AMD: PC market's not hit bottom yet

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 22 Apr 2009 at 10:27

AMD has reported first quarter losses of $416 million, as chief executive Dirk Meyer denied Intel's claim the technology industry had "hit the bottom".

Revealing the company's first quarter results, AMD chief executive Dirk Meyer said, "the economy is still weak, making it very difficult to forecast end-user demand. I've heard some say we've hit bottom. I don't know how someone could say we've hit bottom in the current economic climate."

The comments will make grim reading for AMD's shareholders, who will wake up this morning to find sales have dropped 21% to $1.18 billion. This resulted in losses widening to $416 million, down from $364 million at the same point last year.

This figure wasn't helped by a one-time charge of $195 million from the spin off of its manufacturing arm into a new company called GlobalFoundries.

Sales at ATI fell 15% to $222 million, despite a range of solid offerings.

Meyer claims the blame for AMD's woes lies with the enterprise market. "Our server business was down a little bit quarter-on-quarter, while both the desktop and notebook businesses were up quarter-on-quarter, which affects the overall ASP and moves it down. The enterprise side of the commercial market is clearly still weak. Wallets are closed."

He concluded by saying "the outlook is murky at best."