Intel profit falls 35 percent

The company beats analysts' estimates, but still falls far short of its results last year

Following layoffs and executive shuffles, Intel reports a third quarter profit of US$1.3 billion (NZ$1.96 billion), beating analysts' estimates, but still falling far short of its results last year.

The company reported revenue of US$8.7 billion, thanks in large part to the sale of 6 million of its new Core Microarchitecture chips for notebook PCs and servers. That generated earnings of US$0.22 per share, stronger than the prediction of US$0.18 per share earnings on revenue of US$8.62 billion, according to analysts polled by Thomson Financial.

The numbers were down 35% compared to Intel's profit in the third quarter of 2005, and down 12% compared to past revenue. In the same quarter last year, Intel earned US$0.32 per share on revenue of US$9.96 billion.

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini admitted in April that the company would miss its annual earnings target as it lost market share to rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) while worldwide PC growth slowed.

Since then, he laid off 10,500 people in September, shrinking the company by 10% in the culmination of a six-month reorganisation that included an executive shuffle, the dismissal of 1,000 middle managers, and the sale of two business units. He also accelerated the launch of the Core 2 Duo family of chips, as well as the "Tulsa" and "Montecito" Itanium server chips. He also pulled the launch date for the earliest quad-core chips into November instead of the first quarter of 2007.