2017 has been a great year for the tech enthusiast, with the return of meaningful competition in the PC space. Today, AMD announced their third quarter earnings, which beat expectations, and put the company’s ledgers back in the black in their GAAP earnings. For the quarter, AMD had revenues of $1.64 billion, compared to $1.31 billion a year ago, which is a gain of just over 25%. Operating income was $126 million, compared to a $293 million loss a year ago, and net income was $71 million, compared to a net loss of $406 million a year ago. This resulted in earnings per share of $0.07, compared to a loss per share of $0.50 in Q3 2016.

AMD Q3 2017 Financial Results (GAAP)
  Q3'2017 Q2'2017 Q3'2016
Revenue $1643M $1220M $1307M
Gross Margin 35% 33% 5%
Operating Income +$126M +$25M -$293M
Net Income +$71M -$16M -$406M
Earnings Per Share +$0.07 -$0.02 -$0.50

AMD also provides Non-GAAP results, which can give a look at the underlying business. It’s especially important this quarter, because a year ago, AMD took a charge of $340 million for an amendment to their wafer supply agreement with GlobalFoundries. This impacted their GAAP results severely, but as a one-time charge, it can skew how the numbers look. AMD’s Non-GAAP results exclude charges for the wafer agreement, loss on debt redemption, stock based compensation, and several other factors. On a Non-GAAP basis, AMD had the same revenue of $1.64 billion, up 25%. Operating income up 121% to $155 million, and net income was up 307% to $110 million. Earnings per share came in at $0.10, up 233% from $0.03 a year ago.

AMD Q3 2017 Financial Results (Non-GAAP)
  Q3'2017 Q2'2017 Q3'2016
Revenue $1643M $1222M $1307M
Gross Margin 33% 33% 31%
Operating Income +$155M +$49M +$70M
Net Income +$110M +$19M +$27M
Earnings Per Share +$0.10 +$0.02 +$0.03

The good news for AMD is that even on a GAAP basis, they were profitable. They’ve made some tough decisions to get here, and on a GAAP basis for this quarter, they have a gross margin of 35%, which is right where they need to be.

The Computing and Graphics segment has been a key to these numbers, with some impressive launches this year, especially on the CPU side. Revenue for this segment was up 74% to $819 million, and AMD attributes this to strong sales of both Radeon GPUs and Ryzen desktop processors. Average Selling Price (ASP) was also up significantly thanks to Ryzen sales. AMD is still undercutting Intel on price, but they don’t have to almost give things away like they did the last couple of years. ASP of GPUs was also up significantly, and the proliferation of cryptocurrency likely played a large part in that. Operating income for the segment was an impressive $70 million, compared to an operating loss of $66 million last year.

AMD Q3 2017 Computing and Graphics
  Q3'2017 Q2'2017 Q3'2016
Revenue $819M $659M $472M
Operating Income +$70M +$7M -$66M

The Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom segment has been strong for AMD in the past, often providing the majority of the operating income for the company thanks to AMD’s success in the console market. This quarter has tended to be especially strong for the company as the console makers prepare for the holiday sales. This quarter, we’ve also got the lead-up to the Xbox One X, however revenue for this group is actually down year-over-year, about 1.3%, to $824 million. AMD attributes that to lower semi-custom SoC sales, which were mostly offset by IP related and EPYC processor revenues. We’ll have to wait and see how the console market plays out here, but it seems like it could finally be slowing down after several years of solid sales. Operating income for this segment also took a hit, down 38% to $84 million. They’ve also noted that gross margins overall were impacted by costs associated with the wafer agreements for “certain wafers purchased at another foundry” which likely means the TSMC wafers used for consoles.

AMD Q3 2017 Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom
  Q3'2017 Q2'2017 Q3'2016
Revenue $824M $563M $835M
Operating Income $84M $42M $136M

The All Other category had a operating loss of $28 million, compared to an operating loss of $363 million a year ago, which was mostly the wafer agreement charges.

It’s great to see AMD back, offering quality products at good prices. The hard work has clearly paid off, at least for the short term, and their earnings have borne this out. Looking ahead to next quarter, AMD is expecting a revenue decrease from this quarter of about 15%, plus or minus 3%, which would be about a 26% increase from Q4 2016.

Source: AMD Investor Relations

Comments Locked

68 Comments

View All Comments

  • Gothmoth - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link

    you won the moron of the week award 56 weeks in a row now kneejerk.... time to try something else.
  • Communism - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link

    10 more cents, and it appears, desperate enough to use a different account now.
  • boozed - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link

    I think there's something wrong with you
  • AndrewJacksonZA - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link

    With the current USD-ZAR exchange rate, can I also get USD0.10 a post? :-)
  • Manch - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link

    Name is Communism....calls people shills.....

    bwaaahahahahahahhahaaaa!
  • Spunjji - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link

    You need to look up the definition of "rhetorical question", because some of us here genuinely want to know why you think processing (both GPU and CPU) is somehow in decline or due to be soon.
  • mkaibear - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link

    Firstly, shill isn't a name, so it doesn't need to be capitalised. If you're going to troll it might be a good idea to learn the grammatical rules of the language you're trolling in, otherwise it's like shooting the proverbial fish in the proverbial barrel.

    Secondly, a rhetorical question is one which you ask without expecting an answer. While that might technically be correct, as you are a troll who is only interested in being abusive, I was hoping for an answer. Why do you think that the CPU and GPU markets are legacy and declining industries? You're very quick to label Anandtech as "hype train pump and dumps" but strangely slow to actually justify that view.

    Thirdly, I'm in the UK and 10 cents is largely worthless to me, it'll be eaten up by commission charges. Can I have 10 good old British pennies instead please?
  • jabber - Tuesday, October 31, 2017 - link

    Hey wait till Brexit really kicks in and those 10 cents could be worth the bother.
  • III-V - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link

    You need to see a shrink.
  • Arbie - Wednesday, October 25, 2017 - link

    @Communism: Save your abusive trolling for wccftech. We don't need it here.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now