AMD's Q4 EPYC growth headlines a record-breaking 2021
Microprocessor maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) reported revenue and operating income growth for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ending December 25, 2021.
Revenue rose 49%, year over year, for the final quarter. The $4.8 billion in net sales was driven by increased contributions from the chipmaker's Computing and Graphics and Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom segments.
Finance
Meanwhile, operating income surged to $1.2 billion, a 112% rise over the year-ago quarter on the back of higher revenue and gross margin expansion, AMD said.
Net income fell, year-over-year to $974 million, or $0.80 per diluted share, due to a $1.3 billion income tax benefit associated with a valuation allowance release, which occurred in the last segment of the previous year. Sequentially, net income was actually up from the $923 million posted for the third quarter of 2021.
For the full year, AMD's revenue spiked to $16.4 billion, a 68% increase over 2020's $9.76 billion. Operating income grew 166% to $3.65 billion, while net income rose to $3.16 billion, or $2.57 per diluted share. This represented a 27% jump in net profits.
On these results, AMD updated its guidance for the first quarter of 2022 with an expected revenue range of $4.9 billion to $5.1 billion, a 45% year-over-year jump. The company predicted that this trajectory will be powered by higher server and client processor revenue.
For FY 2022, AMD's outlook includes a total revenue of approximately $21.5 billion, 31% higher than 2021's total. This, it predicts, will be the result of "growth across all businesses."
AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su called 2021 "an outstanding year for AMD with record annual revenue and profitability." She specifically touted the performance of the company's data center offerings, which saw their revenue contribution doubling year-over-year thanks to widespread adoption of AMD's EPYC processor.
Amazon recently revealed that a new variety of EC2 instances would be built around the EPYC CPU, contributing to the 75% year over year growth shown by the Embedded and Semi-Custom chip segment in which EPYC resides.
Dr. Su also pointed to the exceptional performance of the cloud and enterprise business channels, before going on to tease new launches within AMD's current portfolio as well as the company's forthcoming "next generation of PC, gaming, and data center products."