AMD Reports 2012 Fourth Quarter and Annual Results

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AMD today announced revenue for the fourth quarter of 2012 of $1.16 billion, an operating loss of $422 million, and a net loss of $473 million, or $0.63 per share. The company reported a non-GAAP operating loss of $55 million and a non-GAAP net loss of $102 million, or $0.14 per share. For the year ended December 29, 2012, AMD reported revenue of $5.42 billion, an operating loss of $1.06 billion and a net loss of $1.18 billion, or $1.60 per share. The full year non-GAAP operating income was $45 million and non-GAAP net loss was $114 million, or $0.16 per share.

“AMD continues to evolve our operating model and diversify our product portfolio with the changing PC environment,” said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. “Innovation is the core of our long-term growth. The investments we are making in technology today are focused on leveraging our distinctive IP to drive growth in ultra low power client devices, semi-custom SoCs and dense servers. We expect to deliver differentiated and groundbreaking APUs to our customers in 2013 and remain focused on transforming our operating model to the business realities of today.”
 
If you added up all the gains vs losses in its history, AMD has lost money serveral times over.. how does this company stay in business?
 
Despite being really bad, it's actually a tad bit better than most were expecting. That's the sort of good news :p AMD isn't going to be profitable - by their own estimates - until late Q3/Q4 2013, so they've got a long road ahead. Kabini really is going to make or break the company at this point. The chip looks good, but whether they've secured crucial design wins is yet another story. Unfortunately they're backing Win8 so even if their chips are great they're not going to sell all that much :/ Bobcat/Brazos sold like hotcakes because cheap laptops and netbooks were still doing well, but today that's a totally different market that's being cannibalized from below.

In any case, it looks like AMD's GPU business weathered the storm better than the CPU unit. Graphics revenue fell 5% sequentially and 15% year-over-year, compared to 11% and 37%, respectively, for AMD's Computing Solutions business. Of course, AMD's Radeons have stayed quite competitive throughout 2012, while FX- and A-series processors have often struggled to keep up with their rivals from the Intel camp.
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Making grade A GPUs isn't enough to make you any money unless they're being sold by the hundreds in the HPC space, and that hasn't yet happened.

AMD's survival hinges on Win8 and Kabini. If new Win8 devices with AMD's Kabini don't sell then they're absolutely screwed.
 
pelo said:
Despite being really bad, it's actually a tad bit better than most were expecting. That's the sort of good news
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So sorta like your oxygen deprived at birth out of control teen coming home with a D- instead of an F

"We're SO proud of you!"
 
Steve said:
“AMD continues to evolve our operating model and diversify our product portfolio with the changing PC environment,” said Rory Read, AMD president and CEO. “Innovation is the core of our long-term growth. The investments we are making in technology today are focused on leveraging our distinctive IP to drive growth in ultra low power client devices, semi-custom SoCs and dense servers. We expect to deliver differentiated and groundbreaking APUs to our customers in 2013 and remain focused on transforming our operating model to the business realities of today.” [/COLOR][/I]
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Can anyone count the # of bullshit marketing buzzwords he managed to fit in here - I think the only one he left out was The Cloud(tm)
 
odditory said:
So sorta like your oxygen deprived at birth out of control teen coming home with a D- instead of an F

"We're SO proud of you!"
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"It's alright, dear, a C+ is fine, but a B is even better."

Or, if you're from an Asian family: "You got a B-! You're going to fail in life."

One of those is AMD.
 
ZOMG! That sucks! I would really, really like to see AMD stay around. We really don't need an industry consisting of just Intel in x86 and just nVidia in GPUs. That would turn into a mega-suckfest with the consumers being the ones doing the...well, you get the idea. :(
 
octoberasian said:
Or, if you're from an Asian family: "You got a B-! You're going to fail in life."

One of those is AMD.
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tumblr_lqpcd09YnV1qbyl1no2_500.jpg
 
THRESHIN said:
hear that noise? its the sound of AMD's life support machine failing.
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If the rumors are true then both of the next gen consoles will be running AMD chips. That should be a good boost for them.
 
Lol @ reporting the non-GAAP numbers. In otherwords, if were allowed to cheat our accounting, we'd have lost a lot less! Enron for the win.
 
