AMD posts fourth consecutive quarter of losses

Chipmaker AMD posted its fourth straight quarter of net losses yesterday, citing the cost of acquiring graphics chipset maker ATI Technologies last year.

It posted a net loss of $396 million (£193.6 million) loss in its third quarter, compared to a $136-million (£66.5-million) profit in the same quarter of last year.

Despite this, analysts hopes during the manufacturer's conference call yesterday were buoyed as AMD also achieved record microprocessor sales and a 18 per cent year-over-year improvement in its third-quarter revenue ending 29 September to $1.6 billion (£782 million).

Héctor Ruiz, AMD chief executive was bullish about growth, but reticent in being drawn on a possible financial recovery before year-end.

He said that global demand for PCs was strong and that "we are very encouraged by our progress but discouraged by our financial results". But he also pointed to supply constraints in the displays, plastics and battery markets that could yet dampen PC sales.

During the quarter and after many months of delays, AMD finally released its latest quad-core processor, Barcelona in September. It is playing catch-up to chip rival, Intel who said in its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday that it had already shipped two million of its quad-core chips during its last quarter.

AMD said a 2.5Ghz Barcelona processor will follow in the mid-fourth quarter, while it plans to launch a desktop quad-core chip for desktops, called Phenom, in November to compete with Intel's equivalent Core 2 Duo chip.

By contrast, Intel posted net income of $1.9 billion ($929 billion) for its third quarter, an increase of 43 per cent over the same period last year. Intel cited the volume of processors sold and the lower costs associated with the company's switch to 45-nanometer manufacturing processes for its buoyant finances.

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