Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) traded higher Monday after analysts at BMO Capital Markets boosted their rating and target price for the chipamaker amid an improving earnings backdrop and market share gains against its rival.
In what he described as a 'mea culpa' note on the chipmaker, BMO Capital Markets analyst Ambrish Srivastava raised his rating on AMD by one notch, to 'outperform' and boosted his price target by $30, to $110 per share, citing an improved valuation, better-than-expected 2022 earnings growth and consistent market shares gains against its main rival Intel INTC.
"More importantly, with respect to estimates, we also believe there is continued upward bias as we go through the year. Especially as AMD starts to ramp designs it has already won on the datacenter side, from the HPC to enterprise, including CPUs and GPUs," said xxxx. "While anticipated, we do not believe these wins are appropriately reflected incurrent estimates."
"With respect to share gains in CPU vs. Intel, we still believe that the rate of share gains will moderate next year vs. Intel, as Intel builds on its Icelake platform and rolls out Sapphire Rapids," he added. "However, AMD has now executed and delivered to a point that it has carved out a position as a viable alternative to Intel for the foreseeable future."
AMD shares were marked 0.5% higher in early trading Monday, against a 0.05% move lower for the Nasdaq, to change hands at $110.75 each, a move that would extend the stock's year-to-date gain to around 20.7%.
Last month, AMD posted a99% year-on-year surge in second quarter revenuesthat drove a stronger-than-expected bottom line of 63 cents per share.
The computing and graphics segment, which covers GPU and PC CPU sales, saw revenue total $2.25 billion, up 65% year-over-year and 7% quarter-over-quarter driven by higher client and graphics processor sales.
Enterprise, embedded and semi-custom segment revenue was $1.60 billion, up 183% year-over-year and 19% quarter-over-quarter. The increases were driven by higher EPYC processor revenue and semi-custom product sales, the company said.
For the full year 2021, AMD now expects revenue growth of about 60%, up from prior guidance of roughly 50%, driven by strong growth across all businesses.