AMD posts second consecutive profitable quarter

AMD has posted a net profit of $257 million on $1.57 billion revenue for the first quarter of 2010, and this time it didn't even need that juicy Intel settlement money to get out of the red. It did however saw a one-time, non-cash gain of $325 million related to the deconsolidation of spinoff GlobalFoundries. This was the second quarter in a row in which the chipmaker saw a profit after 12 consecutive losses, also marking a notable improvement over AMD's $416 million net loss in the year-ago period.

Analysts had expected the company to post a loss of 3 cents a share, on revenue of $1.5 billion. In a statement, AMD CEO Dirk Meyer credited new server and graphics chips for boosting their prospects, with the company launching its six-core Istanbul processor as well as seven DirectX 11 graphics cards for desktops and laptops during the quarter.

The executive quoted a whopping 88% jump in year-over-year revenue for AMD's graphics chip unit, while its core PC chip business reported a 23% increase during the same period. Both saw sequential revenue drops compared to Q4 2009 due to seasonal patterns. Looking forward, AMD officials declined to give a specific prediction for the second quarter's revenue, saying only it would come in seasonably down.