AMD struggles again for profitability

By Alun Williams

Posted on 17 Oct 2003 at 11:21

'Tis the season of quarterly results, and - following in the wake of Intel's and IBM's bullish reports - AMD has stepped up to reveal the state of its financial health.

And the news was not great, with the company recording a net loss of $31m for the third quarter of 2003 (which is at least smaller than the net loss of $140mn reported in the last quarter). The strong point, however, was that sales increased to $954m, which represents an 88 per cent increase on the same period a year ago.

'We delivered strong sales growth in our microprocessor and Flash memory business lines while tightly managing our expense structure,' said Robert J. Rivet, AMD's chief financial officer. 'Sales were up on a global basis reflecting increased demand in each of our major businesses and all geographic regions.'

Speaking of AMD's new 64-bit processors, he said: 'Initial demand has been very strong, particularly for the high-end AMD Athlon 64 FX model, targeted for the gaming, PC enthusiast and digital content creation markets. Similarly, demand for our AMD Opteron processor for servers and workstations continues to be strong. We believe these products strengthen our position to lead the industry's transition to 64-bit computing.'

Looking ahead, AMD is anticipating increased microprocessor and Flash memory sales, due to both seasonal factors and increased demand, particularly for the AMD64 processors.

A real-time audio broadcast of the financial teleconference can be found on the AMD website. The web-cast will be available for ten days.

See also

AMD's financial results for the second quarter of 2003

AMD's financial results for the first quarter of 2003