AMD CEO Lisa Su told partners that the chipmaker has a “world-class global supply chain” and is “well positioned today to continue to execute well” in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
In an email to partners, sent Thursday evening, Su underlined the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company’s commitment to the health and safety of employees, customers and communities and said the company is doing everything in its power to “support the evolving demand environment” and partners’ priorities.
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“We take great pride in the fact that, together with you our partners, we provide technology and products that are needed now more than ever,” Su said. “Today, people are working safely and productively at home on AMD-powered laptops, using services running on AMD-powered servers, and searching for medical breakthroughs on AMD-powered supercomputers. We don’t take this responsibility lightly.”
Su’s email was sent only hours after Intel CEO Bob Swan told partners and customers that the tech industry is “more essential now than it has ever been” and that the semiconductor giant has been delivering products on time at a rate of more than 90 percent. While Intel continues to dominate the market for x86 processors in servers and PCs, AMD now has double-digit share on the client side. Unlike Intel, AMD relies on third-party foundries like Taiwan-based TSMC to manufacture all of its products.
In the email, Su said AMD partners should not hesitate to reach out to local field teams with any questions or concerns as transparency in the ecosystem is paramount.
“We will stay focused on delivering on our commitments to you,” she said. “We will communicate frequently and transparently so that as an ecosystem, we can manage our businesses well.”
Above all, however, Su said the health and safety of AMD’s employees and partners are the company’s top priorities. As such, the company is “following guidelines from local government and public health authorities around the world and implementing best practices to keep our operations running effectively,” according to the CEO.
“We remain committed to being a strong and dependable partner to you and your teams as this dynamic situation unfolds,” Su said.
Earlier in the month, before the COVID-19 coronavirus was classified as a pandemic, Su said the company expected a “modest” impact on revenue, though not enough to change its forecasts.
However, a new report by research firm IDC this week stated that global semiconductor revenues are likely to decline 3 to 6 percent in 2020 as a result of the virus, with the market for PCs, smartphones and tablets expected to take a larger hit than the data center market.
Randy Copeland, CEO of Velocity Micro, a Richmond, Va.-based system builder and AMD partner, told CRN on Thursday that the big question faced by tech companies is how long the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to mitigate it will last, which will have major implications for future buying trends.
“That’s the real question. Because depending on who you listen to and who you look at, we’re still three weeks away from our peak [number of confirmed cases],” he said. “That means we’re not going to be back at work in three weeks.”
