As chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) released its fourth-quarter financial results today at 5pm EST, the company's latest numbers came as no surprise to those listening to the results live. The second-largest chipmaker behind Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC) said that it ended up with a fourth-quarter loss due to acquisition-related charges and a continuing price war -- and that price war took a heavy toll on AMD's margins (like it always does).

AMD had a net loss of $574 million, or $1.08 a share, in the fourth quarter, and attributed $1.04 of the loss to its recent acquisition of graphics chipmaker Allegheny Technologies (NYSE:ATI). With the estimation being EPS of $0.10 -- and with AMD delivering $0.04 after the ATI deal was taken out -- investors were shaken a bit. As a result, AMD shares slipped $0.06 to sit around the $17.45 mark in after-hours trading.

But, AMD's sales in the fourth quarter were about in line with analysts' reduced expectations, as AMD delivered sales of $1.77 billion for the quarter with estimates before the announcement being $1.73 billion.

As BusinessWeek and BloggingStocks previewed previously, AMD did not have a good quarter in terms of profits even though sales were up a decent amount. But, like I always say, sales are meaningless if the profits aren't there. After all, business is about making money -- not just sales.

Also check out some other earnings reports that we're following, and let us know your thoughts on earnings expectations.

AMD's latest quarterly earnings no surprise originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 23 Jan 2007 18:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.