AMD - Key Perspectives on 2012. 4Q Preview (UBS Investment Research)
Uche Orji
Analyst
17 January 2012
In the context of our positive sector view, where we expect a cyclical bottom in
1Q12 and a recovery from 2Q, we offer our perspectives to key questions
affecting AMD in 2012:
Scheinbar rechnen viele mit einer baldigen Erholung.Heute auch eher positives von TSMC, dem Auftragsfertiger.
"The first quarter of this year, in terms of revenue, “is flatter than last year’s first quarter, but stronger than the seasonal average. The seasonal pattern in the last few years has been 4 percent to 6 percent lower than the fourth quarter” on the back of customers’ restocking in the seasonally slow season, Chang said.
“Another encouraging sign is that our booking forecasts indicate that our second-quarter revenue will be stronger than the first,” he added.
• Can AMD still gain processor share even with the hard disk drive shortage
favoring a shift to higher-end PCs, given pent-up demand for its Llano
processor? What kind of share shifts vs NVIDIA should we expect in
discrete graphics? Can AMD address the threat from ARM in the longerterm?
We believe AMD is positioned to gain incremental share in 2012, as its low-end
processors should capture a piece of what has been historically served by Intel’s
Atom and Celeron processors, where Intel is placing less focus, and its higherend
processors can offer OEMs higher margins vs an equivalently priced
Pentium + discrete graphics PC. We do not expect AMD to take material share
from Intel’s Core i-series franchise given the substantial lead in processing
performance it is likely to maintain with its upcoming Ivy Bridge (3rd generation
Core) family of processors.
To service the ultrathin notebook market, we expect AMD to utilize its Trinity
processor to fit into similar form factors as Intel-based ultrabooks, although
AMD may have challenges to consistently achieve a competitive clock
frequency at the low voltages required to keep the power consumption below 17
watts required for the 2011 ultrabook form-factor. In 2013, we expect AMD to
move to 20nm process technology, which should allow it to keep pace with the
rate at which Intel lowers the max power ultrabook spec (i.e. down to about 12
watts).
In discrete graphics, we believe market share shifts vs NVIDIA will be small
overall, where AMD may gain share in higher-end desktop graphics given its
early lead at 28nm, but it may lose share in notebook graphics, especially as it
focuses on margin improvement.
While we do not expect ARM-based PCs to represent a material threat in 2012
based on limited availability, we believe they are a threat beyond 2012. Key for
AMD to maintain an advantage is if it can offer better performance, especially
for multimedia, along with competitive pricing and power consumption. As
AMD and ARM-based processors will likely utilize similar process technologies,
it is reasonable to assume that for a given level of performance, AMD should be
able to stay competitive vs ARM processors. As we believe x86 compatibility
will be important to consumers for many years, we expect AMD to largely
counter the ARM threat in lower-end PCs over the mid-term if it can maintain
solid execution.
• How will AMD translate its performance advantage in graphics for
higher margins in its Graphics division in 2012?
We see evidence AMD is moving away from very aggressive pricing that has
resulted in a breakeven business model with its latest 28nm HD 7970 graphics
processor, which is priced at $549 at a card level. AnandTech, an on-line
review site, recently opined, “The MSRP for the 7970 will be $550, a premium
price befitting a premium card, but a price based almost exclusively on the
competition (e.g. the [NVIDIA] GTX 580) rather than one that takes advantage
of cheaper manufacturing costs to aggressively undercuts the competition.” We
view that assessment as positive for improving AMD’s Graphics division
margins
In addition, we expect AMD to focus more on selling its products through the
channel/retail where higher-end, enthusiast graphics cards are generally sold as
well as increase its emphasis on selling into the Internet Café market, which is
popular in China and has been dominated by NVIDIA. Finally, we expect
royalties from the console market to remain a solid profit contributor and
possibly increase in the future if AMD were to win the Sony PlayStation 4.
Increased adoption of AMD GPU technology in game consoles would have the
added knock-on benefit of better enabling highly optimized games for the PC
market.
Wie schon mal erwähnt,beruht das mit der PS4 auf Gerüchte und auch das es möglicherweise gar keine PS4 mehr geben könnte,weil Sony vielleicht aus dem Konsolengeschäft aussteigt.
?? Can AMD gain share in servers and offer a credible alternative to Intel as
well as start-up companies focused on data centers such as Calxeda and
Tilera for the microserver market?
