Chipmaker AMD revealed in their Q4 Earnings Call that this console generation has been incredibly strong, with the company’s cumulative unit shipments surpassing $100 million during the fourth quarter. Those units are semi-custom processors that are used to power a vast majority of the gaming consoles that exist right now. This includes chips for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and even the Steam Deck. Although this is a huge milestone for AMD, it was unfortunately overshadowed by their revenue totals in the Earnings Call.
It was said that AMD gaming revenue was down by 59% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. AMD’s gaming segment made $563 million in the three-month period ending December 2024. When comparing it to the year before, it was a pretty massive drop. The company made $1.4 billion in gaming revenue in the same period in 2024. However, revenue as a whole for AMD was a record $7.7 billion, growing 24% year over year, with the growth coming from the Data Center and Client segments.
However, it’s said that annual revenue in the Data Center segment nearly doubled, and Client Segment revenue grew by 52%, which helped offset the declines from the Gaming segments. CEO Lisa Su said that she expects gaming revenue to continue to be down from the previous quarter but not as significant a decline as other parts of the business. Looking into the future, Lisa says that channel inventories have normalized, with semi-custom sales returning to historical patterns.
The Earnings Call also mentioned the plans for the next year in the AMD gaming segment. Lisa Su goes on to say, “Our focus with this generation is to address the highest volume portion of the enthusiast gaming market with our new RDNA 4 architecture. RDNA 4 delivers significantly better ray tracing performance and adds support for AI-powered upscaling technology that will bring high-quality 4K gaming to mainstream players.”
It’s expected that there will be “modest increases” in the Gaming and Embedded businesses. For the 2025 financial reports, AMD plans to combine the client and the gaming segment into a single segment. It’s also been said that revenue is expected to be approximately “$7.1 billion plus or minus $300 million, up 30% year-over-year, driven by strong growth in our data center and the client business.”
While AMD had a successful fourth quarter of 2024, it has been mentioned multiple times that revenue is expected to decline in the gaming segment, which other areas of the company will offset. However, with the rise of handheld gaming PCs, AMD may end up in a better position than it once thought. Especially with the potential of a new Steam console being released, which will most likely utilize AMD.
