in this field with their Ryzen, Threadripper, and Ryzen Pro lineup.
Lisa Su is the Chief Executive Officer and President of AMD, having been appointed as the company’s fourth CEO in October 2014. Before joining AMD, she worked at IBM, Freescale Semiconductor and Texas Instruments, where she held a variety of roles across engineering, operations and corporate strategy. Su holds Masters and Ph.D degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University.
