AMD's third quarter sales hit an all-time high of 18 trillion won... Stock price surges 7% after-hours

Nvidia's rival AMD achieved record-high performance thanks to surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI) data center chips.

AMD announced on the 3rd (local time) that its third quarter sales recorded $13.38 billion (about 18 trillion won), a 45% increase compared to the same period last year.

This not only exceeded Wall Street expectations of $13.09 billion compiled by market research firm London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), but also broke AMD's highest ever quarterly sales record.

Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) also surged 74% year-on-year to $2.09, exceeding market analysts' expectations of $1.95.

The driving force behind performance growth was the data center division, which produces AI accelerators and central processing units (CPUs) for servers.

Data center sales in the third quarter surged 97% year-on-year to $8.55 billion, accounting for about two-thirds of total sales.

AMD explained that growth was driven by strong sales of new GPUs, such as the latest AI accelerator 'Instinct MI455X', and the 6th generation 'Epic' (EPYC) CPU.

Sales in the embedded sector, which is used in businesses such as aerospace, defense, and automobiles, also grew by 29.4% from $860 million to $1.11 billion.

However, sales in the client and gaming division decreased by about 8%. This is presumed to be the effect of the PC market recession caused by the memory crisis.

AMD presented guidance that this growth will continue and sales in the fourth quarter will record $17 billion (approximately 22.9 trillion won), a 66% increase compared to the same period last year.

This figure exceeds the average analyst estimate of $16.2 billion.

CEO Lisa Su said, “Demand for Instinct and Epic products continues to strengthen,” and predicted, “Growth will further accelerate in the fourth quarter as production of the (AI lag-in) ‘Helios’ server and next-generation ‘Venice’ CPU begins in earnest.”

AMD's stock price, which rose 3.65% in regular trading on this day due to earnings expectations, surged about 7% in after-hours trading after the earnings announcement and is fluctuating at the $518 level as of 5:20 p.m. Eastern time.

AMD has recently expanded its partnerships with major technology giants, solidifying its status as an alternative to Nvidia chips in the AI ​​infrastructure ecosystem.

Antropic, Meta, Microsoft (MS), OpenAI, and Oracle have adopted AMD's AI Rack Helios.

Meanwhile, AMD announced last September that it would enter the real AI field by acquiring 'World Labs', a 'world model' startup of Feifei Li, known as the 'AI godmother'.