Shares closed at a fourth record high in a row Tuesday before chip maker announced record quarterly sales and hiked its annual forecast
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. turned in yet another beat-and-raise quarter Tuesday thanks to data-center sales that the chip maker’s chief executive called “very, very good.”
AMD AMD, +0.77% raised guidance for the full year yet again, as it has in every quarterly earnings report so far this year, and now projects sales to grow about 65% year-over-year compared with a forecast of 60% growth in the previous guidance. AMD reported revenue of $9.76 billion last year, so that suggests sales of about $16.1 billion this year, while analysts were forecasting revenue of $15.52 billion, according to FactSet.
AMD also expects fourth-quarter revenue of $4.4 billion to $4.6 billion, while analysts had been projecting $4.25 billion, according to FactSet.
“We are very pleased with the momentum we have built in our data-center business, as server CPU and GPU revenue grew to a mid-20s percent of overall revenue in the quarter,” AMD Chief Executive Lisa Su said on a conference call Tuesday.
AMD reported third-quarter net income of $923 million, or 75 cents a share, compared with $710 million, or 58 cents a share, in the year-ago period. After adjusting for stock-based compensation and other factors, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company reported earnings of 73 cents a share, compared with 41 cents a share in the year-ago period.
Revenue rose to $4.31 billion from $2.8 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast adjusted earnings of 66 cents a share on revenue of $4.11 billion, after AMD projected between $4 billion to $4.2 billion.
Sales from enterprise, embedded and semi-custom chips — the unit that includes data-center and gaming-console revenue — rose 69% to $1.91 billion, compared with $1.13 billion a year ago. Analysts had forecast $1.78 billion. Rival Intel Corp.’s INTC, -0.20% data-center sales rose 10% in comparison.
“We’re feeling very, very good about the server business or the data-center market,” Su said on the call. “I think from a market standpoint, you know, we’ve seen a strong market year in 2021, in both cloud and enterprise, and we see that continuing into 2022.
“And we see strong demand across the board, but sequentially what we’re guiding to is, you know, stronger server demand as well as gaming, and gaming includes the semi-custom game consoles, as well as our graphics business,” Su added.
In its computing and graphics segment, AMD reported second-quarter sales of $2.4 billion, up from $1.67 billion last year, compared with analyst expectations of $2.33 billion.
Shares, which had been up slightly after hours, were last down a little less than 1%. The stock rose 0.5% in the regular session to a fresh all-time high of $122.93, its fourth record close in a row.
Su also said AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx Inc. XLNX, 6.98% was making “good progress” through the regulatory process, and she expects it to close by the end of the year.
Over the past 12 months, AMD shares have gained 50%. In comparison, the PHLX Semiconductor Index SOX, -0.28% has gained 47%, the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.01% has risen 35%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, 0.61% is up 34%.