Today AMD released their Q1 FY 2015 financial results, and the company reported revenue of $1.03 billion for the quarter. This is a 16.9% decrease as compared to Q4 2014, and a 26.4% decrease from the $1.40 billion recorded in Q1 2014. Operating income based on GAAP numbers was an operating loss of $137 million, which is a substantial decrease in loss as compared to Q4 2014, where they had an operating loss of $330 million, however in Q1 2014 they had a small operating income of $49 million, so although they have improved quarter-over-quarter, that is a significant reduction year-over-year. Net loss for the quarter was $180 million, or $0.23 per share, which once again is better than Q4 2014 where there was a $364 million ($0.47/share) loss, but much worse than the $20 million ($0.03/share) loss in Q1 2014.

AMD Q1 2015 Financial Results (GAAP)
  Q1'2015 Q4'2014 Q1'2014
Revenue $1.03B $1.24B $1.40B
Gross Margin 32% 29% 35%
Operating Income -$137M -$330M $49M
Net Income -$180M -$364M -$20M
Earnings Per Share -$0.23 -$0.47 -$0.03M

Part of these losses are due to the ongoing restructuring at AMD, which has contributed heavily to these numbers. One of the new restructuring fees is due to the exit from the Seamicro branded dense server business, which has cost them an additional $75 million this quarter, including $7 million in cash. Due to these hits, AMD also provides Non-GAAP results which exclude these numbers. On a Non-GAAP basis, AMD’s operating loss is just $30 million, however that is still down significantly from the $89 million operating income in Q1 2014, and the $52 million operating income from last quarter. Net loss on a Non-GAAP basis is $73 million, or $0.09 per share. This is a decline from Q4 2014 where there was a net income of $18 million ($0.02/share) and Q1 2014 where they were able to achieve a net income of $35 million ($0.05/share).

AMD Q1 2015 Financial Results (Non-GAAP)
  Q1'2015 Q4'2014 Q1'2014
Revenue $1.03B $1.24B $1.40B
Gross Margin 32% 34% 35%
Operating Income -$30M $52M $89M
Net Income -$73M $18M $35M
Earnings Per Share -$0.09 $0.02 $0.05M

AMD has also entered into a fifth amendment of their agreement with GlobalFoundries, and AMD is expecting to purchase about $1 billion in wafers in 2015.

Breaking down their product segments, the Computing and Graphics segment had a 20% decline in revenue quarter-over-quarter, and a 38% decrease year-over-year, with Q1 having net revenues of $532 million. The quarterly decrease was due to lower desktop and notebook processor sales, whereas the yearly decrease was due to lower desktop processor sales and GPU channel sales. The division had an operating loss of $75 million for the quarter, which is a significant change from the $56 million loss last quarter and the $3 million income in Q1 2014. The loss was partially offset by lower operating expenses, but clearly more work is needed. AMD is hoping for better success with their new APU, Carrizo, which they are expecting to deliver double digit performance increases and much better energy efficiency compared to Kaveri, which is the current APU.

AMD Q1 2015 Computing and Graphics
  Q1'2015 Q4'2014 Q1'2014
Revenue $532M $662M $861M
Operating Income -$75M -$56M $3M

The Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment had a year-over-year revenue decrease of 7%, and a quarter-over-quarter decrease of 14%, with Q1 2015 coming in at $498 million. The quarterly drop is due to a seasonal decrease in semi-custom SoC sales (read: Consoles had a ramp up for the holidays and are now back to lower sales) and the yearly decrease is due to lower numbers of server processors being sold. However this segment did have an operating income to report of $45 million for the quarter, but this is down from the $109 million in Q4 2014 and $85 million in Q1 2014.

AMD Q1 2015 Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom
  Q1'2015 Q4'2014 Q1'2014
Revenue $498M $577M $536M
Operating Income $45M $109M $85M

The “All Other” segment had an operating loss of $107 million. As compared to Q1 2014, this is $68 million more operating loss, which is primarily due to the $75 million hit for exiting the dense server business. In Q4 2014 this segment had a $383 million loss.

