Yeterday, AMD reported that in the first quarter of 2008 they had $1.505 billion, with a net loss of $358 million or $0.59 per share. AMD’s operating loss was $264 million. Revenue was down 15% over last quarter, and up 22% from first quarter last year. AMD reported income of $1.77 billion last quarter, with a net loss of $1.772 billion. In first quarter 2007 AMD reported revenue of $1.233 billion with a net loss of $611 million.

How a company like AMD can continue to stay in business with continued losses like this is beyond me. I think it explains why many executives are jumping ship. Anyone have any ideas on how a company can lose more money than their revenue for a quarter and still stay in business? I mean seriously, what is it going to take before they oust Hector Ruiz? In just six years he’s taken AMD from a notably growing company with Athlon prowess to a consistently money losing affair. Does anyone remember the huge lead AMD had in the 64-bit migration before Intel announced they’d secretly been working on Yamhill? It was about a 16 month lead, if memory serves.

AMD had so much going for it. Today it seems that all they can do is lose money. If anyone has alternate takes on the situation, I’d really like to hear them.

Read the full financial breakdown on AMD’s website. AMD’s stock price remained fairly unchanged following the news, at $6.17 at the time of this writing, down $0.02 from yesterday’s close. In fact, AMD’s stock price is up on the week. Go figure.

Note: Earlier this week Intel disclosed their Q1 results, with $1.4 billion net income on $2.2 billion in operating income. Intel’s stock price is up over $1.00, currently at $22.58 following the disclosure earlier this week.

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