By LI Biao
US semiconductor multinational AMD reported US$5.8 billion (42 billion yuan) in revenue Q3, up 4 percent YoY and a return to growth after two-quarters of decline.
Net profit nearly tripled to US$300 million in Q3. Last year, due to weak IT demand, PC business tanked by 40 percent in Q3, leading to an almost complete disappearance of net profit.
The popularity of AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series CPUs for PCs resulted in the PC business division reporting US$1.4 billion in revenue for Q3.
After the contraction of the consumer electronics market last year, the data center business became the most significant revenue contributor with the highest profit margin for AMD, as well as for companies like Nvidia.
AMD management has high hopes for the data center business to drive long-term growth, with AI chips being the key. Instinct MI300A and MI300X series GPUs could break Nvidia’s monopoly on high-performance AI computing.
Massive cloud computing companies including Amazon, Google and Microsoft have committed to the MI300 which could soon reach US$1 billion in sales. Q4 GPU revenue in the data center is expected to be around US$400 million, increasing to US$2 billion in 2024.
Oracle is reportedly planning to purchase AI chips from both Nvidia and AMD to maintain a balanced infrastructure.
For Q4, AMD has conservative expectations, setting a revenue target beyond US$5.8 billion with double-digit growth expectations for data center and PC businesses.
