AMD reports much smaller loss and Intel profits up 12 percent for Q3

AMD has once again reported a quarterly loss, but a significantly reduced one. Its net loss of $67 million is a big improvement on losses of $396 in Q3 '07 and of $1,189 in Q2 '08. The loss of 11 cents per share compares very favourably to reported analyst expectations of a loss of 40 cents per share.

In what is generally being recognised as a good performance by the processor maker, revenue from this quarter was $1.558 billion, a 15 percent increase on the previous quarter's revenue of $1.349 billion. Gross margin also improved to 51 percent (45 percent if you exclude process technology license revenue), compared to 37 percent in the previous quarter and 41 percent in Q3 '07.

The deal to form The Foundry Company and the two billion dollars or so that AMD will initially gain from it are not included in these results. Referring to the deal Dirk Meyer, AMD's president and CEO, said: "AMD will be assured access to leading-edge manufacturing processes without the obligation to make the capital investment required to maintain a world-class manufacturing operation. We look forward to the successful closing of this joint venture early in 2009."

Robert J. Rivet, AMD's CFO, said: "We are pleased to have reached our goal of operational profitability this quarter while increasing gross margin to 51 percent."$108 million of AMD's losses came from "discontinued operations".

"Improved execution across all of our businesses was punctuated by a refresh of our graphics product line-up, driving 55 percent sequential revenue growth and market share gains. In addition, customer adoption of our quad-core microprocessors was strong, with unit shipments increasing 46 percent sequentially."

Crisis, what crisis?

Intel provided welcome relief from all the talk of financial apocalypse and beat estimates with a 12 percent increase in its third quarter profits, totalling a cool two billion dollars.

$10.2 billion in revenue was only one percent up on the same quarter last year, but that was still enough for it to set a new record for Q3 and yielded a 44 percent rise in operating income to $3.1 billion.

"As we look to Q4, it's hard to know what impact the financial crisis will have on end customer demand," said Intel CEO Paul Otellini. "We are confident that our own product portfolio, strong cash flow, commitment to deploying new technology and market momentum will allow us to outpace peer companies at a time when business levels are difficult to predict."

Among the highlights of Intel's quarter were sales of Atom processors and chipsets, which totalled around $200 million, but this led to a lower average selling price. Intel forecast revenue of between $10.1 and $10.9 billion for Q4.
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