Chipmaker AMD said Wednesday it will cut 2.6 percent of its employees or 430 jobs in its operations around the world due to a first-quarter loss of $611 million, with most of the job cuts being made in sales, marketing and administration positions.
Industry analysts are unsure if AMD will have to cut more jobs in the near future. "I'm surprised the number is as small as what it is," said Brian Piccioni, a BMO Capital Markets analyst.
American Technology Research analyst Doug Freedman believes the job cuts could "save the company about $40 million per annum in operating expenses and add 8 cents to the bottom-line."
AMD had gained market share to its rival Intel in the past couple of years; however, Intel regained its leading position delivering more competitive products like the Core 2 Duo chip. Currently AMD and Intel face a brutal price war which reduces the profit margins, not to mention last year's merger with graphics chipmaker ATI Technologies, which AMD acquired last year for $5.4 billion.
AMD is hoping to regain footing in the CPU market with the release of a quad-core processor codenamed Barcelona later this year.