UPDATE 2-AMD warns of lower sales, citing flash memory
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Semiconductor maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) warned on Monday that its quarterly revenue will be lower than forecast, citing softness in
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Sales of Apple Inc.&#39;s iPhone and new iPods slated for release later this year will mark the end of cheap flash memory for a time, and that means users may see fewer bargains on older digital music players or bundled flash memory cards.
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Blog: Bad: AMD lost $600 million in the second quarter. Good: Chip shipments surged.
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) declined to comment Tuesday on a Taiwanese media report that more than 1 million re-marked AMD processors may have been shipped to Germany and China.
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(InfoWorld) - AMD will delay its launch of the Barcelona quad-core Opteron server chip from its expected date in July until October, setting the company back in its effort to compete with new processors from Intel, according to analyst reports. Processor companies make more money selling server chips than desktop or laptop chips, so the move will hit AMD's 2007 earnings hard, pushing the company to lose $2.59 per share instead of only $2.48 per share, according to a report released Tuesday by Citigroup analyst Glen Yeung. "Barcelona is generally viewed to beÂ AMD's best opportunity to stem server share loss to Intel. While AMD's recent notebook win at Toshiba may balance any negative revenue implications to our current model, Barcelona's delay has negative implications for AMD's gross margin," Yeung wrote. His estimate is a larger loss than the consensus Thomson Financial forecast that AMD will lose $2.47 per share for 2007. The news comes at a bad time for AMD, which has promised for months that it would launch the chip in the second half of 2007,Â helping the company to rebound from the effects of a price war with Intel. AMD is already hurting,Â posting a $611 million first-quarter lossÂ in April, following on the heels of theÂ $574 million loss reported in JanuaryÂ for fourth quarter earnings last year. Barcelona is the key to taking that fiscal burden off AMD's shoulders,Â AMD CEO Hector Ruiz said on May 3 at the company's annual shareholder meeting. Although Intel is several quarters ahead in improving its chip manufacturing capabilities, AMD stays competitive by creating more innovative designs, he said. AMD claims Barcelona will deliver better performance on memory-intensive applications than Intel's Clovertown quad-core Xeon server chips that have been on the market since November. AMD stuck to its guns on Wednesday, insisting that it is still on schedule, and pointing as evidence to itsÂ demonstration on Tuesday of prototype Barcelona chips in serversÂ from infrastructure partners Supermicro Computer, Tyan Computer, and Uniwide Technologies at theÂ Computex trade show in Taipei. "We remain on track for a summer 2007 launch with partners shipping platforms in the third quarter," said AMD spokeswoman Marian Kelley. She blamed the delay rumors on Cray's announcement Monday that it expects revenue to drop because of a delay in shipping its quad-core Cray XT4 systems. In fact, Cray was referring to AMD's midrange Budapest processor, not Barcelona, she said. "The guidance that we've been giving and that we're sticking to is that Budapest will follow Barcelona in the second half of 2007," Kelley said. Despite AMD's assurances, other analysts echoed the Citigroup report, saying they have heard similar news from server vendors, distributors and board makers. On May 30, another report called AMD's promise to launch Barcelona in mid-2007 "a head fake" since the chip will not be available at full volume until August at the earliest, according to a note from analyst Patrick Wang at Thomas Weisel Partners. In contrast, Intel is expected to succeed in shipping its Penryn processors in the late third quarter or early fourth quarter. That timing will allow Intel to essentially catch up to AMD and soften the blow of losing sales to customers who see a performance advantage in Barcelona, Wang said.
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Watch your portfolio: Company expects a sharp loss as flash memory prices fall.
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AMD is pushing back the release of two Phenom processors just as it speeds up the release of what it's calling an energy-efficient quad-core chip.In November, AMD announced that its upcoming Phenom 9700 and 9900 processors would ship in the first quarter of this year. John Taylor, a spokesman for AMD, told Computerworld Friday that they're being pushed back to a second-quarter delivery.At the same time, Taylor said that the company is picking up the pace in delivering its 9100E processor. The 9100E, which reportedly uses a third less power than regular Phenom chips, had been slated on in-house road maps to ship in either Q2 or Q3, but is now on the docket to be released this quarter, he said.Not so long ago, AMD discovered an errata in the Transition Lookaside Buffer that delayed shipments of some of the highly anticipated Barcelona chips. The errata -- a bug -- also affects Phenom processors, which are based on the same architecture.With the delayed Barcelona chips weighing down AMD, which had its fair share of financial struggles last year, there was quick online chatter about what this new delay will mean for the company. Taylor was adamant, though, in saying that the delay is part of a rearranging of priorities rather than a major problem with the chips."No, no. It's much more a matter of prioritization and resources than any problems with the processors themselves," he added. "Our focus is on the energy-efficient products and triple-core products."Taylor said AMD's plan to ship a triple-core processor in the first quarter is still on track. "[Resellers] want triple-core as fast as they can because it gives them differentiation and it hits a sweet spot in the market," he added.That means AMD should be releasing the energy-efficient 9100E processor during this quarter, along with the triple-core and long-expected Barcelona chips."Yes, we're seeing [negative online buzz about delayed products], but our focus is on making sure we get products right when we introduce them and making sure the end-users get a good experience," said Taylor. "We are having to make tough choices about prioritizing. Just watch us over the next few months when we get triple-core on the market and this energy-efficient processor in the market."Earlier this week, AMD announced at the International Consumer Electronics Show that its new laptop processor, code-named Puma, will ship in the second quarter of this year. Trying to generate some positive buzz after months of taking it on the chin while rival Intel hit its stride, AMD said its new notebook system will optimize battery life while bearing up to hefty graphics demands.
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Thursday reported a $44 million third-quarter profit from a loss a year earlier, and predicted
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Microsoft&#39;s decision to push back a 64-bit Windows will not hurt chip sales, company says. Advanced Micro Devices is disappointed by Microsoft&#39;s decision to delay the introduction of 64-bit versions of its
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Annual global semiconductor sales growth will probably fall by half in 2005 and memory chip sales could collapse as a supply glut saps prices, world-leading memory chip maker Samsung Electronics said on Monday.
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) expects to report slightly lower-than-expected sales for its third quarter when it announces earnings results on Thursday, the company said in a release Monday.
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By JORDAN ROBERTSON  SAN FRANCISCO - Advanced Micro Devices Inc. warned Monday that it was unlikely to meet its first-quarter revenue guidance of $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion, the latest in a series of disappointments for investors in the struggling chip-maker.
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Inventories at makers of dynamic random   access memory (DRAM) chips dropped to their lowest level in 20   months due to growing sales of personal computers in the   so-called back-to-school season, iSuppli Corp. said.
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc.  , the No. 2 microprocessor maker, warned on Monday that  it will likely miss its quarterly revenue target as it loses  market share among computer resellers, a traditional bulwark of  its business.
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A negative financial update from  Advanced Micro Devices Inc. late on Monday raised a potentially  ominous sign for semiconductor stocks ahead of Tuesday's  bellwether earnings report from Intel Corp.
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Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices  Inc. AMD.N on Tuesday reported a quarterly loss from a  year-earlier profit following a reduced forecast it gave last  week.
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Analysis: Low flash memory prices could mean lower cost solid-state devices and bigger storage in gadgets.