Intel Q3 Profit Tops Street, Lifts FY Outlook

(RTTNews) - Intel Corp. (INTC), the world's biggest chipmaker, Thursday reported an increase in profit for the third quarter that also trumped Wall Street estimates, as revenues grew 19 percent. The company also lifted its outlook for the full year.

Santa Clara, California-based Intel's third-quarter profit rose to $6.40 billion or $1.38 per share from $4.52 billion or $0.94 per share last year.

Adjusted earnings for the quarter were $1.40 per share, up from $1.01 per share. On average, 31 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $1.15 per share for the quarter.

Intel's revenues for the quarter rose 19 percent to $19.16 billion from $16.15 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $18.11 billion for the quarter.

Revenue growth was driven by broad business strength and customer preference for performance-leading products, the company said in a statement. Data center group revenues grew 26 percent to $6.1 billion, while internet of things group rose 8 percent to $919 million, memory business increased 21 percent to $1.1 billion and programmable solutions group grew 6 percent to $496 million. PC-centric revenue was up 16 percent to $10.2 billion.

Intel, popular for its chips for computers, now focuses to transition away from being a computer-based company to a company that "powers the cloud and billions of connected computing devices."

Intel sees data center and Internet of Things (IoT) businesses as its primary growth engines, which now contributed a significant chunk of revenues and operating profit, helping it mask negative effects from the PC segment.

CFO Bob Swan said, "Stronger than expected customer demand across our PC and data-centric businesses continued in the third quarter. This drove record revenue and another raise to our full-year outlook, which is now up more than six billion dollars from our January expectations. We are thrilled that in a highly competitive market, customers continue to choose Intel."

Looking forward to the fourth quarter, Intel expects revenues of about $19 billion and adjusted earnings of around $1.22 per share. Analysts currently estimate earnings of $1.09 per share and revenues of $18.39 billion.

For the full year 2018, Intel now expects revenues of about $71.2 billion and adjusted earnings of about $4.53 per share. Earlier, the company predicted revenues of $69.5 billion, plus or minus $1.0 billion. Analysts currently estimate earnings of $4.16 per share on revenues $69.54 billion.

INTC closed Thursday's trading at $44.31, up $1.89 or 4.46%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $1.53 or 3.45% in the after-hours trade.