Intel soars on big earnings beat

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The Intel logo is displayed outside of the Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif.
Intel stock rose as much as 6 percent but later pared back some of its gains Thursday after the company reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings.
The company will hold a conference call to discuss the results with analysts at 5 p.m. Eastern time.
Here are the key numbers:
Earnings: $1.40 per share, excluding certain items, vs. $1.15 per share expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.Revenue: $19.16 billion, vs. $18.11 billion as expected by analysts, according to Reuters.Intel’s revenue was up 19 percent year over year, according to a statement. That’s stronger from the 2 percent growth in the third quarter of 2017.
Looking ahead, Intel forecasted 1.22 in earnings per share, excluding certain items, on $19 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter. Analysts were expecting fourth-quarter earnings of $1.09 per share, excluding certain items, on $18.39 billion in revenue, according to Refinitiv.
Intel raised its guidance for the full year to $4.53 in earnings per share, excluding certain items, on $71.2 billion in revenue. Analysts were expecting $4.16 in earnings per share, excluding certain items, on $69.54 billion in revenue, according to Refinitiv.
Intel’s biggest business segment, the Client Computing Group, reached $10.23 billion in revenue in the second quarter, easily surpassing the FactSet analyst consensus of $9.33 billion.
The second-largest Intel segment, the Data Center Group, generated $6.14 billion in revenue, which is above the $5.89 billion estimate.
And Intel’s Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group came in under the $1.14 billion revenue estimate, producing $1.08 billion in revenue.
Intel shares have dropped 3.2 percent this year, while most large tech companies have notched gains and the Nasdaq has risen 6.6 percent. Brian Krzanich resigned as CEO in June, and Intel has been searching for his replacement.
Meanwhile, the company has been delayed in deploying technology for future generations of chips, though it’s moving forward on 10-nanometer chips, which are expected to be more power efficient than past processors.
“We are making good progress on 10nm,” the company said in a tweet earlier this week. “Yields are improving consistent with the timeline we shared during our last earnings report.”
The status of the 10-nanometer process will likely be of central importance to analysts on the call, along with the CEO search, the opportunity for growth in the data center market and gross margin potential in 2019, analysts Stacy Rasgon and James Williams at Bernstein Research wrote in a note to clients on Monday.
In the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, Intel announced new eighth-generation PC chips, acquired NetSpeed Systems and disclosed details about chip security vulnerabilities.
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