AMD beats revenue expectations for Q4

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) posted fourth quarter financial results on Tuesday, reporting higher-than-expected revenues and a net loss in line with expectations.

The chipmaker reported a non-GAAP loss of 1 cent per share on revenue of $1.11 billion. Wall Street was expecting a non-GAAP loss of 2 cents a share on revenue of $1.07 billion.

For the full fiscal year 2016, the company reported a non-GAAP loss per share of 14 cents, compared to a loss per share of 54 cents in 2015. Revenue for the year came to $4.27 billion, up 7 percent on an annual basis.

“We met our strategic objectives in 2016, successfully executing our product roadmaps, regaining share in key markets, strengthening our financial foundation, and delivering annual revenue growth,” AMD president and CEO Lisa Su said in a statement. “As we enter 2017, we are well positioned and on-track to deliver our strongest set of high-performance computing and graphics products in more than a decade.”

While Q4 was generally weaker than Q3 for AMD, its Computing and Graphics segment revenue reached $600 million — up 28 percent year-over-year and 27 percent sequentially. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by higher GPU sales, AMD said, while the sequential increase was primarily due to higher GPU and client processor sales.

Its Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment earned revenue of $506 million. That’s up 4 percent year-over-year, thanks to higher embedded and semi-custom SoC revenue. Sequentially, revenue decreased 39 percent due to seasonally lower sales of semi-custom SoCs.

As for the current quarter, AMD is expecting revenue to decline sequentially anywhere from 8 percent to 14 percent. At its midpoint, that would give the company revenue of $989 million — above market estimates $964 million.

The company is expected to launch Ryzen, its new line high-performance desktop processors, this quarter while its high-end GPU Vega is slated for release sometime in the first half of the year.