Through the looking glass: With no sign of Intel's 7nm chips in sight, AMD is pushing ahead and has the numbers to show for it. Strong second quarter earnings from both enterprise and consumer products could help accelerate further development of future offerings.
Investors in AMD have reason to celebrate following the release of second quarter earnings. During Q2 2018, revenue has grown 53 percent year-over-year to $1.7 billion. A three percent increase to gross margin has lead to the highest quarterly income within the last seven years.
As a surprise to no one, AMD's computing and graphics segments both grew by double digit numbers. Sustained demand for Radeon graphics cards and the launch of Ryzen mobile processors both contributed significantly to profits. During the back to school season, AMD expects to show strong sales of mobile CPUs.
One important fact to note is that this is the first time ever that the three largest commercial OEMs have offered laptops and desktops with AMD processors inside. Dell, HP, and Lenovo now have systems with Ryzen Pro APUs for mobile and offer many options of second generation Ryzen processors for desktop.
Looking ahead, AMD has officially stated that the second generation Threadripper processors are targeting an August launch.
For enterprise and embedded solutions, AMD posted a strong 37 percent year-over-year increase. Increased adoption of Epyc processors by major customers such as Cisco, HP, and Tencent are telling signs that AMD is meeting its target market.
Sales for large-scale data centers increased more than two-fold this past quarter. Working with cloud providers, AMD also has been working to allow integration of Epyc single socket boards. Early legwork done during the second quarter is expected to show next quarter as cloud service providers buy mass numbers of Epyc processors.
Between Sony and Microsoft, over 100 million consoles with AMD chips have been shipped to date. Longer term strategy will focus on delivering solutions for game consoles and other embedded platforms.
CEO Lisa Su also mentioned that 7nm Epyc samples based on Zen 2 architecture have been received. Carrying codename Rome, the next series of Eypc processors are being sampled by selected partners. At this time, AMD is on schedule for launch in 2019 with hopes of further chipping away at Intel's market share.
Going forward, AMD holds a strong position to continue improving sales. As the 7nm process is further refined and products using the smaller fabrication process begin to reach market, AMD should have few obstacles blocking further expansion.
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