Processors Toolkit

Intel revenue higher than expected

Michael Kanellos, CNET News.com CNet

Published: 16 Jan 2002 09:55 GMT

Intel closed out a difficult 2001 by reporting revenue and earnings for the fourth quarter that were higher than expected.

The Santa Clara, California-based chipmaking giant said it achieved net income of $504m (£352m), or 7 cents a share, in the fourth quarter on revenue of $7bn.

Excluding acquisition costs, net income came to $998m, or 15 cents in earnings per share. A consensus of Wall Street analysts expected the company to report 11 cents in earnings per share, excluding acquisition costs and revenue of $6.84bn.

Both revenue and earnings were down substantially for the quarter and the year from the same levels experienced in 2000 because of a slowdown in PC buying. Net income declined 77 percent from the $2.2bn figure achieved in the fourth quarter of 2000, while revenue dropped 20 percent from $8.7bn for the same period. Excluding charges, net income was down 62 percent.

Despite the slowdown in sales, the market for processors began to pick up toward the end of the year, or at least to beat overly pessimistic estimates, resulting in sporadic shortages. Net income and revenue, for instance, climbed from the third quarter. Both Intel and rival AMD, which reports earnings on Wednesday, raised revenue estimates for the quarter in December.

"2001 was a terrible year for our industry," Intel chief executive Craig Barrett said in a statement. "Despite this backdrop, we introduced exciting new products, including the industry's first 2GHz processor, gained market segment share, and earned over $1bn. We also rapidly ramped our industry-leading 0.13-micron process technology and began production on 300mm wafers."

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