Don't forget, the man took the reins just before Bulldozer was released. Hardly the ideal situation for a new CEO. Believe it or not, Rory seems to be staunching the bleeding. He's cut down the payroll by 10%, and at the same time, he's brought (back) Athlon 64 designer Jim Keller (Apple), Charles Matar (Qualcomm) and Wayne Meretsky (Apple). These are some very, VERY heavy hitters, and are exactly the kind of people you'd hope to see joining AMD if they are to pull off what they need to pull off: a coup in the x86 tablet space, x86 and ARM server spaces, and big core x86 stuff (Keller). I've got shares of AMD riding on my hunch that things will definitely finally start to turn around for AMD in 2013.
 
Both the Xbox720 and the PS4 are apparently using Jaguar based processors with GCN graphics. I wonder how much that licensing will help them out.
 
theyll get a huge cash injection when the nextgen starts coming off the assembly line
 
pelo said:
Despite being really bad, it's actually a tad bit better than most were expecting. That's the sort of good news :p AMD isn't going to be profitable - by their own estimates - until late Q3/Q4 2013, so they've got a long road ahead. Kabini really is going to make or break the company at this point. The chip looks good, but whether they've secured crucial design wins is yet another story. Unfortunately they're backing Win8 so even if their chips are great they're not going to sell all that much :/ Bobcat/Brazos sold like hotcakes because cheap laptops and netbooks were still doing well, but today that's a totally different market that's being cannibalized from below.



Making grade A GPUs isn't enough to make you any money unless they're being sold by the hundreds in the HPC space, and that hasn't yet happened.

AMD's survival hinges on Win8 and Kabini. If new Win8 devices with AMD's Kabini don't sell then they're absolutely screwed.
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FYI - AMD's graphics division is the only division not working at a loss, its actually working to a huge profit

Its just the rest of AMD's business that's sinking the fricken shit, its like having a hole in a boat, and in order to save the boat you don't fix the hole, you fill it with ping pong balls

Something's gone incredibly wrong with them ATM, which is odd because AMD used to be kings of chip design, even the 1090T was a fantastic chip, beating out all of intel's Bloomfeld and all the lynnfield line before heavy overclocking, you could overclock AMD's too, they just couldn't overclock as much.

Then came bulldozer, and the delays, after delays, after delays, SOMETHING was clearly wrong. Instead of AMD doing the smart thing, going back and reworking the entire chip, they pushed it out onto the market and have suffered billions of losses because of it. I still don't fucking believe its TDP was 125, such a fucking lie, I've not seen heat like that since the GTX 480, which you could cook fucking eggs on

When 95% of tasks on the 1090T and 1100T can be done faster then on either Bulldozer, or even the new Pile Driver, for fuck sakes, sink the boat and fucking build a new one.

If AMD goes under, they better sell Radeon brand to somebody, I fear living in a world of Nvidia given their incredible RMA rates
 
Alti said:
If the rumors are true then both of the next gen consoles will be running AMD chips. That should be a good boost for them.
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I would be surprised if it really happened, its always the same: A company is 'in talks' with AMD, and there are 'rumors', then they go Intel... its all about pressure and BS to have Intel play ball.
There is no way in hell MS or Sony are going to depend on chips manufactured by AMD or be dependent on AMD in any way for any type of production (even if AMD outsources said production), cross-licensing yes, as I am sure they make protected contracts in case AMD goes under.
 
Uvaman said:
I would be surprised if it really happened, its always the same: A company is 'in talks' with AMD, and there are 'rumors', then they go Intel... its all about pressure and BS to have Intel play ball.
There is no way in hell MS or Sony are going to depend on chips manufactured by AMD or be dependent on AMD in any way for any type of production (even if AMD outsources said production), cross-licensing yes, as I am sure they make protected contracts in case AMD goes under.
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Most likely AMD just sells them the chip design and leaves supply and fabrication to Microsoft / Sony. That is what AMD did with the Xbox 360 GPU.

4 design wins (2 per console) one would expect a decent amount of cash though.
 
Uvaman said:
I would be surprised if it really happened, its always the same: A company is 'in talks' with AMD, and there are 'rumors', then they go Intel... its all about pressure and BS to have Intel play ball.
There is no way in hell MS or Sony are going to depend on chips manufactured by AMD or be dependent on AMD in any way for any type of production (even if AMD outsources said production), cross-licensing yes, as I am sure they make protected contracts in case AMD goes under.
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What?

AMD hasn't owned fabs since 2009, so since then they've relied on "outsourcing" for production. Secondly, MS, Sony and Nintendo have all used AMD GPUs for their consoles, and the next generation of consoles are going AMD as well. AMD also "outsources" GPUs.

cross-licensing yes
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No. x86 can't be cross-licensed, neither by Intel nor by AMD. It would void the agreement between the two and lawsuits would be abound.

