AMD is surging after a stellar earnings report (AMD)

pulse

April 25, 2018 9:27 PM

Analysts expect the chipmaker to post earnings of 9 cents per share on revenues of $1.566 billion.

The chipmaker reported adjusted earnings of $0.11 per share on revenue of $1.65 billion.

Shares of AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) soared more than 7% in after-hours trading Wednesday after the chipmaker's first-quarter results topped analyst expectations.

The company said it earned an adjusted $0.11 per share, outpacing the $0.09 that analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting. Revenue was $1.65 billion, which was ahead of the $1.57 billion that Wall Street was anticipating.

"The first quarter was an outstanding start to 2018 with 40 percent year-over-year revenue growth,” said Lisa Su, AMD's president and CEO, in a press release. "PC, gaming and datacenter adoption of our new, high-performance products continues to accelerate. We are excited about our long-term roadmaps and focused on delivering sustained revenue growth and profitability."

The crypto craze that peaked in January provided a boost for GPU makers like AMD and its competitor NVDA. But as prices have fallen in 2018, so too has would-be miners interest in the chips that were traditionally only popular among PC gamers.

"Ultimately, we don’t believe Crypto GPU Rev is sustainable and see 3 potential issues: (1) Price volatility in Ethereum which makes mining less economical, (2) Bitmain’s Ethereum ASIC scheduled for release in July, and (3) An increased probability of Crypto moving from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake negating the need for mining/GPUs all together," Credit Suisse analyst John Pitzer warned clients ahead of the earnings report.

Nvidia did not directly mention cryptocurrencies in its quarterly filing — but will almost certainly be asked about their impact on its bottom line by analysts on the conference call later Wednesday evening.

Shares of AMD are down 10% since the beginning of the year.

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