AMD forecasts rough period for PC industry
updated 08:02 pm EDT, Fri July 20, 2012
Chip maker sees lower sales as mobile surges
Advanced Micro Devices sees the PC industry entering a rough sector, with no likely recovery in the immediate future. During the conference call for the company's second quarter earnings, AMD CEO Rory Read said that the industry may be resetting to a new and lower baseline with regard to sales. Read attributed the decline to the growing popularity of smartphones and tablets, which are eating up the computing space typically occupied by notebooks and desktops.
AMD saw its revenues drop 10 percent to $1.41 billion for the previous quarter. Weak consumer demand for PCs led the company to forecast a one percent drop in sales, plus or minus three percent, for the third quarter. Historically, AMD's sales have increased around 14 percent from the second quarter to the third.
AMD's forecast is in keeping with trends some have observed with Intel. The world's largest chip maker forecast three to five percent sales growth for the quarter, whereas prior estimates had Intel seeing sales growth in the high single digits. [via CNet]
