Chipmaker AMD has announced its Q3 earnings and the outfit was happy to report that it managed to stay in the black despite some rather bleak forecasts.

AMD managed to beat analysts’ expectations and raked up $1.69 billion in revenue with 4.5 percent of growth, topping the $1.65 billion estimate. AMD’s new CEO Rory Read attributed the good showing to the success of AMD mobile APUs, which gained market share in developing markets.

“We are already seeing steady improvements. But we are not out of the woods yet,” he said.

AMD’s Q3 net income was $97 million, a major improvement year-on-year, since the outfit lost $118 in Q3 2010. Per share, AMD’s profit was 13 cents, well over the 9 cent estimates compiled by Bloomberg. AMD hopes to deliver sales between $1.71 and $1.77 billion in Q4, with sequential growth of between 1 and 5 percent.

The positive results seem to have surprised the market and AMD shares gained by about 5 percent following the report. One has to wonder whether the results would have been even better had Llano not been plagued by yield issues since its introduction.