Chipmaker Intel (INTC.O) posted a surprise quarterly profit as a PC market slump started to ease, and forecast third-quarter earnings above Wall Street expectations, sending its shares up about 6%.
The market for personal computers has tumbled over the past year, with inventory piling up because consumers had already bought machines needed during the pandemic.
But the glut has started to ease, with PC shipments falling only 11.5% in the June quarter compared to a 30% slump in each of the previous two quarters, Canalys data showed.
The PC market improvement prompted Intel to forecast better margins for the third quarter. Its margins in recent quarters were nearly half its historical highs, but Intel said on Thursday it expects profit margins to improve in the second half of the year.
“Intel did outperform almost exclusively on the strength of desktop sales which rebounded from a near-record low last quarter,” said Edward Snyder, analyst at Charter Equity Research.
Intel’s stock rally added nearly $9 billion to the company’s market value, which in recent years has fallen far below that of rivals including Nvidia (NVDA.O), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) and Broadcom (AVGO.O).
After over four consecutive quarters of deep declines across its biggest segment that includes personal computers, revenue dropped 12% to $6.8 billion, from $7.7 billion in the year-ago period.
“There’s a lot of interest in the industry for advanced packaging, because it is essential to deliver high-performance computing and AI,” Gelsinger said. “So we expect a lot more business coming our way in that area.”
On Tuesday, the company said it would work with Swedish telecommunications gear maker Ericsson (ERICb.ST) on a chip that Intel will fabricate with its most advanced manufacturing technology it has disclosed.
