AMD announces £284m first-quarter losses

Chip maker insists recent business changes will pay dividends

Meyer: AMD has become a more nimble company

AMD has reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2009, with revenues of $1.177bn (£805m) – level with the previous quarter but 21 per cent down on the same period in 2008.

The disappointing sales figures contributed to a net loss of $416m (£284m) for the quarter, and an operating loss of $308m (£210m).

The company blamed the current economic climate for its lacklustre performance, but added that changes to its business would soon start to deliver benefits.

“AMD’s sequential microprocessor unit and revenue growth in difficult economic conditions demonstrate we can grow in an environment where customers are looking for maximum value,” said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and chief executive.

“We delivered on a number of important priorities in the first quarter. We launched Global Foundries [a large semi conductor business], maintained our cadence of new product and platform introductions, and made solid progress on our restructuring activities. The result is a more nimble AMD, capable of achieving long-term success based on our strengths designing and integrating industry-leading computing and graphics technologies."

As well as the formation of the Global Foundries manufacturing company, the past quarter saw AMD launch its Dragon and Yukon platforms, and its quad-core Opteron processors cement their position in Dell, IBM, HP and Sun servers.