AMD Charts Stronger 2022 as Data-Centre Revenue Booms

Advanced Micro Devices forecast 2022 revenue above expectations on Tuesday, driving its shares up as much as 11 percent in after-hours trading, as stellar demand for its chips used in data centre servers is expected to continue to drive growth.

"Relative to the growth from the different businesses, the growth will be led by server," Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su told analysts on a conference call, adding that the server business would be "very strong" this year.

AMD's strong forecast also boosted shares of chipmakers Nvidia and Qualcomm.

The chip designer posted record fourth-quarter revenue, surpassing estimates, as it sold more chips priced at the higher end.

AMD has dived deeper into the data centre market to capitalise on booming cloud adoption, while its agile model of outsourced manufacturing has helped the company pry away market share from rival Intel Corp.

"AMD is clearly gaining market share in both the PC client and the server/data centre end-markets against Intel," said Kinngai Chan, managing director and senior research analyst for semiconductors at Summit Insights Group. He added that AMD's market share in both those markets is still relatively low.

While shares of many chip companies rose in after-hours trading, Intel fell slightly.

AMD has made a number of new launches with significant performance gains, including updates to its graphics processor lineup used for cloud and high-quality gaming, creating a challenge for Intel.

Signaling that supply-chain challenges may be easing, Su said the inventory was "matched to demand" and added that the company had made significant investments to ensure ongoing capacity expansion.

For the full year, AMD forecast revenue of about $21.5 billion (roughly Rs. 1,60,735 crore), compared with analysts' average estimate of $19.27 billion (roughly Rs. 1,44,060 crore), according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The California-based company reported adjusted fourth-quarter revenue of $4.83 billion (roughly Rs. 36,110 crore), compared with estimates of $4.53 billion (roughly Rs. 33,865 crore).

Net income fell to $974 million (roughly Rs. 7,280 crore) from $1.78 billion (roughly Rs. 13,310 crore) last year. Excluding items, AMD earned 92 cents (roughly Rs. 70) per share, surpassing estimates of 76 cents (roughly Rs.60).