April 17, 2008, 5:24 PM — A weak first quarter has yielded a sixth consecutive quarterly loss at struggling
chipmaker Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD).
The company posted revenue of $1.51 billion for its first fiscal quarter of
2008, ended March 29, and a net loss of $358 million, or $0.59 per share. Excluding
charges related to the company's 2006 acquisition of graphics chipmaker ATI
Technologies, losses were $308 million, or $0.51 per share.
The bad results were in line with analyst expectations. AMD had warned the
financial community last week that it would miss earnings expectations by about
$100 million, blaming lower-than-expected results because of poor sales across
all segments of its business. AMD plans to lay off 10 percent of its 16,800-employee
workforce by the third quarter of 2008.
A few days after last week's earnings warning, the company's chief technology
officer, Phil Hester, stepped down, adding to the bad news.
AMD had been hoping to turn things around by its second quarter. On Thursday
it said it was hoping to again be profitable by year's end.
