Microsoft isn’t the only tech company setting records this month. Despite the global recession, Intel beat the street with its third-quarter earnings report that has investors watching. The chipmaker’s revenue exceeded $11 billion for the first time ever. Up 18 percent year over year, Intel posted $11.1 billion in revenues, operating income of $4.1 billion, and net income of $3 billion, or 52 cents per share.
Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO, said the record-breaking results were driven by solid demand from corporate customers, sales of its leadership products, and continued growth in emerging markets.
“Looking forward, we continue to see healthy worldwide demand for computing products of all types,” he said, “and are particularly excited about our next-generation processor, code-named Sandy Bridge, and the many new designs around our Intel Atom processors in everything from the new Google TV products to a wide array of tablets based on Windows, Android and MeeGo operating systems.”
Across-the-Board Growth
Intel posted nearly across-the-board growth in the third quarter. PC client group revenue was up three percent, with record mobile microprocessor revenue. The data-center group revenue was also up three percent, with record server microprocessor revenue.
One area of weakness was Atom. Intel saw Atom microprocessor and chipset revenue of $396 million, down four percent from the second quarter. The average selling price for microprocessors was flat, but still up significantly year over year. The gross margin was 66 percent.
Intel continued to invest heavily in research and development, spending $3.2 billion in the quarter. However, Intel’s net gain from equity investments and interest was $115 million, lower than the company’s revised expectation of $175 million.
An IT Industry Win
Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, expects to see Intel continue this momentum. Indeed, Intel’s outlook for the fourth quarter sees revenue at $11.4 billion, plus or minus…