AMD's Q2'14 Earnings:Higher Professional Graphics Share, Increasing Semi-Custom Revenue & New APU Li

[Rusty0611]

Lo and behold.

AMD are too far behind to make a comeback in CPUs. Maybe the shake-up with new material to replace silicon will allow them a window to get back in, but that is years away.

Nothing brings more pleasure to the masses than a Rusty error. Watch him blame it on the phone now.

lol predictive text strikes again. I blame the iPhone . My spelling / grammar is world renown for being magical.

Yeah I certainly am not as optimistic as humbug is about AMD (but who is?!) but it would be nice to see some real competition in this industry because I think nearly everyone is fed up of Intel stagnating. I'm not in the know enough to deduce what would be possible in a more aggressive market with two strong competitors but I don't see my 3770k becoming redundant for a while. Not that upgrading a CPU that often is particularly desirable but progression is good .

 

[Luke_Bowman]

Come on AMD. We need competition in the CPU market

 

[Luke_Bowman]

Would love to upgrade my 3570K to an AMD chip in a few years, should it perform as AMD hopes

 

[layte]

That's a few times I have seen Humbug give credit to AMD for things they most certainly did not invent.

Let's talk integrated memory controllers. The DEC Alpha was sporting these back in the 1990's. Just one of many things this range of chips inspired in AMD.

Interestingly, DEC were bought by Compaq, who were bought by HP, who did a big CPU IP deal with Intel......

 

[humbug]

You guys are reading to much into it I didn't say AMD would beat Intel I said they would be competitive.

AMD's current Steamroller APU, has a 15% IPC advantage and a 30% efficiency advantage over their current Piledriver FX CPU line (all things being equal), that is still some way from Intel.

But, AMD's low power 28nm SoC are at least as fast as Intel's 22mn silvermount.
For some strange reason Anand did not test battery life or power consumption despite have both the Intel and AMD Tablets there. nor did they say what TDP Intel's chip actually is.
What is obvious in that this new 4.5 Watt chip is ~3 Times as power efficient and its 15 Watt predecessor. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7974/...itecture-a10-micro-6700t-performance-preview/

For the moment AMDs R&D is going into lower power chips, by the looks of it is is paying off, drastically reducing the power consumption from one generation to the next.

As CAT said Mainstream CPU's are somewhat in decline, low power mobile chips is where its at now with both Intel and AMD ploughing financed into its development. in that space AMD are competitive.

AMD have not even bothered to take the significant improvements they have in the Steamroller architecture to the FX line.

Yet after having conversation with AMD staff I get the impression they ain't done with Big core CPU's yet, their R&D is focused on growth markets, but they are just as passionate about PC's as we all are, it will "trickle up" eventually once they are at where they want to be in the low power end, they are just about there now, 2016 is when I think we will see big core CPU's that take the improvements from the low power chips. I think they are being developed from the ground up as we speak. With Jim Keller at the helm.

 

[_Alatar_]

Seems like their computing solutions group (APUs and CPUs) is still mostly in free fall. They introduced a full range of beema, mullins and kaveri parts for mobile (and some for desktop) but they only matched revenue from last quarter. And YoY the APU/CPU segment is down 20%.

The things keeping the company alive are GPUs and consoles.

The computing solutions group of AMD is going to be even more screwed once intel will be 14nm top to bottom and the big arm players will be on 20nm.

Also mobile isn't the only thing growing. Intel's PC group (laptops and desktops) saw gains according to their financial statement. They also had higher HEDT sales because their ASP was higher than before. The problem isn't that no one is buying high end hardware. The problem is that no one is buying high end AMD hardware. Mostly because it barely exists.

And let's not even talk about servers where AMD's marketshare has been completely erased.

 

[humbug]

Seems like their computing solutions group (APUs and CPUs) is still mostly in free fall. They introduced a full range of beema, mullins and kaveri parts for mobile (and some for desktop) but they only matched revenue from last quarter. And YoY the APU/CPU segment is down 20%.

The things keeping the company alive are GPUs and consoles.

The computing solutions group of AMD is going to be even more screwed once intel will be 14nm top to bottom and the big arm players will be on 20nm.

Also mobile isn't the only thing growing. Intel's PC group (laptops and desktops) saw gains according to their financial statement. They also had higher HEDT sales because their ASP was higher than before. The problem isn't that no one is buying high end hardware. The problem is that no one is buying high end AMD hardware. Mostly because it barely exists.

