AMD Q3 revenues increase, profits decline

Considering the dramatic price decreases of its desktop processors over the past three months, AMD delivered a solid third quarter result. Sales increased almost 32% from $1.01 billion to $1.33 billion year-over-year. Operating income retreated from 129 million to $119 million in the same time frame.

On a sequential basis, AMD’s result looks stable as well, with Q2 profits of $1.22 billion and operating income of $102 million.

According to AMD’s chief financial officer Robert Rivet, processor shipments grew 18% sequentially. The company reported higher demand for CPUs across the company’s product families. Rivet mentioned that sales of the mobile Turion 64 processor were "especially strong" and Opteron sales set another record.

The company also said that it was able to ship more desktop processors, while decreased average selling prices resulted in flat revenues on a sequential basis. During the quarter, AMD dropped the prices of some of its desktop processors by apparently more than 50%, which indicates that the company was able to not only sell substantially more CPUs during the quarter, but also shift sales from cheaper to more expensive units in order to achieve "flat" revenues.

AMD also confirmed that the rollout of its first 65 nm processors is on track. Initial 65 nm revenue shipments are planned to begin in the current quarter.