AMD softens losses to $416m
updated 05:05 pm EDT, Tue April 21, 2009
AMD Q1 2009 Results
AMD tonight showed slight improvement in its performance by reporting reduced losses for its first quarter of the year. The chip designer managed a net loss of $416 million; while worse than a net loss of $351 million for the first quarter of 2008, the figure is less than a third of the $1.4 billion loss reported just in the fall. It also notes that revenue was "flat" versus the fall and thus that its losses are under better control.
Outside of general accounting practices, it also claims to have taken a softer-still $189 million loss.
The firm pins some of its losses on the economy but explains part of its costs as the result of spinning off its semiconductor manufacturing as GlobalFoundries, which launched last month. Offloading the assembly will help reduce the company's costs in the long term; the company also touts important launches during the first few months of the year as important to its bottom line, including its Phenom II chips, updated Opterons, the Athlon Neo and the Mobility Radeon HD video chipset line.
In spite of the introductions, AMD is faring significantly worse than Intel, which itself saw a steep decline triggered in part by reduced sales of its Atom processor but still remained largely above water thanks in part to its high-end performance advantage with Core i7 as well as its edge in notebooks.
