AMD slashes Q4 revenue outlook by 25%

By Matthew Miller, Editor in Chief, EDN.com -- 12/4/2008

Processor maker AMD has significantly lowered its revenue expectations for the fourth quarter: The company now expects to report revenue of approximately $1.19 billion, 25% below its initial guidance of $1.585 billion and about 33% below both the Q4 2007 figure of $1.770 and Q3 2008 revenues of $1.776 billion.

The company, which will officially report its results on Jan. 22, cited "weaker than expected demand across all geographies and businesses, particularly in the consumer market."

AMD is hardly alone. Archrival Intel on Nov. 12 lowered its guidance to between $8.7 billion and $9.3 billion, 16% to 17% below the previous expectation of between $10.1 billion and $10.9 billion.

The reductions do not come as a surprise; analysts widely expected both companies to reduce their outlooks because they both made their initial predictions early, before the extent of the slowdown became clear (see "Analysts downgrade estimates for 10 chip companies" and "Analysts cut expectations for AMD, Intel on PC market").

However, AMD's downsized expectations are significantly worse than analyst predictions from just a few weeks ago, which had AMD reducing its guidance by a mere 6.6%.

Also today, Cirrus Logic announced that it is lowering its guidance for the current quarter to a range of $42 to $45 million, down between 8% and 14% compared with the year-ago quarter and down from its initial estimate of between $51 million and $55 million.

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