On January 22, Intel released its 2025 fourth-quarter earnings and revealed that profits from its AI and data center products had increased by about nine percent for the quarter and five percent for the year. Meanwhile, its consumer PC parts division was down seven percent for the quarter and around 3 percent for the year. This data makes it clear that Intel is making more money from selling AI datacenters the valuable chips and parts they need to operate,
Intel Corp. shares plunged about 17% after Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan gave a lackluster forecast and warned that the chipmaker was struggling with manufacturing problems. First-quarter projections for revenue and earnings both fell well short of Wall Street estimates. And a conference call with analysts, where Tan said it would take time and resolve to turn around the company, sent the shares down further.
Speaking with analysts on Intel's Q4 earnings call Thursday, CFO David Zinsner admitted the company was caught with its pants down after it misjudged demand for its datacenter products, leading to a capacity crunch during the quarter. Zinsner said six months ago "every hyperscale customer" was sending signals they planned to order a smaller number of high-core count chips. They soon changed their tune and demand for Intel's Xeon products increased considerably over the third and fourth quarters.