AMD reports Q2 results

[thilanliyan]

http://www.businesswire.com/po...0721006259&newsLang=en

GPU revenue is up and as usual the CPU side is down.

 

[postmortemIA]

no signs that they'll be profitable - ever.

I'm afraid they'll have to do what GM and Chrysler did after they have burnt all their cash.

 

[s44]

I'm never going to buy anything from Government GPU, that's for sure.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
no signs that they'll be profitable - ever.

I'm afraid they'll have to do what GM and Chrysler did after they have burnt all their cash.

It's an odd thing too because the performance in their CPUs and GPUs is there. This is what I think they need:

Laptop segment: They need a platform as good as Centrino, and they need to market that platform. They definitely need a netbook platform as well. Cheap netbooks are selling like crazy, and they have nothing to compete against Atom.

Business desktop segment: Low cost/low power platform.

Enthusiast/Gamer: Gotta bury the hatchet with NVIDIA. While there is probably not much they can do in the short term with regards to performance against i7/X58, they can at least offer a lower priced, dual PCIe 16X platform that supports both SLI and Crossfire. Intel is murdering AMD in the gamer segment.

Server: Not sure here actually... I'm guessing that they are still lacking in brand recognition.

Either way, AMD offers good value products right now, and they really could be targeting a considerably more value conscious customer base, but they need to market, market, market. Most people still don't know what AMD is. People know Windows, Intel, and Apple... Whether famous or infamous, they know these three names.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: thilan29
http://www.businesswire.com/po...0721006259&newsLang=en

GPU revenue is up and as usual the CPU side is down.

Since its going to be asked over and over again till horses be dead, the Graphics revenue was $251m and profits were -$12m (a loss for the quarter).

Interestingly they do report/list their portion of the foundry revenue (and losses).

Financial tables here

 

[Arkaign]

So they should have fixed their core business before spending an assload of cash buying ATI? I think anyone sane already knew that.

 

[Phynaz]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: thilan29
http://www.businesswire.com/po...0721006259&newsLang=en

GPU revenue is up and as usual the CPU side is down.

Since its going to be asked over and over again till horses be dead, the Graphics revenue was $251m and profits were -$12m (a loss for the quarter).

Interestingly they do report/list their portion of the foundry revenue (and losses).

Financial tables here

Thanks for the link.

I'm guessing Viditor will not be around for a while, with all the insisting he did that AMD wasn't on the hook for GF losses

 

[BFG10K]

It's bad news for consumers as long as these guys are in the red. They need to start being profitable so they can compete with Intel and nVidia.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Phynaz
I'm guessing Viditor will not be around for a while, with all the insisting he did that AMD wasn't on the hook for GF losses

Yeah I'm not sure how to interpret this financial reporting...are they basically reporting their % cut on GF's revenue and losses/profits on their own bottom-line EPS for AMD?

Or are they reporting investments made into GF and simultaneously reporting a writedown in the valuation of their GF asset holdings?

Its not clear to me what exactly AMD is reporting about in there "foundry" section. I'm compelled to believe it is percentage of foundry revenue (with ATIC holding the bag on the rest of it) and P/L, but so little is said about it (intentional obfuscation by AMD?) that I can only speculate at best here.

 

[SlowSpyder]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/14747/1/

Wow... 11th quarter in a row without a profit.

 

[Phynaz]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Phynaz
I'm guessing Viditor will not be around for a while, with all the insisting he did that AMD wasn't on the hook for GF losses

Yeah I'm not sure how to interpret this financial reporting...are they basically reporting their % cut on GF's revenue and losses/profits on their own bottom-line EPS for AMD?

Or are they reporting investments made into GF and simultaneously reporting a writedown in the valuation of their GF asset holdings?

Its not clear to me what exactly AMD is reporting about in there "foundry" section. I'm compelled to believe it is percentage of foundry revenue (with ATIC holding the bag on the rest of it) and P/L, but so little is said about it (intentional obfuscation by AMD?) that I can only speculate at best here.

Yes, I understand it is foundry revenue, which is why GF utilization affects AMD margins.

 

[Lonyo]

Margins were abysmal.
Intel is on something like 40% IIRC, or somewhere hopefully close, while AMD managed to drop to around the mid 20's. Pretty terrible.

My bad, 51% vs 27%.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
no signs that they'll be profitable - ever.

I'm afraid they'll have to do what GM and Chrysler did after they have burnt all their cash.

It's an odd thing too because the performance in their CPUs and GPUs is there. This is what i think they need:

Laptop segment; They need a platform as good as Centrino, and they need to market that platform. They definitely need a netbook platform. While cheap, netbooks are selling like crazy.

Business desktop segment: Low cost/low power platform.

Enthusiast/Gamer: Gotta bury the hatchet with NVIDIA. While there is probably not much they can do in the short term with regards to performance against i7/X58, they can at least offer a lower priced, dual PCIe 16X platform that supports both SLI and Crossfire. Intel is murdering AMD in the gamer segment.

Server: Not sure here actually... I'm guessing that they are still lacking in brand recognition.

Either way, AMD offers good value products right now, and they really could be targeting a considerably more value conscious customer base, but they need to market, market, market. Most people still don't know what AMD is. People know Windows, Intel, and Apple... Whether famous or infamous, they know these three names.

I'd say AMD has the necessary chips for laptops/netbooks. The have low power turions and athlons that compete with every product segment Intel hits (except perhaps the very lowest power netbooks, but AMD can come in on the 10" and up models) and lower prices throughout. I'd imagine they lack capacity though, they've always focused on the professional and desktop market.