For Q2, AMD is forecasting revenue being down an additional 3%, plus or minus 3%, and non-GAAP Gross Margin to remain flat at 32%.

AMD is certainly not in a great position right now, and the new CEO Dr. Lisa Su has some work to do in order to get AMD back to a financially viable state. Part of that is diversifying revenues, especially with the PC market slowing again. AMD has not had a significant product launch in a few quarters, which has not helped either.

Source: AMD Investor Relations

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  • Achaios - Friday, April 17, 2015 - link

    AMD appears to be headed the way of 3dfx.
  • jabber - Friday, April 17, 2015 - link

    The biggest issue for AMD at the consumer level?

    You walk into say Bestbuy to buy a new laptop.

    You see 30 laptops for sale.

    28 of them are Intel and give you the full range of price and specification.

    2 of them are AMD, one is bargain basement E1 trash. The other is some Ax spec chip with a low res screen, a 5400rpm HDD and costing $800.

    That's it.
  • mapesdhs - Friday, April 17, 2015 - link


    At PC World here they have a somewhat broader selection available, but I don't think
    it's the hw that's the issue. Rather, it's the sales staff who haven't a clue what they're
    on about. I overhead one lady say, in answer to a customer's question, "Yes, it has the
    latest Windows 8 processor."

    *sigh*

    Ian.
  • FlushedBubblyJock - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link

    Yes, only when it comes to AMD, the free market suddenly doesn't work....

    AMD gets screwed by stupid salespeople, the latest free market disaster for amd...

    Yep. It's amazing, I guess Saturn aligned with lake Horus, so amd is going down, even the stars conspire against them.
  • Crunchy005 - Friday, April 17, 2015 - link

    Ya very true although looking at desktops I have seen AMD A10 APUs with performance similar to i3's with better iGPUs running for $200 less and sometimes with more RAM on top of that. To bad the desktop market itsn't great anymore and Salesmen know nothing of what they are talking about. All they are told to do is sell the more expensive laptops, even if the AMDs might be a better deal for a facebook machine...most people out there. Any heavy usage user should probably go with intel right now but the AMD APUs work just fine for the everyday user.
  • meacupla - Saturday, April 18, 2015 - link

    The thing is, at those kinds of rock bottom prices, Intel Atom and Core M can do the same job as AMD Ax chips, but remain smaller, lighter, thinner and more energy efficient.

    It's not that AMD didn't have decent E and A series mobile chips, it's just that they haven't really bothered to improve them sufficiently in 5+ years. And then Intel caught up.
  • FlushedBubblyJock - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link

    It's microsoft's fault, they need to optimize their OS for amd cores....

    (no wait, it's the stupid public, clueless fools with too much money)

    On second thought it's intels devil like business malpractices

    No the 4th thing going against amd unfairly is vendors

    I just realized if people wanted to save money amd wouldn't have problems

    Some tech companies have headhunted AMD's best people, and that's illegal or should be

    Why won't TSMC do amd any favors, could anyone compete under those conditions ?

    ... wait it's coming to me ...
  • Impulses - Saturday, April 18, 2015 - link

    I think AMD had to pick, at some point over the last decade, whether to focus on mobile or performance... Instead they ended up being mediocre at both and the APU play didn't pan out. Being slower and less efficient at most price points and in most form factors just doesn't work.
  • wintermute000 - Saturday, April 18, 2015 - link

    This.
  • Mark_gb - Friday, April 17, 2015 - link

    It often takes time to complete a turn around when it comes to companies that are loosing money. AMD is no stranger to that. But I think with an engineer back in charge of the company, that AMD has a real shot at becoming profitable, and remaining profitable for a very long time. Lisa Su clearly understands where AMD is, was, and is going. I think AMD is going to surprise a whole bunch of us in a good way within the next year.

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