And let's not even talk about servers where AMD's marketshare has been completely erased.

Some context needs to be added to this, what your saying is largely true but written in a way that is completely out of context giving the wrong impression.

AMD's Computing solutions are down 20% year over year in other words it is down 20% on this time last year, all 3, Intel, Nvidia and AMD are down significantly on last years computing solutions due to shrinking markets. something you failed to mention

AMD are 1% up on the last quarter, another thing you failed to mention.

Yet Another thing you completely ignored is the fact that AMD's GPU section is up 5% on the last quarter and up 141% on last year.

AMDs revenue is up $400m (40%) a quarter on last year despite having 20% smaller computing solutions.

 

[_Alatar_]

AMD's Computing solutions are down 20% year over year in other words it is down 20% on this time last year, all 3, Intel, Nvidia and AMD are down significantly on last years computing solutions due to shrinking markets. something you failed to mention

Intel's PC group (same as AMD computing solutions) is up 9% YoY. And also up 6% since last quarter. Their data center group is even more aggressively up 19% YoY.

Nvidia does not have a similar section because they do not sell laptop/desktop/server CPUs/APUs. However last quarter (they haven't released this quarter stats yet) their GeForce business was up 50% YoY.

AMD are 1% up on the last quarter, another thing you failed to mention.

Actually I didn't I said that even though they released a full range of mobile kaveri, beema and mullins hardware (as well as some desktop) stuff they only managed to match last quarter's revenue. After you introduce new products your revenue is supposed to go up, not remain stagnant. This means that despite introducing new products AMD could not move more units than they did back when they had no new products. And that's bad.

Another thing you completely ignored is the fact that AMD's GPU section is up 5% on the last quarter and up 141% on last year.

As I said the GPU and console sales are the only thing keeping the company afloat.

Also the reason you have a 141% revenue growth in the GPU group is because AMD includes console SoCs in that group. Their GPU group revenue saw a massive revenue increase not necessarily due to selling more GPUs, but because they introduced a new product category (console SoCs) to that group.

AMD revenue is $400m (40%) up on last year.

Due to consoles, which as I said, is keeping the company alive.

 

[humbug]

Intel's PC group (same as AMD computing solutions) is up 9% YoY. And also up 6% since last quarter. Their data center group is even more aggressively up 19% YoY.

Nvidia does not have a similar section because they do not sell laptop/desktop/server CPUs/APUs. However last quarter (they haven't released this quarter stats yet) their GeForce business was up 50% YoY.



Actually I didn't I said that even though they released a full range of mobile kaveri, beema and mullins hardware (as well as some desktop) stuff they only managed to match last quarter's revenue. After you introduce new products your revenue is supposed to go up, not remain stagnant. This means that despite introducing new products AMD could not move more units than they did back when they had no new products. And that's bad.



As I said the GPU and console sales are the only thing keeping the company afloat.

Also the reason you have a 141% revenue growth in the GPU group is because AMD includes console SoCs in that group. Their GPU group revenue saw a massive revenue increase not necessarily due to selling more GPUs, but because they introduced a new product category (console SoCs) to that group.



Due to consoles, which as I said, is keeping the company alive.

I'd like to know where you get your figures from. put some references up.

here are mine.. http://seekingalpha.com/pr/10506155-amd-reports-2014-second-quarter-results

•Computing Solutions segment revenue increased 1 percent sequentially and decreased 20 percent year-over-year. The year-over-year decline was due to decreased microprocessor unit shipments.

•Operating income was $9 million, an improvement from an operating loss of $3 million in Q1 2014 and operating income of $2 million in Q2 2013. The sequential increase was primarily driven by improved gross margin due to a richer mix of notebook products while the year-over-year increase was primarily driven by lower operating expenses.

•Microprocessor average selling price (ASP) increased sequentially and year-over-year.

Completely the opposite of what your saying, AMDs revenue increased from OEM products.

•Graphics and Visual Solutions segment revenue increased 5 percent sequentially and 141 percent year-over-year driven largely by increased semi-custom SoC shipments. Graphics processor unit (GPU) revenue decreased sequentially and year-over-year, primarily due to a decrease in AIB channel sales, partially offset by increased sales of professional graphics and desktop OEM GPUs.

Again the opposite to what you said, AMDs AIB GPU sales decreased, but off set by an increase in Professional GPUs and OEM GPU's, resulting in an overall increase.

