Analysts Claim AMD Will Be Bankrupt by 2020

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,400
A report from Kerrisdale Capital Investment sees doom and gloom in the future of AMD. In fact, the report specifically points to the year 2020 that AMD finally succumbs to the failure to successfully diversify into other growth markets.

It notes that the ongoing corporate refresh cycle has boosted many companies' revenues but not really AMD's, as it is too dependent on the volatile consumer PC segment.
 
I think they'll be fine. Will they be a big financial powerhouse like Intel or Nvidia? No, I don't think so. But they'll be fine.
 
Uh.... aren't all the consoles using AMD?

Yes, but look at their financials, hardly an encouraging sign. Though I hope the analysts are wrong. Another rumour was Samsung going to buy them
 
Well, i only hope that Samsung or someone else buys off the graphics division by that time at the very least... and tbh although i like AMD, i am not surprised at that prediction, i am surprised that it would take that long :S
 
I have been surprised that they have stayed in business as long as they have. Over their history they have been down and out so many times....it was like Jerry was the only reason they survived. Then Hector seemed to try his damnedest to sink them if you go back a few years ago. Everyone was saying they were done for and then successful quarters of bleeding and more bleeding and more bleeding yet they are still around.

I guess in the end it is like the cockroach joke, the world will end but somehow AMD will still exist.
 
The worst that could happen is that Nvidia lost the last bit of competition and they could rip us off freely.
 
We will also hit peak oil in 1987 according to previous estimates, and global war will break out when supply greatly exceeds demand. Oh wait, we're having massive layoffs in the oilfield industry because there's too much supply and not enough demand. JK! ;)
 
They make very little if any profit for the CPUs that go in consoles.

Exactly, people don't seem to understand this. Actually I think they even took a loss at first when the consoles launched although they recouped it in the long-term.
 
Well Kerrisdale Capital Investment are obviously wrong, Star Citizen have AMD alive 900 years from now. ;)
 
I have been surprised that they have stayed in business as long as they have. Over their history they have been down and out so many times....it was like Jerry was the only reason they survived.

I was actually contemplating working for AMD when they had Austin operations. I talked to HR, got the employment pack, and discretely left it on my toolbox at work over the weekend. Had my raise at work by the next Thursday. One of my friends left to work for AMD awhile later, and a year later AMD announced the fab was closing/retooling. He was laid off.

I would like a peek at AMD's patent portfolio, and their statements, to see what they make just from that.
 
AMD will be fine. Just like always. Stuff is always "supposed" to happen according to someone, somewhere.
 
I would say 2020 is probably when the console contracts with Sony/MS/Nintendo end.

Being tied in with three big corporations helps stave off the banks calling in the debts.
 
Well if they could just release video card drivers in a timely manner ......
 
Personally, I have started to shy away from AMD.

It's very very apparent they have some serious problems

Driver updates are falling further and further behind. Over there last few years you've had over 20 front officer people leave not including the new leadership, no once but twice now. Now there are rumors that's the 390x could cost as much as $799 - $999. And now this news of them running out of money. I can't say I am surprised.

While I hate the higher prices of Nvidia, it does look like the safer bet moving forward.
 
I really doubt that'll happen. AMD looks bad now, but they have a number of cool tech coming out soon. Firstly they have the Zen architecture coming out in 2016 which looks really good. It will catch AMD up with Intel in terms of performance. AMD has also partnered up with Samsung to make 14nm chips, which puts them against Intel is power. If AMD's new HBM technology works out, we might even see this tech in their APU's. Finally, AMD does plan to make their FM3+ motherboards work with both x86 and ARM cpus. Something you won't see Intel do.
 
Honest AMD-vs-Intel competition for years has driven so much of the innovation and progress in electronics, as has ATI-vs-Nvidia .... if we loose these rivalries we will all feel the loss in the form of fewer innovations and less downward pressure on pricing for what we can buy.

Never a good thing in the world of alleged "free market" economics.
 
