As AMD Trades In Record Territory, Here's A Look At The Chipmaker's Run To $100B Market Cap

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD shares picked up momentum following the release of the chipmaker's quarterly results last week.

AMD Rises With Ryzen: AMD shares were locked in a lackluster trading range from 2008 to 2016, reflecting fundamental weakness. 

The turnaround came with the launch of the Ryzen lineup x86-64 microprocessors for desktop, mobile, servers and embedded platforms.
AMD lifted the curtains on the Ryzen processors at its "New Horizon" summit in December 2016. The second-gen Ryzen processors based on the Zen+ microarchitecture were announced in April 2018.

Rivalry With Intel Turns In AMD's Favor: AMD was losing market share against Intel, Inc. INTC in the x86 CPU market until the third quarter of 2016.

The smaller rival began to fight back with its Ryzen processors and the gap between the two began to narrow.

AMD's market share swelled from 17.5% in the third quarter of 2016 to 60.6% in the first quarter of 2021. In the same time period, Intel's share fell from 82.5% to 60.6%.

Not all credit goes to AMD: the company was partly helped by Intel's product missteps.

AMD has also made strong inroads into the server processor market with its EPYC processors. Added to that, data center and gaming processor revenues are also seeing a strong upward trajectory.

AMD's second-quarter results exemplifies the momentum the Santa Clara, California-based company is experiencing. The company generated record quarterly revenues for the fourth quarter and beat Street expectations on all metrics.

Related Link: Intel Analyst Turns Bearish As Rival AMD Charges Forward

AMD Hits $100B Market Cap Mid-Pandemic: AMD shares ran up strongly in 2020, a year when the COVID-19 pandemic boosted demand for computers and gadgets needed in the work-at-home and study-at-home environment.

The stock doubled during the year before ending at $91.71. The $100-billion market cap milestone was achieved on Aug. 4, 2020. The stock's valuation now stands at around $128.70 billion.

AMD began trading over the counter in 1972 following the offering of 620,000 shares at $15.50 each. The stock debuted on the NYSE Oct. 1979, and the listing was transferred to the Nasdaq in January 2015.

The chipmaker took 48 years to reach a market cap of $100 billion. After listing on the Nasdaq, AMD took about five-and-a-half years to achieve the $100-billion market cap.

The Way Forward For AMD: Analysts are optimistic about AMD making further market share gains.

"Since Intel's recent roadmap indicates that AMD will be working with a transistor advantage at least through 2024, we think AMD simply needs to continue doing what they're doing and the market share will come their way," Raymond James analyst Chris Caso said in a recent note.

Rosenblatt analyst Hans Mosesmann said he sees execution, total addressable market, roadmap and a benign competitive environment as tailwinds for AMD.

AMD Price Action: At last check, AMD shares were up 2.58% at $108.90. 

Related Link: AMD Consolidates Ahead Of Earnings Print

Photo: an AMD processor.