AMD will target the booming tablet PC market after the company's chief executive admitted Apple's iPad was biting into netbook and laptop sales.
Speaking during a conference call to announce the company's less-than-expected losses, Dirk Meyer admitted the company could no longer ignore the burgeoning slate market.
“Clearly, in the last quarter or two, the tablet has represented a disruption in the notebook market,” Meyer said. “If you ask five people in the industry, you'll get five different answers as to what degree there's been cannibalisation by tablets of either netbooks or notebooks."
“I personally think the answer is both," he said. "Given the pretty high price points of the iPad, there's probably some cannibalisation even of mainstream notebooks. We still believe in the long term that this presents market opportunities for companies like AMD.”
Ideally, Meyer said, tablets would use chips drawing only 3W of power, but manufacturers might use more power-hungry AMD chips that were currently powering fanless netbooks.
The attention on the tablet space marks a change of stance for a company that earlier this year played down the potential for the iPad.
The news came as AMD announced revenue for the third quarter of 2010 of $1.62 billion, and a net loss of $118 million.
-1.jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
.png&w=100&c=1&s=0)
