Re: This is not a miss that happens in month. Especially, since that that miss came one month AFTER the quarter began. Assuming an evenly divided Q4
The holiday selling season is a pretty small window, with most sales happening in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And by all accounts, sales pretty much fell off a cliff relative to expectations. Stores and online vendors expected a huge increase in sales at the end of November, and that increase didn't happen. Until a week or so into December, exactly what was happening must have been a bit of a mystery to everyone.
Maybe there was been a change in the way retail PCs are viewed from last year to this year. Last year the summer was good, but holiday sales were better. This year the spring and summer exceeded expectations, but the holiday season has been a disappointment. It may be that PCs are now considered more a necessity, primarily for school, and less of a luxury treat. Long term that may be mean more consistent demand, since necessities are cut back less than necessities in downturns, but it means that we saw many of what would have been holiday sales this spring and summer.
Considering that AMD is largely in retail PC's at this point, and that they are still going to make substantial profits this quarter, it's hard to see how they can go anywhere but up in profits and sales. AMD will be moving into the corporate, and server markets gradually over the next 2 quarters, so they won't be this exposed in the future. And we can probably look forward to steadily better back to school selling seasons. That AMD is going to make a solid profit this quarter under these conditions is a surprise.
Meanwhile, the SiS integrated graphics boards are starting to trickle into the market, VIA's integrated solution will be here next month, and ALi's mobile chipset is sampling. So the infrastructure support we so badly need is a lot closer.
Intel, with all its resources, couldn't get the Rambus platform to become a success in the marketplace. That (relatively) little AMD seems to be moving the entire industry to a DDR platform, even if things are running disappointingly late, is still quite an achievement.
The Fed's tightening coincided with the most bizarre presidential election in history and accelerated a change in PC buying habits that crushed Q4 sales - nobody saw that one coming, so I find it hard to blame management at AMD or Intel for being surprised.
Regards,
Dan |
