AMD is clearly doing rather nicely out of The Great Coppermine Shortage. The company announced on Friday it expects chip sales for the current quarter (due to end next month) to at least match, if not exceed, those of the previous three-month period. That quarter included Christmas and all the extra spending on new PC kit that goes with it. Holiday quarters are typically so strong, they make for a slow sales between January and March. It's quite something to see this period's sales get close to those of the Christmas quarter, let alone match or even surpass them. Taking a decidedly unconfrontational tone, AMD simply highlighted stronger than expected demand for low-end CPUs and "robust" trade across the range. AMD has done much of late to grasp the speed lead from Intel, but the company's currently much-expanded sales are really more down its arch-rival's weaknesses than its own strengths. Only recently, Gateway shipped its first AMD-based PC -- because of Intel's inability to supply sufficient Pentium III processors. And Dell said its most recent quarter's sales were hit by a lack of Intel parts. AMD's last completed quarter, Q4 1999, saw sales of $968.7 miilion and profits of $65 million. ® Related Stories AMD jumps gun in MHz wars Gateway 600MHz Athlon box spotted First .18µ Athlons hit Japanese High Street System builders back Athlon 850 Dell share price falls on bad Intel news