 

[~Mike~]

Good to see but AMD need to have a top end CPU.

 

[_Alatar_]

I'd like to know where you get your figures from. put some references up.

here are mine.. http://seekingalpha.com/pr/10506155-amd-reports-2014-second-quarter-results

Intel:

http://anandtech.com/show/8257/intel-q2-2014-quarterly-earnings-analysis

The stagnant PC sector is finally showing some signs of life again after declining over the last several years. Intel’s PC Client Group reported revenue of $8.7 billion, up 9% over last quarter and 6% year-over-year. Unit volumes of PC Client chips were up 12% over last quarter, and 9% from last year. The average selling prices (ASP) were down 3% from Q1 2014 and 4% from Q2 2013. Most of this can be attributed to a 7% drop in ASP for the notebook platform, where as desktop chips actually slightly increased ASP over Q2 2013.

Data Center revenue was up an even more impressive 19% over Q2 2013, and 14% over last quarter.

And as far as Nvidia goes:

The company witnessed a 50% growth in its GeForce, GTX and GPU sales as the business benefited from the launch of several graphically intensive games including Call of Duty: Ghosts, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Batman Arkham Origins.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/219...-tesla-and-tegra-processors-will-drive-growth

And as I said It's from May since it was the Q1 report. NV doesn't have a Q2 report yet. Not that it matters, Nvidia doesn't have a laptop/dekstop CPU/APU group.

Completely the opposite of what your saying, AMDs revenue increased from OEM products.

I said that despite releasing new product lines the revenue of their computing solutions group stayed the same. And yes I consider 1% growth being essentially the same.

So either you're stuck on the insignificant difference between 1% and 0% or you can't read what I'm saying.

ASP and small profit changes have absolutely nothing to do with what I said. I said that the computing solutions group was down 20% YoY and stayed the same since last quarter even though it should have been higher due to the newly released product lines. This is about revenue.

Again the opposite to what you said, AMDs AIB GPU sales decreased, but off set by an increase in Professional GPUs and OEM GPU's, resulting in an overall increase.

How is this in any way "completely opposite" to what I said?

Yes the GPU and console business is keeping AMD afloat at the moment. GPU sales are GPU sales whether they're professional or enthusiast ones...

And if you're stuck on console SoCs being included in the GPU group of AMD, thus greatly increasing its revenue just read this:

Graphics and Visual Solutions segment revenue increased 29 percent sequentially and 165 percent year-over-year primarily driven by our semi-custom SoCs.

http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1892414&highlight

Semi custom SoCs = Console SoCs.

 

[layte]

Oh my.

Did I really just see Humbug moaning about somebody putting spin on something to give the wrong impression.

I don't think the internet has a big enough pot/kettle jpg to cover that.

 

[humbug]

Intel:

http://anandtech.com/show/8257/intel-q2-2014-quarterly-earnings-analysis



And as far as Nvidia goes:



http://seekingalpha.com/article/219...-tesla-and-tegra-processors-will-drive-growth

And as I said It's from May since it was the Q1 report. NV doesn't have a Q2 report yet. Not that it matters, Nvidia doesn't have a laptop/dekstop CPU/APU group.



I said that despite releasing new product lines the revenue of their computing solutions group stayed the same. And yes I consider 1% growth being essentially the same.

So either you're stuck on the insignificant difference between 1% and 0% or you can't read what I'm saying.

ASP and small profit changes have absolutely nothing to do with what I said. I said that the computing solutions group was down 20% YoY and stayed the same since last quarter even though it should have been higher due to the newly released product lines. This is about revenue.



How is this in any way "completely opposite" to what I said?

Yes the GPU and console business is keeping AMD afloat at the moment. GPU sales are GPU sales whether they're professional or enthusiast ones...

And if you're stuck on console SoCs being included in the GPU group of AMD, thus greatly increasing its revenue just read this:



http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1892414&highlight

Semi custom SoCs = Console SoCs.

You said AMDs revenue is flat from OEMs despite putting new OEMs into the market, arguing that, and I quote
"This means that despite introducing new products AMD could not move more units than they did back when they had no new products. And that's bad."

I asked for your AMD references and gave you references where It lays out clearly that AMDs revenue growth comes from OEM sales, such as Laptop and Desktops, as well as professional GPU's, IE the firepro GPU's, they infact did move those products. not just Consoles.

You made a blanket statement analysis based on something you obviously knew nothing about, you pulled some facts out of your rear end to help you make a political point, a point which was easily proven wrong.

