14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday, July 19, 2013, we reported on AMD's financial results for the second quarter of 2013 and how it suffered a $74M loss and on-year revenue drop of 18%. Here is what led to that outcome.
Truthfully, it's not that hard to make a guess after so many months of constant PC shipment decline, as well as a certain decision by Advanced Micro Devices.
And by certain decision, we mean AMD's choice to stop actually bothering with a direct competition with Intel.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company is still unleashing CPUs/APUs, but it isn't striving to match Intel anymore, performance-wise, particularly on the high-end front.
On the flip side, it has been shipping chips at lower prices than Chipzilla, but this brings us to the main reason for its continued financial struggles: its tactic didn't pay off as well as it could have.
Long story short, despite its change of tactics, AMD's CPU sales dropped.
On the bright side, Advanced Micro Devices has been having an easier time on the graphics card industry, where sales went up.
The revenue wasn't enough to totally offset the drawbacks of the CPU division, but it's not like AMD ever expected a miracle, at least not overnight.
Don't be fooled though. That doesn't mean AMD's revenue showed a positive progress. Instead, it was 5% below that of 1Q13. Lower game console sales caused it.
Professional Graphics actually recorded a record quarter of sales though, and it seems it wasn't the first time.
At least the overall revenue showed a 7% sequential rise, even if it did drop 18% compared to the same period of the previous year.
It doesn't change the fact that there was no profit involved, however: the net loss was of $74 million / €56 million. If there was ever an occasion where the phrase “mixed results” fit perfectly, this is it.