AMD Q1 Results Top Street; Outlook Strong; Shares Up 9%

(RTTNews) - Shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) jumped 9 percent on Wednesday after the company reported a profit and revenues for the first quarter that trumped Wall Street estimates, driven largely by strong demand for its graphic chips. Moving ahead, the company issued a strong revenue outlook for the current quarter.

Sunnyvale, California-based AMD reported first-quarter profit of $81 million or $0.08 per share, compared to last year's loss of $33 million or $0.04 per share.

Excluding items, adjusted profit for the quarter was $121 million or $0.11 per share compared to a profit of $2 million or breakeven per share a year ago. Twenty-three analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated an earnings of $0.09 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

AMD's revenues for the fourth-quarter surged 40 percent to $1.65 billion from $1.18 billion a year ago. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $1.57 billion for the quarter.

AMD said revenue growth was driven largely by higher revenue in the Computing and Graphics segment.

Gross margin was 36 percent, up 4 percentage points year-over-year.

"The first quarter was an outstanding start to 2018 with 40 percent year-over-year revenue growth," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. "PC, gaming and datacenter adoption of our new, high-performance products continues to accelerate. We are excited about our long-term roadmaps and focused on delivering sustained revenue growth and profitability."

Computing and Graphics segment revenue was $1.12 billion, up 95 percent year-over-year driven by strong sales of Radeon and Ryzen product. Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom (EESC) segment revenue was $532 million, down 12 percent year-over-year due to lower semi-custom revenue.

Looking forward to the second quarter, the company expects revenues to be about $1.725 billion, plus or minus $50 million. Analysts currently expect revenues of $1.57 billion.

AMD closed Wednesday's trading at $9.71, down $0.38 or 3.77%, on the NYSE. The stock, however, gained $0.85 or 8.75% in the after-hours trade.