Intel posted quarterly earnings Tuesday that edged past expectations, while revenue was slightly below estimates. Shares rose in extended-hours trading.
The company posted earnings of 38 cents a share, on sales of $12.76 billion. Analysts had expected the company to report earnings of 37 cents a share on $12.81 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
“In the first quarter we saw solid growth in the data center, signs of improvement in the PC business, and we shipped five million tablet processors, making strong progress on our goal of 40 million tablets for 2014,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in a press release.
Intel forecast revenue of $13 billion, plus or minus $500 million, for the second quarter, which ends in June. Analysts had expected $12.957 billion on average.
The company also expects a full-year gross margin of 61 percent, plus or minus a few percentage points. That is 1 percentage point higher than Intel’s previous forecast.
Worse-than-expected declines in personal computer sales have recently dealt a blow to Intel’s bottom line, as supplying chips to the PC market is one of its main businesses. The company announced in January it will lay off 5 percent of its global workforce, more than 100,000 jobs, in 2014.
Intel aims to offset the PC slowdown by placing its chips in tablets and other increasingly popular devices, and has been courting Chinese tablet makers aggressively, according to The Financial Times. At $5 to $10 a piece, Chinese chips are much cheaper than Intel’s, which typically cost between $30 and $50, the article noted. But Intel CEO Brian Krzanich is wants to equip 40 million of the 300 million tablets made this year with his company’s chips.