We know that AMD has been booked as supplier for GPUs for all 3 consoles and it's been strongly hinted (via rumors for the past 2ish years) that they're also going to produce at least a portion of the CPU side as well.

Intel is a non-factor in embedded devices mostly because Intel operates on high margins and refuses to do any sort of custom design work unless the clients are paying out the nose for it. As a result, that makes consoles an impossibility for Intel. Consoles operate on super slim margins (often sold at a loss by the console company) and relies very heavily on volume via licensing (like the Wii) or with a lump sum (Xbox360).
 
Cali3350 said:
Most likely AMD just sells them the chip design and leaves supply and fabrication to Microsoft / Sony. That is what AMD did with the Xbox 360 GPU.

4 design wins (2 per console) one would expect a decent amount of cash though.
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Not necessarily. AMD made a good amount of money on the Nintendo Wii because the agreement was structured such that AMD received royalties on each unit sold. Given that the Wii sold extremely well over a number of years, AMD ended up making a good profit. On the Xbox360 AMD licensed out their GPU design/IP and left everything else up to Microsoft. AMD received only a small lump sum for it and the money they made on the 360 was much less than the Wii.

If the consoles are using x86, which it seems they are, then AMD would have to get royalties on each unit sold as per the x86 agreement. Since they're also supplying the GPU then this may be a case of doubling up on royalties, which would be a good sign.

It's not all good, though. Bear in mind that embedded devices/consoles are a super slim margin market and don't offer the same lucrative opportunities as the server space where you can charge an arm and a leg for your chips. To make any sort of money here they'll need the consoles to sell extremely well over a period of years, thus the money won't exactly be flowing in at any point. It'll likely be more like a careful series of consecutive base hits rather than a home run.
 
ShamisOMally said:
FYI - AMD's graphics division is the only division not working at a loss, its actually working to a huge profit

Its just the rest of AMD's business that's sinking the fricken shit, its like having a hole in a boat, and in order to save the boat you don't fix the hole, you fill it with ping pong balls

Something's gone incredibly wrong with them ATM, which is odd because AMD used to be kings of chip design, even the 1090T was a fantastic chip, beating out all of intel's Bloomfeld and all the lynnfield line before heavy overclocking, you could overclock AMD's too, they just couldn't overclock as much.

Then came bulldozer, and the delays, after delays, after delays, SOMETHING was clearly wrong. Instead of AMD doing the smart thing, going back and reworking the entire chip, they pushed it out onto the market and have suffered billions of losses because of it. I still don't fucking believe its TDP was 125, such a fucking lie, I've not seen heat like that since the GTX 480, which you could cook fucking eggs on

When 95% of tasks on the 1090T and 1100T can be done faster then on either Bulldozer, or even the new Pile Driver, for fuck sakes, sink the boat and fucking build a new one.

If AMD goes under, they better sell Radeon brand to somebody, I fear living in a world of Nvidia given their incredible RMA rates
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While I don't think they published enough of a schedule to accuse them of delays, the amount of time between trumpeting the Sledgehammer (the first AMD64 chip) and release, followed by nearly another year to get the desktop chip out. AMD has always taken forever to get chips out.

AMD got ahead when Intel was playing games with Netburst and Itanium. Intel has 10 times the design budget (at least) and the best fabs in the business (unlike fabless AMD). I'm not even sure AMD can catch up enough to produce their historical "good chips for the money" breadwinners.

I'm surprised Trinity isn't selling more. It seems perfect for cheap laptops, and isn't that where most of the sales (not money) in x86 are? Maybe it is but the margin isn't there (the story of AMD's life).
 
It looks bad, but AMD has a lot of good things going for it right now. They just need to continue abandoning the high end market and focus on APUs, discrete graphics cards, and the server market. If they can reach a point where they don't sell a CPU with a price tag over $150 I think that makes them a better company. AMD needs to focus on volume sales in the laptop and low end to midrange pc market. They will never be able to compete with the new Intel and pissing away millions in R&D on potentially high margin parts is a terrible business strategy that has killed them in recent years.
 
weuntouchable said:
It looks bad, but AMD has a lot of good things going for it right now. They just need to continue abandoning the high end market and focus on APUs, discrete graphics cards, and the server market. If they can reach a point where they don't sell a CPU with a price tag over $150 I think that makes them a better company. AMD needs to focus on volume sales in the laptop and low end to midrange pc market. They will never be able to compete with the new Intel and pissing away millions in R&D on potentially high margin parts is a terrible business strategy that has killed them in recent years.
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The whole shift to focus more on low power, mobile products and server products seems like a smart move. The desktop PC market is slowing down, even Intel knows this very well. It just doesn't seem like a smart business move to just continually invest nearly everything in desktop PC processors when the market isn't responding very well to desktop PCs in the first place.

