San Francisco: Advanced Micro Devices Inc. returned to profitability in the first quarter as the world's No. 2 microprocessor maker benefited from a strengthening computer market.
The company also got a lift from an accounting boost related to the manufacturing division it spun off last year. But more importantly, the quarter's numbers suggest that AMD is being helped by broad trends that could lift many kinds of technology suppliers.
Last week AMD's main rival in the business of selling the chips that are the "brains" of computers, Intel Corp., said that its first-quarter profit nearly quadrupled. It said consumer demand for laptops and corporate spending on computer servers were strong. Market research firms IDC and Gartner Inc. said personal computer shipments jumped more than 20 per cent in the first quarter, which was more than expected.
AMD's CEO, Dirk Meyer, described spending on servers as "pretty healthy" and said on a conference call with analysts that he's optimistic the trend will hold through the rest of the year. However, he wouldn't discuss his projections for corporate spending on personal computers, an area that has been slow to recover.
AMD said after the market closed Thursday that it earned $257 million, or 35 cents per share in the first quarter. In the same period last year AMD lost $416 million, or 66 cents per share.
Excluding the gain from the manufacturing spinoff, AMD would have earned 9 cents per share in the most recent quarter.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected AMD to lose 3 cents per share. That number doesn't compare directly to AMD's results because some analysts included the spin-off in their forecasts, while others didn't.
AMD's revenue jumped 34 per cent to $1.57 billion (Dh5.77 billion).
