Friday, November 22, 2024

AMD says data center sales more than doubled in a year

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Lisa Su at the Keynote: Lisa Su in Conversation with Ryan Patel as part of SXSW 2024 Conference and Festivals held at the Austin Convention Center on March 11, 2024 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Travis P. Ball/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty Images)

Travis P. Ball | Sxsw Conference & Festivals | Getty Images

Advanced Micro Devices reported second-quarter earnings on Tuesday that beat Wall Street expectations for revenue and showed continued growth in sales of the company’s AI chips.

AMD shares rose 8% in extended trading.

Here’s how AMD did versus LSEG consensus expectations for the quarter ended June 29:

  • Earnings per share: 69 cents adjusted vs. 68 cents expected
  • Revenue: $5.84 billion vs. $5.72 billion expected

AMD said it expects about $6.7 billion in sales in the current quarter, versus Wall Street expectations of 93 cents in earnings per share on $6.61 billion of sales.

The chipmaker reported net income of $265 million, or 16 cents per share, versus net income of $27 million, or 2 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

AMD shares are down about 6% year to date, even though the company is the second largest vendor of data center graphics processing units (GPUs) after Nvidia. Nvidia’s stock has more than doubled this year as AI GPUs are required for training and deploying advanced AI like ChatGPT and Nvidia has become the chip of choice.

Investors want to see AMD take market share away from its longtime rival Nvidia with its MI300X AI chip and signal growth in its data center AI business. Earlier this year, AMD said it expected $4 billion in artificial intelligence chips sales this year, or about 15% of the company’s expected sales.

AMD CEO Lisa Su said on a call with analysts that the company saw “higher than expected” sales of its AI chips, and that revenue from its MI300 chips exceeded $1 billion during the quarter.

“As a result, we now expect data center GPU revenue to exceed $4.5 billion in 2024, up from the $4 billion we guided in April,” Su said in a call with analysts.

AMD AI chip sales are reported in the company’s Data Center segment, which soared 115% year over year to $2.8 billion, driven by an increase in AI GPU shipments, AMD said. Analysts polled by StreetAccount were expecting $2.75 billion in Data Center revenue.

AMD’s core business is making central processors (CPUs) for laptops and servers. Sales for PCs are reported in the company’s Client segment, which rose 49% from the year-earlier period to $1.5 billion, versus expectations of $1.43 billion from StreetAccount. That growth suggests that the PC market is recovering from a few years of post-pandemic slump.

AMD also makes chips for gaming consoles and GPUs for 3D graphics. It reported $648 million revenue in the gaming category, down 59% year over year. Analysts were expecting $676 million in sales, per StreetAccount.

The company’s embedded segment, which is made up of products acquired through the Xilinx acquisition in 2022 for industrial customers, reported $861 million in sales, dropping 41% year over year; the segment beat Wall Street expectations of $856 million.

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