AMD Profits Continue To Sink In First Quarter

Chip manufacturer and ATI owner AMD has announced continued losses for the first quarter of the financial year, with revenues down 21 percent on the previous year to $1.78 billion. Net losses stood at $416 million, with operating losses of $308 million, compared to a net loss of $351 million and an operating loss of $234 million at the same time last year. The company’s gross margins rose by 5 percent to 43 percent, thanks to a $64 million boost from the sale of inventory written down in the previous quarter. Citing the current global economic climate and the historically slow summer sales period, the company said it is expecting revenues to also be down in the second quarter of 2009. “AMD’s sequential microprocessor unit and revenue growth in difficult economic conditions demonstrate we can grow in an environment where customers are looking for maximum value,” said president and CEO Dirk Meyer. “We delivered on a number of important priorities in the first quarter. We launched Globalfoundries, maintained our cadence of new product and platform introductions, and made solid progress on our restructuring activities,” he added. “The result is a more nimble AMD, capable of achieving long-term success based on our strengths designing and integrating industry-leading computing and graphics technologies.”