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AMD Q4 Earnings Beat Estimates, Shares Down on Weak Guidance

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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD - Free Report) reported fourth-quarter 2024 non-GAAP earnings of $1.09 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.10%. The figure surged 31.4% year over year. 

Find the latest EPS estimates and surprises on Zacks Earnings Calendar.

Revenues of $7.658 billion beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.61% and increased 24.2% year over year, as well as 12% sequentially. 

The top-line growth benefited from robust Data Center and Client revenues that were partially offset by sluggishness in the Gaming and Embedded segments.
 

 

AMD shares were down roughly 9% in pre-market trading, given the unimpressive first-quarter 2025 guidance and slower Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven growth in 2025. AMD generated more than $5 billion in AI revenues in 2024.

AMD Q4 Top Line Rides on Data Center Growth

Data Center revenues surged 69.1% year over year to $3.859 billion and accounted for 50.4% of total revenues. Sequentially, revenues increased 8.7%.

AMD’s top line benefited from strong Instinct GPU shipments and robust EPYC CPU sales.

Exiting fourth-quarter 2024, Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) , Google, Amazon Web Services, Tencent and Alibaba launched more than 100 general purpose and AI instances. 

Microsoft launched new Azure instances powered by a custom-built EPYC processor with high bandwidth memory that delivers superior performance. 

EPYC sales grew double-digit percentage on a year-over-year basis, driven by high-volume deployments with Akamai, Hitachi, LG, ServiceNow, Verizon, Visa and others. 

In the Data Center AI business, MI300X deployment increased with cloud partners, including Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) , Microsoft, IBM, Digital Ocean and Dell Technologies (DELL - Free Report) , among others.

Meta Platforms used MI300X to power its Llama 405B frontier model on meta.ai. It added instinct GPUs to its OCP-compliant Grand Teton platform, designed for deep learning recommendation models and large-scale AI inferencing workloads.

Microsoft is using MI300X to power multiple GPT 4-based Copilot services. IBM announced plans to enable MI300X on its Watson X AI and data platform for training and deploying enterprise-ready generative AI applications.

Dell Technologies started offering MI300X as part of its AI factory solution suite. DELL is providing multiple ready-to-deploy containers through its Dell Enterprise Hub on Hugging Face.

AMD’s Client Revenues Ride on Ryzen and Mobile Processors

The Client segment’s revenues soared 58% year over year to $2.313 billion and accounted for 30.2% of total revenues. Sequentially, revenues increased 23%.

Higher demand for both Ryzen desktop and mobile processors benefited the Client revenue growth in the reported quarter.

AMD inked a collaboration with Dell Technologies, under which the latter will offer a full portfolio of commercial PCs powered by Ryzen Pro processors.

AMD Suffers From Weak Gaming & Embedded Revenues

The Gaming segment revenues fell 58.8% year over year to $563 million and accounted for 7.4% of total revenues. Sequentially, revenues increased 21.9%. 

The decline in semi-custom and Gaming graphics sales negatively impacted the Gaming segment’s sales.

The Embedded segment revenues were $923 million, down 12.7% year over year and 0.4% sequentially. The segment accounted for 12.1% of total revenues.

Weakness in the industrial and communications markets offset growth in aerospace and defense as well as test and emulation end markets.

AMD’s Margins Expand Y/Y in Q4

Non-GAAP gross margin expanded 330 basis points (bps) on a year-over-year basis to 54.1%, driven by growth in the Data Center and Client segments revenues.

Non-GAAP operating expenses increased 23% year over year to $2.125 billion.

Non-GAAP operating margin expanded 360 bps on a year-over-year basis to 26.5% in the fourth quarter, driven by higher revenues and gross margin.

AMD’s Balance Sheet & Cash Flow Remains Strong

As of Dec. 28, 2024, AMD had cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments of $5.132 billion compared with $4.544 billion as of Sept. 28, 2024.

As of Dec. 28, 2024, total debt was $1.72 billion, unchanged from the figure reported as of Sept. 28, 2024.

Operating cash flow was reported at $1.299 billion compared with $628 million in the third quarter of 2024.

Free cash flow was $1.091 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared with $496 million in the third quarter of 2024.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, AMD repurchased 1.8 million shares and returned $256 million to shareholders. The company has $4.7 billion remaining under its current authorization.

AMD’s Q1 Guidance Unimpressive

AMD expects first-quarter 2025 revenues to be $7.1 billion (+/-$300 million). At the mid-point of the revenue range, this represents year-over-year growth of approximately 30% and a sequential decline of approximately 7%.

For the first quarter, AMD expects non-GAAP gross margin to be roughly 54%. Non-GAAP operating expenses are expected to be nearly $2.1 billion.

For 2025, AMD expects a strong demand environment to boost growth in the Data Center and Client businesses and a modest increase in the Gaming and Embedded businesses. The company believes a strong demand environment will help to deliver double-digit percentage revenue and earnings growth year over year.

Zacks Rank

Currently, AMD carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.


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