Earnings Results: AMD stock rises after earnings show data-center sales more than doubling

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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. shares rose in the extended session Tuesday after the chip maker said data-center revenue more than doubled to fuel record quarterly sales, and increased its revenue forecast for the year.

“In the first quarter, data-center product revenue more than doubled year-over-year and represented a high teens percentage of our overall revenue,” said AMD
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Chief Executive Lisa Su on a call with analysts. “We expect data-center product revenue to grow significantly as we go through the year driven by our strong pipeline of new cloud, enterprise and [high-performance computing] wins.”

Sales from enterprise embedded and semi-custom chips — the unit that includes data-center and gaming-console revenue — nearly quadrupled to $1.35 billion, compared with $348 million a year ago. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected $1.3 billion. Su’s comments about data-center revenue were helpful as AMD does not break out data-center sales from gaming sales.

“I think we saw actually strong signals in the first quarter that it would be a strong data-center year for us,” Su told analysts.

Last week, Intel Corp.
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-1.34%

said the data-center market was in a “digestion phase,” contributing to a 20% drop in sales for data centers, yet analysts pointed to increased competition from AMD and ARM Holdings PLC.

AMD reported first-quarter net income of $555 million, or 45 cents a share, compared with $162 million, or 14 cents a share, in the year-ago period. After adjusting for stock-based compensation and other factors, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company reported earnings of 52 cents a share, compared with 18 cents a share in the year-ago period. Revenue rose to $3.45 billion from $1.79 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast adjusted earnings of 44 cents a share on revenue of $3.18 billion, and AMD projected between $3.1 billion and $3.3 billion.

AMD reported first-quarter sales of $2.1 billion for computing and graphics chips, up 46% from $1.44 billion last year, compared with analyst expectations of $1.89 billion.

Executives also increased AMD’s guidance for the full year, to a sales increase of about 50% from previous guidance of a roughly 37% increase. AMD reported revenue of $9.67 billion last year, suggesting sales of about $14.65 billion this year; analysts had been forecasting revenue of $13.46 billion, according to FactSet.

AMD expects second-quarter revenue of $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion, while analysts had been projecting $3.23 billion, according to FactSet.

Shares gained more than 3% in after-hours trading, following a 0.2% decline in the regular session to close at $85.21.

AMD’s strong earnings come amid a continuing shortage of microchips to sate demand from global industries, and the companies that make the silicon wafers that chip designs use, work to clear waiting lists that span several months.

Read: The semiconductor shortage is here to stay, but it will affect chip companies differently

More of how the chip sector is dealing with supply shortages will be revealed this week, with Qualcomm Inc.
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earnings on Wednesday and KLA Corp.
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earnings on Thursday.

Over the past 12 months, AMD shares have gained 51%. In comparison, the PHLX Semiconductor Index
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-0.76%

has gained 87%, the S&P 500 index
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has risen 54%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index
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-0.34%

is up 61%.