AMD Smashes Q1 Earnings As Profit More Than Quadruples Year-Over-Year
AMD just delivered its biggest Q1 earnings in the history of the company, with revenue increasing 36% year-over-year to $7.44 billion. Even more impressive, AMD's net income tallied $709 billion, for an impressive 47% sequential gain and a mind-boggling 476% jump year-over-year. At this point, AMD is pretty much firing on all cylinders, save for embedded, the only category to show some slippage.
That's understandable, given that major consoles like Microsoft's Xbox Series X|S and Sony's PlayStation 5 are fast approaching five years on the market. The embedded segment is also AMD's lowest earner—it notched $823 million in revenue in Q1, which is down 11% sequentially and 3% year-over-year.
AMD's data center dollars more than made up for the slippage. Its biggest earner, the data center raked in $3.67 billion in Q1, which is actually down 5% sequentially but up a healthy 57% year-over-year. It will be interesting to see how the data center performs in the current quarter with AMD having just completed its acquisition of ZT Systems (on March 31, 2025) and tariffs looming large. For Q1, however, AMD rode a ramp in its fifth-generation EPIC Turin processors and "sustained demand" for its fourth-gen EPYC chips.
"We delivered an outstanding start to 2025 as year-over-year growth accelerated for the fourth consecutive quarter driven by strength in our core businesses and expanding data center and AI momentum," said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD chair and CEO. "Despite the dynamic macro and regulatory environment, our first quarter results and second quarter outlook highlight the strength of our differentiated product portfolio and consistent execution positioning us well for strong growth in 2025."
Meanwhile, AMD's combined client and gaming division added another $2.94 billion to the pile, which is a 2% bump from the previous quarter and a 28% spike from last year. This division encompasses a swath of desktop and laptop consumer processors, like AMD's ever-expanding stack of Ryzen chips, and its Radeon graphics cards, the most recent of which are the additions of the Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 (non-XT) to its GPU lineup.
"We delivered record client CPU ASP driven by a richer mix of high-end desktop and mobile Ryzen processors. Desktop channel sellout increased by more than 50% year-over-year. We set new sellout records in multiple regions as our latest generation Ryzen processors became the CPU of choice for gamers, topping bestseller lists at leading global retailers," Dr. Su stated during an earnings call.
The big question, of course, is how will AMD navigate the fluid tariffs situation. Only time will tell, but at least on the client side, Dr. Su noted, "We have not seen a lot of tariff-related activity in that business." At the same time, Dr. Su acknowledged that there are "some uncertainties as it relates to tariffs and other things," but she's confident on AMD's ability to weather the storm by leaning on its overall infrastructure and investments into AI.
"As we go through the year, I know there's a good amount of conversation about what happens in the macro and what happens with tariffs and does that change things going forward. We are spending quite a bit of time ensuring that we are aligning with our customers, looking at inventory levels, looking at sort of consumption and overall sell-through. And we believe that we have a good overall inventory position," Dr. Su added.
Looking ahead, AMD states in its earnings report that it anticipates another $7.4 billion quarter in Q2, plus or minus $300 million.