AMD has done a great job of "Creatively" keeping the books for years, this will not change anytime soon and the simple fact is AMD's licensing and patent portfolio is worth more together than torn apart, so banks and financial institutions will continue to lend them money well beyond 2020.

That being said, they need to build out a powerhouse APU with 6-8 Zen cores and ~30 CGN compute units. This combined with between 8gb and 32gb of HBM would allow a CPU that would be great for PC Gaming as well as a great server chip.

I also think AMD needs to partner with Microsoft or another software company to push HSA into the mainstream, allowing the above chip to not only benefit from the increase in performance from ZEN but also leveraging HSA. Building it into the WIndows ecosystem much like they did with x86-64 would be the first step allowing greater adoption. I do think they are doing this to a point with DirectX 12, but it needs to be used throughout the entire operating system.

Either way, AMD going bankrupt and the patent portfolio being sold off would be terrible for anyone wanting to see affordable products from Intel and Nvidia.
 
AMD isn't just going to go bankrupt and disappear. Their knowledge and experience in GPU is valuable outside of desktop market. At worse, they will be bought out by companies like Samsung, or anyone in the business of building mobile SoC.

Wouldn't surprise me if there already are companies out there waiting to buy AMD, or at least their GPU division.
 
Yea, so-called "analysts" were saying that in 1998, too...;) Then in 1999, AMD released the Athlon, the cpu basis that has shaped computing today as we know it (Intel's core 2 cpus license AMD's x86-64.) Intel was pushing RDRAM and Itanium at the time for 64-bit computing; AMD pushed x86-64 & DDR SDRAM--so it's obvious who won that round. Here we are on the Eve of AMD's upcoming Zen architecture...about a year or so out, and the analysts are doing it again! Creepy...;) I note that AMD is still in business but that most of the analysts who had written AMD off in the latter 90's have moved on to other careers...;) Quite understandable...:D
 
Please, if any company knows how to stay operational without making any money it's AMD. :D
 
Zarathustra[H];1041621453 said:
Yeah, but mostly because they were the lowest bidder.

They aren't making much money per unit off of those console contracts. Very low margin business.
Please post what NVidia's and AMD's bids were, and how much net profit they are making per thousand units.

Oh, what, you don't have those numbers? :rolleyes:

AMD's gaming revenue went from a big loss to a huge profit leader for the company when they won all three contracts, and at no point were selling at a loss: http://arstechnica.com/business/201...utive-quarterly-profit-on-xbox-one-ps4-sales/

Prior to winning all three contracts, AMD was at a $422 million loss for the quarter. Immediately after they were at a $89 million profit. So that's over a $500 million positive revenue change right away.

They are expected to move 22 million more units this year, so I don't understand where people are pulling these numbers out of their butts.
 
Please post what NVidia's and AMD's bids were, and how much net profit they are making per thousand units.

Oh, what, you don't have those numbers? :rolleyes:

AMD's gaming revenue went from a big loss to a huge profit leader for the company when they won all three contracts, and at no point were selling at a loss: http://arstechnica.com/business/201...utive-quarterly-profit-on-xbox-one-ps4-sales/

Prior to winning all three contracts, AMD was at a $422 million loss for the quarter. Immediately after they were at a $89 million profit. So that's over a $500 million positive revenue change right away.

They are expected to move 22 million more units this year, so I don't understand where people are pulling these numbers out of their butts.

The consoles have been a boost to AMD. But we keep seeing huge quarterly loss after huge quarterly loss. Losing cash like that looks bad for any company. Just looking at AMD's revenue, http://ycharts.com/companies/AMD/revenues you can see it has dropped to 1.03B which appears to be the lowest reported since 9/30/2003 (953.76M).

That doesn't mean the end of the company. I'm sure with the new GPUs and some of their upcoming APUs they will bounce back some. But then you have to wonder how much and for how long. Going forward AMD needs to be and stay competitive in their markets. They can't afford to fall behind and keep losing money.

I hope things will get back on track for them. We are getting pretty close to their new GPU releases. Maybe that will be a home run for them and give them another boost that they need.
 
Please post what NVidia's and AMD's bids were, and how much net profit they are making per thousand units.

