AMD releases strong Q2 financial results

AMD has released its financial results for the second quarter of 2020 and it's been a predictably strong quarter with record notebook and server processor sales.

During the call, AMD President and CEO, Dr Lisa Su, explained that Ryzen and Epyc revenue has more than doubled from a year ago with AMD enjoying revenue of $1.93 billion. Su pointed out that despite some macroeconomic uncertainty, AMD is raising its full-year revenue outlook as it enters its 'next phase of growth driven by the acceleration of [its] business in multiple markets.'

Breaking it down, AMD's revenue during Q2 was $1.93 billion, up 26 percent year-over-year. That's primarily been driven by higher Computing and Graphics segment revenue with the revenue also up 8 percent quarter-over-quarter thanks to Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment revenue. 

With gross margin up 3 percent year-over-year, albeit down 2 percent compared to the previous quarter, it's a very respectable 44 percent with that attributed to the sale of Ryzen and Epyc processors. The tiny dip was considered to be due to increased semi-custom product sales. Net income has also seen a huge rise to $157 million compared to $35 million a year ago and $162 in Q1 2020 with operating income similar at $173 million compared to last year's $59 million and $177 million in the previous quarter. 

Computing and Graphics segment revenue was $1.37 billion alone, up 45 percent year-over-year although down 5 percent compared to the previous quarter. Again, this is mostly considered to be thanks to strong Ryzen processor sales although the decline is due to lower GPU sales. 

Besides releasing a plethora of figures, AMD also used the time to highlights its accomplishments. It cited the acceleration of data centre adoption of 2nd Gen Epyc processors and how Google has announced new Confidential Virtual Machines for Google Compute Engine which will be powered exclusively by Epyc processors. It also noted Amazon Web Services adding its sixth AMD Epyc processor-powered cloud instance family, amongst other additions by big names such as Oracle, Dell, HPE and more.

For the consumer market, AMD also mentioned its expansion of processor lineups with the Ryzen 3000XT series as well as the 16-inch MacBook Pro now featuring the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M. Ultimately though, we know all that, and it's the current outlook that's most interesting. 

Financially, AMD confirmed it expects revenue to be $2.55 billion for Q3, representing an increase of approximately 42 percent year-over-year. It also used the time to confirm that it still plans on launching the Zen 3 CPU microarchitecture before the end of the year. The RDNA2 graphics architecture will also be introduced too. There was also a brief reminder that the future-gen Zen 3 microarchitecture is 'in the lab and looking good'' and that it will be built on the 5nm silicon fabrication process.

Like recent financial calls before it, AMD's future is continuing to look very bright indeed.