Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is selling its Texas campus as a result of the sluggish PC market.
Chip maker AMD said it will sell and lease back its 58-acre Austin, Texas campus for $150 million to $200 million. It hopes to close the deal in Q2 2013.
This isn’t the first sign of AMD’s struggles. In Q3 2012, the company’s cash declined $279 million to $1.48 billion. Research firm Gimme Credit also downgraded its rating for AMD from “stable” to “deteriorating.” Furthermore, it has been laying off engineers (about 15 percent of its workforce in October 2012) as it attempts to save some cash.
Why the troubles? Mainly because 85 percent of AMD’s business relies on the PC market, and the PC market has been taking a hard hit in recent years.
Since the introduction of mobile gadgets like the smartphone and tablet, PCs have seen a strong decline in sales. Consumers want mobility, and these gadgets combine the power of PCs with the convenience of mobility. Hence, PCs have been down in the dumps.
AMD is currently looking to sneak into other markets in order to stay afloat. In late October, the chip maker announced it was making 64-bit ARM processors for multiple markets. It’s starting with its Piledriver Opteron 6300 Series, which will replace the Bulldozer-equipped Opteron 6200 Series.
Just this month, Reuters claimed that AMD was pursuing a sale, but AMD denied it. It’s currently looking into its options, but a sale isn’t No. 1 on the list.
Intel has been in the same PC slump as AMD, but seems to be doing better through these hard times. It posted a better-than-expected $3 billion USD profit in Q3 2012, and has been working hard on its 22 nm Haswell architecture to rival the likes of AMD. Haswell will launch in 2013.