AMD stock jumps as Q1 results crush expectations, forecast goes much higher

Advanced Micro Devices this afternoon reported Q1 revenue and profit that easily surpassed analysts' expectations,and raised its forecast for this year well above its prior outlook.

The company cited health in its Ryzen PC chips, its EPYC server chips, and its Radeon GPU chips, against a backdrop of a continued strong PC market. 

The report sent AMD shares higher by 4% in late trading. 

CEO Lisa Su remarked that "Our business continued to accelerate in the first quarter driven by the best product portfolio in our history, strong execution and robust market demand."

Added Su, "We had outstanding year-over-year revenue growth across all of our businesses and data center revenue more than doubled."

"Our increased full-year guidance highlights the strong growth we expect across our business based on increasing adoption of our high-performance computing products and expanding customer relationships," said Su.

Revenue in the three months ended in March almost doubled, year over year, to $3.5 billion, yielding earnings of 52 cents a share, excluding some costs.

Analysts had been modeling $3.2 billion and 44 cents per share.

AMD said its Computing and Graphics segment, including the Ryzen PC processors and Radeon GPUs, saw revenue rise 46%, year over year, and 7% from the prior quarter, to $2.10 billion. Average selling prices for both Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs increased year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. 

AMD's Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom business, which includes its EPYC processors, and also custom chips for game consoles, saw a 286% year-over-year increase, to $1.35 billion. The comapny said the increase year-over-year was a factor of both the custom gaming chips and EPYC, while the quarter-to-quarter revenue rise was all about EPYC, as custom chip revenue declined.  

For the current quarter, the company sees revenue of $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion, above consensus for $3.2 billion and a 46-cent profit per share.

Growth this quarter is expected to be focused in data center and gaming, the company said.

For the full year, the company sees revenue rising by 50%, up from a prior forecast for a 37% rise. that compares to consensus for a 38% increase. AMD the growth is a result of "growth in all businesses."