Mercury research sees AMD Q2 share at 22.2%
Nowhere To Hide For AMD
Arik Hesseldahl, Forbes.com,
07.12.01, 2:31 PM ET
forbes.com
NEW YORK - It wasn't so long ago that one of the few bright spots for investors in semiconductor stocks was chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices.
At the start of the year, AMD's (nyse: AMD - news - people) position in the market for flash memory chips was an asset. And its higher-profile PC microprocessor business was eating away at Intel's (nasdaq: INTC - news - people) market share. But that was before the semiconductor market collapsed into a smoking heap. Market research firm IC Insights, which estimated last year's global chip sales at $177 billion, has forecast that sales will fall by 20% or more by the end of the year.
AMD came clean last week, warning it would miss analysts' expectations by many miles. Analysts had expected earnings of 27 cents per share, but AMD warned it would report earnings in the range of 3 to 5 cents, blaming sales that fell 17%, instead of the 10% it had expected previously. AMD reports earnings after the closing bell today.
AMD also said sales will come in at an anemic $985 million, below the $1 billion mark for the first time in five quarters. Analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial had expected $1.08 billion this quarter.
The good news, if you can call it that, is that AMD continues to bite at Intel's ankles. According to market research firm Mercury Research, Scottsdale, Ariz., AMD has a market share of 22.2% in the PC processor market to Intel's 76.2%, up by a little more than one percentage point from last quarter for AMD and down slightly for Intel. But with PC sales as depressed as they are, the pie they're carving up is considerably smaller than it has been.
The key question concerns prospects for the rest of the year. Anxieties are running high that the hoped-for turnaround in the PC market may not materialize. However, software maker Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people) poured some gas on the fires of hope by saying fiscal fourth quarter sales would be $100 million to $300 million higher than previously expected.
The news fueled large gains in the stock markets and helped to rocket AMD's shares up 8% to $22.85. The stock is up 53% year to date.
Like everyone else in the chip and PC industries, AMD likely will spin a cautiously optimistic picture for the next two quarters. But that's far from certain. Selling prices remain low for PC chips.
"The hopes for a seasonal recovery in the PC industry remain nothing but hopes," says analyst Dan Scovel of Needham & Co., of New York. "The evidence that there is any increase in demand is not in place."
And there's not much more hope for any significant changes in demand for flash memory demand before the end of the year. Sales of mobile phones and handheld computers, both of which use flash memory, are far from healthy. Two other companies in the flash market, Atmel (nasdaq: ATML - news - people) and Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicroelectronics (nyse: STM - news - people), both issued revenue warnings for the current quarter.
The doubly harsh environment leaves AMD with few places to hide. |
