The cryptocurrency mining industry is spread all over the world and includes everyone from small miners with a few GPUs at home to vast datacenters with both ASICs and racks of endless GPUs. As such, one of the best ways to get an overall view of the market is via the chip suppliers. And the latest report by AMD shows the demand for mining capacity remained strong in early 2018, despite a slump from the price highs of 2017.
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10% of $1.65 Billion Revenue
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) has announced on Wednesday its revenue for the first quarter of 2018 at $1.65 billion, operating income of $120 million, net income of $81 million, and diluted earnings per share of $0.08. This represents very strong performance by the chip company, which is helped by continued demand for cryptocurrency mining. “The first quarter was an outstanding start to 2018 with 40 percent year-over-year revenue growth,” said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO.
In the earnings call with analysts following the latest report, AMD shared more about the impact of mining on its bottom line. The company’s Chief Financial Officer Devinder Kumar said: “The strength in Radeon products was driven by both gaming and blockchain demand. We believe blockchain was approximately 10% of AMD revenue in Q1 2018.”
PoS Not a Concern
With such a significant impact on AMD’s revenue, analysts naturally focused on the company’s position on crypto mining. Answering a question by Timothy Arcuri of UBS Securities, the CEO explained how a drop in demand for mining GPUs for one cryptocurrency will not hurt the company. She said: “I think, most people are comparing sort of this blockchain time
