AMD hits highest income in seven years

AMD has released the results of its second quarter for the 2018 financial year, and things are certainly looking up for the company with a 53 percent boost to revenue year-on-year.

Prior to the launch of its Zen microarchitecture, which abandoned the developments of Bulldozer in favour of something closer to the classic Athlons of years past, AMD was in financial peril and running out of runway. Since Zen hit the market, though, the company's fortunes have been turning, and nowhere is that more apparent than the company's latest financial report: AMD finished the second quarter with £1.33 billion in revenue, up 53 percent compared to the same period last year. Coupled with a boost to profit margins from 34 percent to 37 percent - though still well below rival Intel's healthy margins - the company closed the quarter on a £118.28 million profit, up from an unsustainable £5.31 million loss the year prior.

'We had an outstanding second quarter with strong revenue growth, margin expansion and our highest quarterly net income in seven years,' crowed Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and chief executive officer, during the company's earnings call. 'Most importantly, we believe our long-term technology bets position us very well for the future. We are confident that with the continued execution of our product roadmaps, we are on an excellent trajectory to drive market share gains and profitable growth.'

The bulk of the company's growth came, unsurprisingly, from its Computing and Graphics division, which saw a 64 percent year-on-year growth despite a three percent quarter-on-quarter dip blamed on the decline of the cryptocurrency mining market and its subsequent effect on average selling prices for graphics products. The Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom division, which includes the products built for games consoles, saw a 37 percent year-on-year and 26 percent quarter-on-quarter growth.

With its next financial quarter being compared to a healthier one last year, though, AMD is warning that double-figure growth is not to be expected: The company is projecting a seven percent year-on-year growth in revenue, driven primarily by a projected growth in sales of mainstream Ryzen and data centre Epyc product families.

AMD's share price jumped 5.95 percent in pre-market trading on the release, after a 0.86 percent decline ahead of the report.