AMD’s Earnings Increase 73%

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Tuesday that third-quarter profit rose 73% because of sales of chips used in laptop and server computers.

Net income rose to $76 million, or 18 cents a share, from $43.85 million, or 12 cents, a year ago, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said. Sales in the quarter ended Sept. 25 increased 23% to $1.52 billion from $1.24 billion.

AMD, the No. 2 maker of personal-computer processors, was expected to have a profit of 8 cents a share, according to analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Revenue was expected to increase to $1.38 billion.

Chief Executive Hector Ruiz introduced higher-value products including the Opteron server chip and Turion laptop processor that have helped AMD gain ground on Intel Corp. Some analysts raised their forecasts in the last week, citing higher prices of flash memory chips used in cellphones and demand for server chips.

AMD shares rose 89 cents to $24before the results. They dipped to $23.60 after hours.