 

[Genx87]

With i7 Intel is finally eating into the one server market AMD had a strong showing. The 4+socket market.

 

[AmdInside]

AMD is seriously pissing me off. Their whole strategy for CPUs has never changed and they are now doing the same for graphics cards now bringing the same results as before (loss after loss). If I told you that I am pissed at someone for spending the last three years more than they take in, you would think I was talking about California's government. It is amazing that they have been able to do so and still be in business. The only reason why AMD is still around is because OEMs throw them a bone so that they won't be forced to buy high priced CPUs from Intel. Intel is being Intel (smart business decisions, agressive marketing and competitive products). NVIDIA is trying to be the next Apple (trying to bring more value to their GPUs thus making people feel like they need to buy NVIDIA and also raising their GPUs prices over time). As much as I love paying less for products, I really don't want a monopoly and that is what will eventually result if AMD continues on this course. I am old enough to remember paying $700 with employee discount for a Pentium II 266MHz. AMD has got to stop thinking that all they have to do is price their products lower than Intel and NVIDIA just to get market share and eventually once they get market share, all the revenue will come in and everything will be peachy. Intel, NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, BMW, Mercedes, etc. didn't become who they are by trying to be the cheapest in the business. That's what business who are run terribly do and eventually go out of business. I don't blame AMD engineers btw. I am mainly placing the blame on AMD's upper staff in sales and marketing. If there was a viable alterntive (ie Via), then it wouldn't bother me each time AMD posted a loss but sadly AMD is the last option.

 

[thilanliyan]

Their CPUs were basically rendered 2nd class when Core 2 came out so they had no choice but to price them lower. They also probably don't have the R&D budget that Intel has so maybe it takes them a bit longer to come up with new architectures?

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: thilan29
They also probably don't have the R&D budget that Intel has so maybe it takes them a bit longer to come up with new architectures?

Try about 1/5 to 1/6 the budget and manpower.

Truthfully anyone who's held a job in a professional environment such as engineering or business management has got to be astounded that AMD even does as well as they do in terms of market timing, product performance, and financial performance when one considers Intel's teams (from development to marketing) all have about 5x (as in 500%) more resources than AMD's comparable teams.

At TI (Texas Instruments) we had about 1/2-1/3 the resources as Intel's teams (we produced our own x86 processor back in the 386 and 486 days) and it was downright moral tromping to try and remain competitive in any sense of the word in that environment faced with such resource shortfalls and gaps to the competition.

There's a reason no one willfully competes against operating monopolies, sans Apple (to MS) and AMD (to Intel).

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: thilan29
They also probably don't have the R&D budget that Intel has so maybe it takes them a bit longer to come up with new architectures?

Try about 1/5 to 1/6 the budget and manpower.

Truthfully anyone who's held a job in a professional environment such as engineering or business management has got to be astounded that AMD even does as well as they do in terms of market timing, product performance, and financial performance when one considers Intel's teams (from development to marketing) all have about 5x (as in 500%) more resources than AMD's comparable teams.

At TI (Texas Instruments) we had about 1/2-1/3 the resources as Intel's teams (we produced our own x86 processor back in the 386 and 486 days) and it was downright moral tromping to try and remain competitive in any sense of the word in that environment faced with such resource shortfalls and gaps to the competition.

There's a reason no one willfully competes against operating monopolies, sans Apple (to MS) and AMD (to Intel).

All this tells me is that Intel could be doing 5x better than they are now. But, we must trickle out the technology so that we will maximize our decades of astonishing income.

Sorry to be so negative about this, but you hit a nerve in me with that 1/5 to 1/6 the budget of Intel, and doing as good as they're doing. Why can't Intel do 5 to 6 times better than they are now? My guess is they can, but won't. Too much money to suck out of the rest of the population I guess. Slow and steady now.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
All this tells me is that Intel could be doing 5x better than they are now. But, we must trickle out the technology so that we will maximize our decades of astonishing income.

Sorry to be so negative about this, but you hit a nerve in me with that 1/5 to 1/6 the budget of Intel, and doing as good as they're doing. Why can't Intel do 5 to 6 times better than they are now? My guess is they can, but won't. Too much money to suck out of the rest of the population I guess. Slow and steady now.

As a consumer sure we have justification for feeling a tad sore about being "handled" by monopolies like Intel and MS who get to dictate the marketscape of products as to their liking and not for competitive concerns.

But if you were a decision maker at Intel or MS, hired in just last month and handed this pre-existing company (its not your fault they are a monopoly) then it is your fiduciary responsibility to make decisions that maximize your shareholders equity. Its what you take a paycheck from the company to do. Anything less of you would be stealing.

So I understand why the company operates as it does, and I understand why its painful to see the market creep along like it does (are we really convinced it took an extra 10 months to get lynnfield ready above and beyond bloomfield?) but there are human interest stories on both sides of the coin.

If someone walked up to you today and offered you a $10m annual salary to take Otellini's job would you turn it down on moral grounds that you wouldn't work at a monoply? And if you took the job would you do the unethical thing of abandoning your fiducial responsibility to your shareholders and institute a business plan that did anything less than maximize shareholder equity to the best of your know-how?

I know what I would do, and >1/3 of that healthy salary will then go towards taxes so another monopoly can continue to operate to the utter lack of fiducial responsibility to its citizens.