“We don’t lower CPU shipments to keep prices up”

Lisa Su’s controversial statements after presenting AMD financial data for the last quarter of the year and year-on-year are making headlines everywhere. The low forecasts for this new quarter and the fact that they are not going to hire so many wafers from TSMC gave rise to the idea that the reduction was intentional to maintain or increase prices. Now, AMD responds to these high prices.

Some statements that tried to be honest, but that left the door open to speculation, which, depending on the country where you look at, can be interpreted in one way or another. The truth is that AMD’s Vice President of Communications has come to the fore to try to calm things down and shed a little more light.

The accusation towards AMD and what is to come

Some results that could have been worse, without a doubt, and a summary of it a bit confusing by AMD, which put the patch before the wound, but was optimistic for this 2023. Lisa Su’s final statements when asked by various people they set fire to the rest of the wood that was to be burned:

So, we’ve been selling sort of direct sales or consumption for the last two quarters in an attempt to get that back to normal as soon as possible. […] We undershipped in the third quarter [2022]we undershipped in the fourth quarter [2022]. We will subcontract, to a lesser extent, in the first quarter [2023].

Seen this way, many of us thought that an artificial scarcity was being created to keep prices high precisely when demand is at rock bottom… But as we are going to see next, AMD has a somewhat different opinion on this whole issue, and wanted to silence the rumors with statements that… May result in more fuel to the fire.

Andrew Prairie on stage, is AMD telling the truth about high prices?

It has been at PCWorld where AMD’s Vice President of Communications, Drew Prairie has released the following message:

We are shipping below consumption and demand because there is too much inventory in the channel and partners want to have lower levels of inventory based on the demand they see and their expectations for their business. The idea that we are doing this to keep prices “up” is not accurate. Our ASP client [Precio de venta promedio] it was flat year-over-year, and that’s due to the mix of CPUs shipped.

If we look at any price comparator or any website with a tracking history, we will see that prices have gone down in general, except for a few models. Drew’s arguments all they do is point to the dealersbut he does not directly deny what is stated by forums around the world, although he comments that prices have remained stable in general.

The real problem is not even that, since it is speculated that AMD tightened the price rope by raising it since its official presentation (Ryzen 7000). Why is that thought? Firstly, because of Lisa Su’s statements, and secondly, because with any price history it can be seen, in many countries (let’s forget USA for this) that the price of certain models has fallen since the 110 euroup to more than 150 euros.

Likewise, this does not invalidate what AMD said, so the controversy as to whether they are right or lying is still there, and we may never know. Did AMD try to set prices high on purpose by inflating them? Why is the price falling so much in such a short time? Everyone will have their opinion, but without a doubt it is a controversial issue like few others, mainly because from the start it could have played the trick of drop the price of the Ryzen 7000 (as they are now) and smash Intel, but it didn’t…