Company Q4 earnings

AMD ended Q4 2020 beating Wall Street expectations largely due to sales growth of 176% in the segment that includes server chips and graphics processors for gaming consoles. AMD expects sales growth of 37% in 2021.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares, up 92.3% over the past 12 months, fell after Tuesday's close despite the release of better-than-expected financial results for 2020.

AMD benefited from increased sales of PCs and gaming consoles such as the Sony PS5 and Microsoft Xbox One (for which it supplies processors), as well as demand for graphics processors from cryptocurrency miners and continued growth in demand for server chips during its holiday Q4 ending in December.

With expectations of continued demand for PC and datacenter processors and continued demand for gaming consoles, AMD has given high projections for all of 2021, while cautioning that sales may decline seasonally in the first quarter.

Q4 earnings per share rose 63% (year-on-year) to $0.52, up $0.05 from analysts' estimate of $0.47. Quarterly earnings rose 52% to $3.24 billion, also above analysts' estimate of $3.02 billion.

AMD divisions revenues

AMD's Computers and Graphics division revenues rose 18% to $1.96 billion, mainly due to strong sales of Ryzen processors.

Corporate, Embedded and Semi-Automated Processors division revenues grew 176% to $1.28 billion.

Full-year 2020 AMD revenues rose 45% to $9.76bn, with profits showing a 108% increase to $2.49bn.

Lisa Su said: "We accelerated our business significantly in 2020, delivering record annual revenues and more than doubling net profit compared to 2019".

Predictions from AMD

AMD expects revenue of $3.2 billion in the current quarter.

AMD's full-year 2021 sales forecast is up 37% to $13.38bn, which is also above analysts' expectations of $12.24bn.

In January, AMD unveiled its new Ryzen 5000 series of mobile processors, which will start shipping in the first quarter of 2021. AMD said it expects a 50% increase in notebook and PC processor shipments this year.

AMD also plans to complete its acquisition of Xilinx by the end of the year, which will strengthen its data centre chip business and position it relative to competition from Intel.