Intel's fourth quarter sales beats forecast but guidance falls short

Intel Corp on Thursday reported fourth quarter sales ahead of expectations but soft guidance amid supply constraints dragged shares lower.

The Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker said its net loss widened to USD333 million in the three months to December from USD153 million the year prior.

Diluted losses per share of USD0.12 compared to losses of USD0.03 a year ago, while on a non-GAAP basis EPS of USD0.15 beat Visible Alpha consensus of USD0.08, and was up 15% from USD0.13 a year ago.

Revenue declined 4.1% to USD13.67 billion from USD14.26 billion the year prior, but was ahead of Visible Alpha consensus of USD13.39 billion.

Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan said: "We delivered a solid finish to the year and made progress on our journey to build a new Intel. The introduction of our first products on Intel 18A – the most advanced process technology developed and manufactured in the United States – marks an important milestone, and we're working aggressively to grow supply to meet strong customer demand."

Gross margin declined to 36.1% from 39.2% while operating margin increased to 4.2% from 2.9%.

Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner said: "We exceeded Q4 expectations across revenue, gross margin, and EPS even as we navigated industry-wide supply shortages."

Zinsner expect available supply to be at its lowest level in the first quarter before improving in the second and beyond.

"Demand fundamentals across our core markets remain healthy as the rapid adoption of AI reinforces the importance of the x86 ecosystem as the world’s most widely deployed high-performance compute architecture," he added.

Looking ahead, Intel forecast first quarter revenue of USD11.7 billion to USD12.7 billion, compared to VA consensus of USD12.54 billion, and non-GAAP EPS attributable to Intel of USD0.00 versus USD0.06 hopes.