AMD posts Q4 loss despite being profitable year-over-year

Despite being profitable for the third year in a row, Advanced Micro Devices finished 2011 with a Q4 loss of $177 million. Fourth quarter non-GAAP income excludes restructuring fees of $98 million and an investment in GlobalFoundaries that cost $209 million.

AMD posted net revenue of $1.69 billion in the fourth quarter, an increase of two percent over the same time period in 2010. Gross margin was $733 million for Q4 2011 versus $743 million a year ago. For the full year ending on December 31, 2011, the company’s net income was $491 million compared to $471 million in 2010. Net revenue was $6.5 billion as opposed to $6.4 billion last year.

AMD president and CEO Rory Read gave credit to the company’s APU line for turning a profit in 2011.

"AMD shipped more than 30 million APU's in 2011, resulting in record annual notebook revenue," said Read. "The unmatched combination of computing and graphics capabilities in our low-power 'Brazos' platform has made it our fastest ramping platform ever, paving the way for continued growth in key segments and geographies.”

Specifically, the sequential increase in AMD’s computing solutions segment was driven by double digit growth in server and chipset revenue. Year-over-year growth was fueled by higher mobile processor and chipset revenue.

AMD launched their Bulldozer-based AMD Opteron 4200 and 6200 series server chips that were picked up by HP and Dell for use in their systems. New A-Series notebook and desktop APUs were introduced and are expected to hit retail chains in early 2012.

AMD’s graphics segment was down five percent sequentially and 10 percent year-over-year. Reasons given for the drop in sales include a decline in mobile GPU shipments offset by a seasonal increase in game console revenue and decreased desktop and add-in board graphics revenue.