AMD CEO says iPad is killing mobile market sales

AMD Chief Executive Dirk Meyer has been measuring the impact that Apple's iPad has had on netbooks and notebook sales. His final conclusion was that the tablet has been killing both. AMD are also waiting on more market development before committing R&D resources to developing tablet processors.

Meyer said in an earnings call yesterday that “Clearly, in the last quarter or two, the tablet has represented a disruption in the notebook market, If you ask five people in the industry, you'll get five different answers as to what degree there's been cannibalization by tablets of either netbooks or notebooks. I personally think the answer is both, and given the pretty high price points of the iPad, there's probably some cannibalization even of mainstream notebooks.”

AMD posted a loss of $118 million for the quarter, not quite as bad as last years Q3 losses of $128 million. They are hoping that the new 6000 series launch will help generate more revenue with people upgrading their video cards to new models.

Meyer is not dismissing the tablet market potential, as they are still only second in x86 sales behind Intel. “Even though tablets like Apple's iPad are eating into demand for laptops, AMD will hold off on investing to develop microprocessors for that market until it grows more, Frankly we're still so small in the notebook market that given all of the opportunities in front of us it doesn't make sense for us to start turning R&D dollar spending towards the tablet market yet” Reuters reports Meyer as saying.

KitGuru says: AMD are hedging their bets right now to see how the market develops. Perhaps it is a wise move.

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