To give you the benefit of the doubt I asked you for the references as to where you got your incorrect figures from.
Your response to be is to have an attempt at bamboozling me by repeating your Intel references that I never disputed and gave me a link to AMDs own fanatical submission from 2013?

Why not just admit that you made an assumption without knowing any facts.

 

[drunkenmaster]

If you think Nvidia while losing 40mil in revenue from the previous quarter, increased sales of gpu's by 50%... you're mental, it's that simple. I haven't seen that reported in Nvidia numbers anywhere, and linking to someone saying that without any figures to back it up is pretty much nonsense.

Graphics card for the consumer market is still the vast majority of their income/profits, and there isn't the slightest chance in hell that their sales increased 50% in that quarter, on existing cards, and revenue went down. It's not even slightly sensible to suggest it and ridiculous to quote it.

If you look at Nvidia's own results they fail to claim this truly astonishing claim anywhere within their results at all.... odd.


http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/News/NVIDIA-Financial-Results-for-First-Quarter-Fiscal-2015-b1c.aspx

42mil less revenue... but they had 50% more gpu sales.... sure. If their Geforce, GTX and gpu sales increased 50%, their revenue would have been up probably 30% and profits up by a fair amount.

 

[_Alatar_]

You said AMDs revenue is flat from OEMs despite putting new OEMs into the market, arguing that, and I quote
"This means that despite introducing new products AMD could not move more units than they did back when they had no new products. And that's bad."

I asked for your AMD references and gave you references where It lays out clearly that AMDs revenue growth comes from OEM sales, such as Laptop and Desktops, as well as professional GPU's, IE the firepro GPU's, they infact did move those products. not just Consoles.

You made a blanket statement analysis based on something you obviously knew nothing about, you pulled some facts out of your rear end to help you make a political point, a point which was easily proven wrong.

To give you the benefit of the doubt I asked you for the references as to where you got your incorrect figures from.
Your response to be is to have an attempt at bamboozling me by repeating your Intel references that I never disputed and gave me a link to AMDs own fanatical submission from 2013?

Why not just admit that you made an assumption without knowing any facts.

Care to point out where I said anything about OEMs? Do you even know what OEM means? How can AMD as you say "Put new OEMs on the market"? OEM stands for Original Equipment manufacturer. The guys that buy AMD parts and make PCs based on those. I said that AMD introduced new products and despite that their revenue was flat. And it was flat against really bad quarters as far as CPUs/APUs go.

Fact: Despite introducing new product families AMD only managed 1% higher revenue for computing solutions.

Fact: The computing solutions group is in free-fall and new product lines didn't manage to turn the revenue change around, they just stalled it for a quarter.

Fact: AMD's GPU division that includes GPUs and Console SoCs is what's bringing in the money to the company.

You're literally putting words in my mouth and arguing against that. The very definition of a strawman argument.

I'll repeat this one last time: AMD's computing division is in free-fall, new product families didn't result in meaningfully higher revenue even though they should, and the console and GPU sales are what's driving the company at the moment.

They're doing fine. The computing solutions group just isn't.

For someone who doesn't know what OEM means, that ASP, profit and revenue are different etc. you seem awfully eager to say that someone else doesn't know what they're talking about. Go ahead and prove that something I said was false. So far you haven't been able to. You've just provided completely irrelevant stuff.

 

[SiDeards73]

my cats name is mittens....

 

[_Alatar_]

If you think Nvidia while losing 40mil in revenue from the previous quarter, increased sales of gpu's by 50%... you're mental, it's that simple. I haven't seen that reported in Nvidia numbers anywhere, and linking to someone saying that without any figures to back it up is pretty much nonsense.

Graphics card for the consumer market is still the vast majority of their income/profits, and there isn't the slightest chance in hell that their sales increased 50% in that quarter, on existing cards, and revenue went down. It's not even slightly sensible to suggest it and ridiculous to quote it.

If you look at Nvidia's own results they fail to claim this truly astonishing claim anywhere within their results at all.... odd.


http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/News/NVIDIA-Financial-Results-for-First-Quarter-Fiscal-2015-b1c.aspx

42mil less revenue... but they had 50% more gpu sales.... sure. If their Geforce, GTX and gpu sales increased 50%, their revenue would have been up probably 30% and profits up by a fair amount.

