Archive for April, 2013

AMD Surviving, But Can It Thrive? (AMD:NEUTRAL)

Posted April 29, 2013 By JoAnne

AMD’s results and outlook reveal a company still in the depths of a protracted transition, but financials appear to be stabilizing as new products gain traction in consoles, tablets, and inexpensive laptops and hybrids. Richland and Kabini are both shipping, and this puts low-cost, but powerful, APUs into the hands of OEMs at a time when hardware margins have become razor-thin. Temash, the sub-2W SOC for tablets and embedded applications, is ramping now and we expect shipments this quarter to help boost revenues. Investors remain cautious following last year’s disappointing results; can AMD outperform even conservative expectations in 2013?

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Intel  came it a bit shy of expectations for 1Q, but that was likely a relief for many, and its 2Q guidance is close enough to expectations and its capex trim is likely to reassure investors that it has no intention to flood the market with CPUs.  New CPU releases appear on schedule, gross margin is positioned for recovery in 2H, and data center business is seeing continued strength from cloud and HPC and also a hint of a pickup in enterprise spending. Uneven macro signals leave 2H demand in a fog, and so we think it premature to raise growth estimates, but Intel is taking a cautious approach and this should limit downside risk.

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