AMD posts highest quarterly revenues since 2005, but results still disappoint

AMD quarterly sales highest since 2005, claims CEO Dr Lisa Su, driven by rising sales of Ryzen and Epyc CPUs

AMD has posted revenues up by nine per cent to $1.8 billion, its highest quarterly revenue posting since 2005, driven by rising sales of Ryzen and Epyc CPUs.

However, the company failed to meet analysts' expectations due to depressed sales of Microsoft and Sony games consoles, ahead of expected new launches next year.

"Our first full quarter of 7nm Ryzen, Radeon and Epyc processor sales drove our highest quarterly revenue since 2005, our highest quarterly gross margin since 2012 and a significant increase in net income year-over-year," said AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su.

She added that AMD now has "the strongest product portfolio" in its history.

Equally significantly, net income was up by 46 per cent compared to the same quarter last year, up from $150 million to $219 million.

Our first full quarter of 7nm Ryzen, Radeon and Epyc processor sales drove our highest quarterly revenue since 2005

This increase in profitability was primarily driven by strong sales of Ryzen PC and mobile processors, and a rising client processor average selling price as AMD increased its sales of mid-range and high-end CPUs. This ought to continue its upward trajectory in the current quarter with the release of Ryzen 9 3900, 3900X and 3950X CPUs.

AMD is also expected to launch its Threadripper workstation CPUs in November, with new launches of Navi-based GPUs and integrated graphics products anticipated in the new year.

However, while sales in the company's Computing and Graphics segment, which includes Ryzen CPUs alongside the company's Radeon GPUs, increased by 36 per cent to $1.28 billion, Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment revenues were down 27 per cent to $525 million.

The company attributed this to lower semi-custom product revenues - primarily sales of microprocessors to the games console market - with increased sales of Epyc CPUs insufficient to make good the deficit.

While the company's shares dropped following the results, AMD was keen to point out a number of quarterly highlights. These include the capture of Google and Twitter as major data centre customers for its Epyc CPUs, and the use of Epyc in UK Research and Innovation's upcoming ARCHER2 Cray supercomputer.