AMD losses widen as Hammer pressure mounts

In a conference all to explain the financials, AMD said it had "changed its roadmap emphasis" for the Hammer processors to put more pressure on the server market. The the Clawhammer-core desktop processor is expected towards the end the first quarter of 2003, while the Sledgehammer-core Opteron will be released in the "first half" of 2003 for the server market.

While the losses were largely expected, broadly in line with warnings the company had issued earlier, they losses were slightly worse that financial analysts were expecting.

The company said it would take "aggressive actions" in the fourth quarter to ensure breakeven. In statement, chief financial officer Robert J. Rivet, said the company was to lower its corporate break-even point. "We will begin to implement additional and aggressive actions in the fourth quarter that are expected to significantly reduce our quarterly breakeven point beginning in the first quarter of 2003."

"Aggressive actions" generally means cutting jobs, an eventuality AMD neither confirmed nor rejected.

The company also discussed the figures for the full nine-month fiscal period of 2002, stating that, overall, sales were down on the comparable period in 2001, by 32 per cent. The net loss during the nine-month period amounted to some $448,272,000 or $1.31 per share. µ

Clarification AMD asks us to point out that Hammer schedules haven't slipped from its previous advice, as we originally suggested in this article. A spokesman from the company told us that desktop versions of Hammer are still planned to ship (for revenue) in Q1 2003 with systems on shelves at the turn of Q1 2003, not the second half of 2003 as we stated.