I seem to have remembered the quarter wrong. It wasn't Q1 2014 (or FY2015) but Q4 FY2014 = Q4 2013.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581014000004/q414pr.htm

Among highlights of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, NVIDIA:
•
Grew GeForce® GTX™ GPU revenue nearly 50 percent over the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013.

 

[drunkenmaster]

my cats name is mittens....

When I move out of my flat into a bungalow(completely boned knees ), I'm getting a couple kittens, but I won't call them mittens. I'm going to call them Freesync and Mantle

 

[humbug]

If you think Nvidia while losing 40mil in revenue from the previous quarter, increased sales of gpu's by 50%... you're mental, it's that simple. I haven't seen that reported in Nvidia numbers anywhere, and linking to someone saying that without any figures to back it up is pretty much nonsense.

Graphics card for the consumer market is still the vast majority of their income/profits, and there isn't the slightest chance in hell that their sales increased 50% in that quarter, on existing cards, and revenue went down. It's not even slightly sensible to suggest it and ridiculous to quote it.

If you look at Nvidia's own results they fail to claim this truly astonishing claim anywhere within their results at all.... odd.


http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/News/NVIDIA-Financial-Results-for-First-Quarter-Fiscal-2015-b1c.aspx

42mil less revenue... but they had 50% more gpu sales.... sure. If their Geforce, GTX and gpu sales increased 50%, their revenue would have been up probably 30% and profits up by a fair amount.

An utterly insane statement for him to make, especially as it transpired he pulled that one out of his backside too.

You have to watch this one, he makes stuff up as he goes along.

Care to point out where I said anything about OEMs? Do you even know what OEM means? How can AMD as you say "Put new OEMs on the market"? OEM stands for Original Equipment manufacturer. The guys that buy AMD parts and make PCs based on those. I said that AMD introduced new products and despite that their revenue was flat. And it was flat against really bad quarters as far as CPUs/APUs go.

Fact: Despite introducing new product families AMD only managed 1% higher revenue for computing solutions.

Fact: The computing solutions group is in free-fall and new product lines didn't manage to turn the revenue change around, they just stalled it for a quarter.

Fact: AMD's GPU division that includes GPUs and Console SoCs is what's bringing in the money to the company.

You're literally putting words in my mouth and arguing against that. The very definition of a strawman argument.

I'll repeat this one last time: AMD's computing division is in free-fall, new product families didn't result in meaningfully higher revenue even though they should, and the console and GPU sales are what's driving the company at the moment.

They're doing fine. The computing solutions group just isn't.

For someone who doesn't know what OEM means, that ASP, profit and revenue are different etc. you seem awfully eager to say that someone else doesn't know what they're talking about. Go ahead and prove that something I said was false. So far you haven't been able to. You've just provided completely irrelevant stuff.

Your moving the goal posts. what you actually said was "This means that despite introducing new products AMD could not move more units than they did back when they had no new products. And that's bad."

They did... its right here, I know you didn't miss it.

•Computing Solutions segment revenue increased 1 percent sequentially and decreased 20 percent year-over-year. The year-over-year decline was due to decreased microprocessor unit shipments.

•Operating income was $9 million, an improvement from an operating loss of $3 million in Q1 2014 and operating income of $2 million in Q2 2013. The sequential increase was primarily driven by improved gross margin due to a richer mix of notebook products while the year-over-year increase was primarily driven by lower operating expenses.

•Microprocessor average selling price (ASP) increased sequentially and year-over-year.

Completely the opposite of what your saying, AMDs revenue increased from OEM products.

•Graphics and Visual Solutions segment revenue increased 5 percent sequentially and 141 percent year-over-year driven largely by increased semi-custom SoC shipments. Graphics processor unit (GPU) revenue decreased sequentially and year-over-year, primarily due to a decrease in AIB channel sales, partially offset by increased sales of professional graphics and desktop OEM GPUs.

Again the opposite to what you said, AMDs AIB GPU sales decreased, but off set by an increase in Professional GPUs and OEM GPU's, resulting in an overall increase.

The fact that their revenue is flat suggests that actually their console revenues must have fallen and the very products you said: "This means that despite introducing new products AMD could not move more units than they did back when they had no new products. And that's bad." have picked up the slack.

They obviously did to make up the shortfall.

I know what OEM means, you just don't understand that they contain 3'rd party products, Dell don't make their own CPUs

 

[Will Gill]

Yet again, calm it down lads, it's hot enough already without your bickering ......