If the market and the consumers are doing a lot of their day-to-day tasks on laptops, tablets and even smartphones, it's probably a good idea as a company to start refocusing your efforts in that market. As a result, we're getting Kabini, Temash, and even Kaveri this year. I'm looking forward to the Kabini APUs for laptops/ultrabooks-- dual GPU support, low power, decent performance, and probably a lot cheaper than what Intel has planned in the ultrabook space.

And, they hired [back] two engineers that probably hints that AMD is planning something more in the mobile space. So, as dire as their economic report is, at least they're working out something to get them back up. As someone said earlier, everything is riding on their mobile products now, especially the Kabini and Temash APU. Hopefully more and more OEMs take notice and begin using those processors.
 
THRESHIN said:
hear that noise? its the sound of AMD's life support machine failing.
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amd has atic as a lender of last resort atic does not want global foundries biggest customer to go under. not to mention last i checked amd is releasing 28nm cpu's this year across all product lines doesn't sound like a dieing company and i vividly remember the death of 3dfx.
 
Spidey329 said:
Lol @ reporting the non-GAAP numbers. In otherwords, if were allowed to cheat our accounting, we'd have lost a lot less! Enron for the win.
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No.

Most, if not all companies, report non-gaap numbers along with gaap. GAAP does not equal "honest" and non-GAAP does not equal "dishonest." GAAP are the relatively new accounting rules; non-GAAP rules are the older accounting rules in sway and used by everybody for decades until GAAP. All companies are legally allowed to report both rules results if they so desire, and the overwhelming majority elect to do so.

Most companies think GAAP is ridiculously and needlessly restrictive, and the overall opinion is that of the two accounting rule sets GAAP is the least honest. But it's a matter of opinion, purely. Thus, both rule set results are routinely reported.
 
weuntouchable said:
It looks bad, but AMD has a lot of good things going for it right now. They just need to continue abandoning the high end market and focus on APUs, discrete graphics cards, and the server market. If they can reach a point where they don't sell a CPU with a price tag over $150 I think that makes them a better company. AMD needs to focus on volume sales in the laptop and low end to midrange pc market. They will never be able to compete with the new Intel and pissing away millions in R&D on potentially high margin parts is a terrible business strategy that has killed them in recent years.
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OTOH, almost nobody saw AMD coming in with Athlon in ~'99--least of all, Intel. AMD is much smaller and of course the Darkhorse in the race, but AMD definitely needs to increase it ASP's and nothing does that like a high-end winner. AMD already has the highend on down locked up in the gpu markets, and Intel has nothing at all to compete with AMD's Fusion products--which are just as good running Win7 as they are running Win8 (I don't know where people get the idea that the same APU can't do both OSes, but it's obvious that this has always been the case.)

Judging by the number of people who buy Apple products these days...;)...most people in the markets don't give a damn whose tech is in the products they buy, so AMD really doesn't have much to worry about in the cpu benchmark races that are only important in high-end specialized areas. AMD has already won the gpu races many times over, and Intel as a result has nothing with which to compete with AMDs Fusion products.

So, really, the only place AMD needs to improve is in higher end cpu products, and I think AMD is certainly within spitting distance on that score.

Generally, things look so good for AMD at present that it seems AMD has nowhere to go but up. The problem for AMD is this damned economy (thanks in no small part to the idiot Obama regime and the megalomaniac the US Democratic party has become at the same time.) In bad economic times it's not the guy with the best tech who wins, it's the guy with the deepest pockets. Right now, the task before AMD is just to hang in there--the American people will soon tire of their idiotic romance with Chicago gangsters and throw the lot of them out. AMD needs to hang in there.

Unfortunately, I think things are going to get worse until they begin a real improvement. It shouldn't take too much more economic abuse before the American electorate wakes up and smells the coffee. I hope AMD can make it through.
 
AEracer7 said:
And to think I just bought two amd cpu's this week.... Sigh
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Good move. CPUs are

1) Impervious to bad news & gossip

2) AMD is still very much in business

I'm going to buy one myself in a week or two...;)
 
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