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Intel announces Q3 results

by on14 October 2009


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Biggest quarterly jump in 30 years


Intel has
announced its Q3 earnings and there are some rather encouraging developments to report. The chipmaker has been Wall Street's tech bellwether for decades, and this time around it exceeded even the most optimistic forecasts, which will no doubt have a positive impact on the tech industry in general.

Basically, Intel reported the biggest quarterly revenue increase in almost three decades. Its Q3 sales were up 17 percent sequentially, for a total of $9.4 billion revenues with $1.9 billion profits. Mind you, year-on-year revenues are still down, but Intel's swift recovery seems to be surprising analysts and Wall Street alike. What's more, Microsoft will soon launch Windows 7. The launch should boost demand for PCs and upgrades, but both Intel and Microsoft are cautious about any optimistic forecasts. Consumers should start migrating, and hence upgrading, within weeks, but it will take many months for businesses to get ready for the transition.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini pointed out that Intel's main strength was mainly consumer driven. Corporate demand remains weak, but Intel obviously managed to compensate with more consumer oriented platforms, such as Atom and CULV. The market for servers and high end business solutions will obviously take a lot more time to recover. Intel's recently introduced Core i5 platform has brought the new Core desktop architecture within grasp of the average consumer, and demand seems healthy.

Atom sales were up 15 percent to $415 million, which is a rather good result considering we're talking about a 15 month old platform. Still, this was slightly lower than the 19 percent growth reported by Intel's mobile division. Intel will launch next-gen Atom chips in late Q4, but in the meantime it will also revamp its CULV platform with new dual-core parts scheduled to coincide with the Windows 7 launch. The first Core i7 notebooks have also started to appear, but we will have to wait for Intel's new 32nm parts to see a fast transition to the new architecture.
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