Oh, what, you don't have those numbers? :rolleyes:

AMD's gaming revenue went from a big loss to a huge profit leader for the company when they won all three contracts, and at no point were selling at a loss: http://arstechnica.com/business/201...utive-quarterly-profit-on-xbox-one-ps4-sales/

Prior to winning all three contracts, AMD was at a $422 million loss for the quarter. Immediately after they were at a $89 million profit. So that's over a $500 million positive revenue change right away.

They are expected to move 22 million more units this year, so I don't understand where people are pulling these numbers out of their butts.

Nobody is pulling numbers out of there butt. It's all in the SEC Filings. They are bleeding money as a Corporation. The contracts you speak of are not near enough to stop the bleeding out of money AMD seems to do so well at.

While they have some interesting tech. They never,,, and I mean never can seem to get it to market in a timely manor. And never are able to make margins on there tech and hobbled and cobbled up production.

They need to get there new gps and cpus out now!
 
Zarathustra[H];1041621453 said:
Yeah, but mostly because they were the lowest bidder.

They aren't making much money per unit off of those console contracts. Very low margin business.

This is a myth spread by the Nvidia faithful on various forums.

Both Sony and Microsoft decided on using X86 SOCs. This ruled Nvidia out. And Intel are not as good at the graphic side of things as AMD are.

It was as simple as that, there really was only one choice.
 
AMD is in a bad place obviously and it's hard to see how they get to a good one as an independent company. If they are sold I doubt whoever buys them would continue to sell discrete CPUs & GPUs simply because that's a failing business now and it's hard to see how there'd be anyway to improve those businesses with huge wads of cash, especially on the x86 CPU side of it.

That would leave Intel and nVidia as de facto monopolies and that's going to set off anti-trust concerns but a failing business can't be saved by anti-trust law.
 
Too valuable to go bankrupt. They'll like get investors or purchased. Must be an Intel-only fanboy investor reporting. Without AMD there wouldn't be useful stuff like x64 extension, Mantle/DX12, HUMA, HBM, etc. and a stagnent overpriced Intel and Nvidia only market.
 
they make don't make allot money from the consoles. they do make a profit, but it's tiny. Nvidia finicials have back up there assertitions that the oppurtunity cost was not worth it for them. AMD didnt really have choice, I'm sure if they had had, more profitable options they would have walk away from those console deals also.
 
Okay... I hope people don't attack too ferociously, but here it goes.

I completely agree with competition being a good and necessary thing. And as a consumer, naturally the more choices and options the better.

BUT...

What would happen if in a parallel universe, Nvidia bought AMD? Wouldn't we reap the benefits of having both companies R&D engineers working together? Maybe finally get a good combo of Nvidia efficiency with AMD raw power?

Just a thought
 
This is a myth spread by the Nvidia faithful on various forums.

Both Sony and Microsoft decided on using X86 SOCs. This ruled Nvidia out. And Intel are not as good at the graphic side of things as AMD are.

It was as simple as that, there really was only one choice.

ammm no, they decided to use what was cheapest, this turn out to be the AMD Soc. both MS and Sony decided they would not lose money on hardware this generation, this is what happened, only AMD didnt have an option that was more valuable than this deal. it's been noted that combined the deals might be worth a total of 60 million, with is a pittiance amount in the overall scheme of things.
 
What would happen if in a parallel universe, Nvidia bought AMD? Wouldn't we reap the benefits of having both companies R&D engineers working together? Maybe finally get a good combo of Nvidia efficiency with AMD raw power?

It doesn't always work that way in real life where companies like Apple buys out another company/technology to prevent it from used in a competitor's product and not necessarily use it in their own.

There's no progress without competition. Shooting hoops all day by yourself doesn't make you a better player. Apple has no competition for a competing phone that runs iOS so as a consumer you lose overpaying a premium for a flagship iPhone with only 1GB DRAM and Safari reload issues and premature background app closures. Monopolies are just bad for consumers.
 
so 5 more years of failed expectations, inferior drivers and poor performance in games :D
 
Back
Top