AMD announced their fourth quarter earnings for their 2018 fiscal year today, and the company has continued its upward trajectory, with revenue gains of 6% year-over-year to $1.42 billion. Gross margin, which was long a burden for the company, is now right in the sweet spot at 38%, up 4% from a year ago. Operating income for the quarter was $28 million, compared to an operating loss of $2 million last year, and net income is now in the black as well at $38 million, compared to a net loss of $19 million a year ago. That resulted in earnings per share of $0.04, compared to a $0.02 loss per share in Q4 2017.
Computing and Graphics has been the main contributor of AMD’s resurgence ever since AMD’s Ryzen CPU was launched, and revenue for this segment was up 8.6% to $986 million. Even more important, operating income for the segment was up 248% to $115 million. AMD sounds to have a busy year for 2019 which should be great news for its investors and customers.
Enterprise, embedded, and semi-custom didn’t perform quite as well, with revenue more or less flat year-over-year at $433 million. AMD’s APU wins in both the Xbox and PlayStation have contributed a lot to this segment over the last couple of years, but the enterprise CPU space may be a bit tougher nut to crack than the consumer market, but the flat revenue is deceiving, since EPYC sales are offsetting lower semi-custom sales. AMD’s operating loss for this segment did improve though, with a $6 million loss this quarter compared to a $13 million loss a year ago, thanks to the higher margins in enterprise processors.