This article is more than 1 year old

AMD upbeat on Q4 sales record

Looks like it's stopped digging that financial hole

AMD cited strong seasonal consumer demand for PCs for record Q4 sales of $968.7 million. Net income was not bad either, coming in at a respectable $65.08 million for the quarter, equivalent to $0.43 per share. This makes a nice change from the dismal set of figures posted by AMD for Q3, 1999 the semiconductor maker, lost $105.5 million on sales of $662.2 million, equivalent to a net loss, or $0.72 per share. It’s also rather better than Q4, 1998, when AMD reported sales $788.8 million and net income of $22.3 million. But the company has some way to go before it climbs completely out of its financial hole. For the full year in 1999, AMD delivered record sales of $2.85 billion, 12 per cent up on 1998, and a net loss of $88.9 million (1998: - $103.9 million). Considering that 1999’s results include a one-time after-tax gain of $2592 million from the sale of Vantis Corporation, it looks like AMD’s financial position deteriorated in 1999. But the company remains upbeat, on the back of a huge Q4. Athlon, AMD’s flagship CPU, lies at the heart of the 46 per cent sales growth from Q3 to Q4, contributing more than half of the "greater than $300 million sequential sales growth," CEO Jerry Sanders says. Processor sales were up 67 per cent from Q3 and a more modest one per cent from the previous record Q4 in 1998. AMD sold 800,000 Athlon CPUs in Q4 (and more than one million for the year). Add in K6 production and total PC processor unit shipments grew by 35 percent to more than 6 million units, a new record, AMD claims. The company says it will have 100 per cent of AMD Athlon production on 0.18 micron technology by February, up from 80 per cent this month. Other roadmap goodies include an 850MHz Athlon this quarter, closely followed by a 900MHz screamer. AMD also says it is on target for the release of K8 at the end of 2001. The company aims to raise its ASPs (average selling prices) to $100 in the second half of the year, although that rather depends upon whether Intel will let it.®

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