Intel’s data centre revenue from enterprise and government customers took a major hit in the third quarter, dropping by 47 percent year on year.
Chipzilla was swift to blame the coronavirus claiming it also hurt its IoT and memory businesses, but Wall Street was not believing these dog ate my homework excuses, as the company’s stock price dropped by more than nine percent in after hours trading Thursday.
Intel said that despite a per cent decline, its $18.3 billion in third-quarter revenue was above guidance the company gave back in July — and $40 million higher than Wall street’s expectations. The company’s earnings per share of $1.11 was in line with what analysts were looking for.
The results prompted Intel to upgrade its outlook for its full-year forecast to $75.3 billion, which would constitute a five percent increase over 2019.
Intel CEO Bob Swan said the company’s new forecast is $1.8 billion higher than what the company expected back in January, “even as COVID has significantly impacted our business mix”.
“2020 has been the most challenging year in my career — with a global pandemic, geopolitical tensions challenging business principles of globalization and social unrest”, he said in the earnings call. “Despite all this, we expect to deliver the best year in our storied 52-year history.”
