Confident Intel raises full-year revenue outlook by $1.3bn

Following a successful quarter, chipmaker Intel has raised revenue outlook across the full-year owing to solid performances in AI and driverless tech.

Quarterly figures were looking pretty impressive too. Total revenue was reported at $14.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9%, while net income stood at $2.8 billion, up 11% year-on-year. The team now expect to clock up $15.7 billion in the next quarter (plus or minus $500 million, because we regularly misplace change as well).

“Q2 was an outstanding quarter with revenue and profits growing double digits over last year,” said CEO Brian Krzanich, CEO. “We also launched new Intel Core, Xeon and memory products that reset the bar for performance leadership, and we’re gaining customer momentum in areas like AI and autonomous driving. With industry-leading products and strong first-half results, we’re on a clear path to another record year.”

Krzanich sounds confident, and it would appear not just to be a PR soundbite either. The team is raising its full-year revenue outlook by $1.3 billion to $61.3 billion to add some weight and confidence to moves it has made in recent months. Investors will also breathe a bit easier, as Intel has faced some tough competition in recent months, namely from Qualcomm in mobile, Nvidia in AI and Advanced Micro Devices in PC.

While the team has been grappling with a declining PC market, the significant bets it has made elsewhere do seem to be paying off. Ambitions in powering data centres and autonomous vehicles do seem to becoming a reality, though the latter is still very much in the early days. The Mobileye acquisition will certainly help things along here, though this is a space many of the leading tech companies are vying for.

Looking at the specific business units, the Client Computing Group registered $8.2 billion, an increase of 12% compared to the same quarter in 2016, while the Data Center Group was up 9% to $4.4 billion, the Internet of Things Group shot up 26% to $720 million and the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group jumped a notable 58% to $874 million.

The only dampener for this party was the Programmable Solutions Group. Here, performance was in the negative, 5% down, taking revenues to $440 million. That said, there is a shining light here, as the group will receive a nice little boost from Audi, after reports the car manufacturer would be using the group’s processors in its efforts to drive towards Level Three autonomy.