We believe AMD could take incremental share in server processors, not only by
solidifying its position in high-performance computing (HPC) but also by
expanding into select segments such as data centers, where AMD processors are
well-suited for highly virtualized environments. While the opposite trend
towards “physicalization” is also occurring for certain environments such as web
servers, where a part of the customer base demands physical dedicated cores, we
believe AMD offers a good balance of low-power and high-performance per
core and high core count vs Intel Xeon’s and new server processors including
those from Calxeda (ARM-based), Intel Atom and Tilera (proprietary core).
• Can AMD increase share in the professional graphics market – for both
visualization and computation?
We believe AMD’s ability to increase share in the professional graphics market
will depend on software and support engineering, as it already delivers worldclass
silicon. Key to enabling this market will be to work with OEMs and
application developers to ensure that visualization applications can take
advantage of AMD’s graphics hardware resources in a more optimal way. This
would overcome issues where older generation NVIDIA hardware has been able
to outperform newer generation AMD graphics processor (GPU) silicon.
As AMD’s latest generation GPUs are also more optimized for computing than
its prior products, it has an improved opportunity to address the highperformance
computing (HPC) market with the standards-based OpenCL
language that is well suited to take advantage of the massively parallel
computational resources in AMD GPUs. We believe AMD is increasing its
resources in both areas, but because these require lengthy design-in cycles, we
believe gains that AMD could realize will be slow and gradual.
• Can AMD drive an organizational transformation, especially with the
addition of new executives, which gives greater confidence regarding new
product and go-to-market execution?
While we are encouraged AMD CEO Rory Read is assembling a new team
based on talent with a proven track record, AMD still needs to translate that
team to sustained execution of new products that can generate excitement. We
believe the key to sustainability of AMD’s execution will be improved processes
that become implanted into the culture. Even where the product execution is
solid, the go-to-market strategy will need to improve as was discussed above
with AMD’s Graphics division. We would look to rising product average selling
prices as the clearest evidence AMD’s strategy is working, as it would
demonstrate its ability to anticipate and execute the right products that its target
market segments require.
Estimate Changes
Based on expectations the hard disk drive impact to AMD is less impactful than
we originally expected in 4Q as AMD is likely satisfying pent-up demand for its
higher-end Llano processor, we raise our 4Q11 sales/EPS estimates by 5%/25%
to $1,708m/$0.15, slightly below consensus of $1,714m/$0.16, and for 1Q12,
we raise our sales/EPS estimates by 4%/$0.01 to $1,566m/$0.04, below
consensus of $1,598m/$0.10. For 2012/13, we slightly adjust our sales estimates
to $6,940/$7,413m and maintain our EPS estimates of $0.70/$0.97.
Etwa Mitte Dezember,ich glaube unmittelbar nach der Intelwarnung meinte er noch:
• Lower 4Q11, 2012 estimates on HDD shortage impact
For 4Q11, we lower our sales/EPS estimates by 8%/29% to $1,624m/$0.12 and for
2011, we lower sales/EPS by 2%/12% to $6,501m/$0.44. For 2012/13, we lower
our sales ests by 3%/1% to $6,938m/$7,384m and EPS by 7%/1% to $0.70/$0.97.
Valuation: $9.00 Price Target, Buy Rating
Our 12-month price target of $9.00 (13x our $0.70 2012 non-GAAP EPS
estimate) is based on our DCF model assumptions: 2.9% 10-year sales CAGR,
8.0% long-term operating margin, 12% WACC and 2% terminal growth rate.
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Was sagt uns das?
Analysten sind natürlich auch nur Menschen und stochern(berufsmäßig) auf der Suche nach der Zukunft dabei auch nur im Dunkeln wie wir. Es heißt in Anlehnung an eine Kostolany-Weisheit:Nicht Analysten machen Kurse, sondern Kurse machen Analysen.
Oder auch: Ein Analyst bringt den Senf, wenn die Wurst gegessen ist. - Nachdem AMD wider deren Erwartungen nicht gewarnt hatte,schreiben sie kurzerhand angepasstere,freundlichere Einschätzungen.
Kurs entwickelt sich ja sehr gut.Wenn Intel morgen eine recht freundliche Prognose abgibt,schafft AMD wohl bis zum 24. sicher die 7$. Eine erste Etappe, nach den Zahlen geht es ja vermutlich wieder abwärts. Wie fast immer.
Allerdings:
“Time to buy semis aggressively” schreibt heute eine J.P.Morgan-Analyst
Mal sehen.
Randomizer