On October 27th, Intel announced its third quarter financial report for the 2023 fiscal year. According to financial report data, Intel's revenue in the third quarter was $14.158 billion, a decrease of 8% from $15.338 billion in the same period last year, marking the seventh consecutive quarterly decline in revenue. If certain one-time items are not included (not in accordance with US GAAP), the adjusted net profit attributable to Intel in the third quarter was $1.739 billion, an increase of 14% compared to $1.526 billion in the same period last year.
When commenting on the performance of the third quarter, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said, "Our performance in the third quarter was outstanding, thanks to the comprehensive progress of our process and product roadmap, agreements with new generation factory customers, and our momentum in bringing artificial intelligence to various fields By relentlessly advancing our strategy, rebuilding our execution engine, and fulfilling our commitments to customers, we continue to make meaningful progress in the transformation of IDM 2.0
From a specific business line perspective, the signs of a rebound in the current consumer market have begun to be reflected in Intel's revenue. Although the Intel OEM Services division still had an operating loss of $86 million in the third quarter, its revenue was $311 million, a year-on-year increase of 299%.
In an interview on the 26th, Shen Bo, Global Vice President and China President of Dutch lithography giant ASML, confirmed to First Financial reporters that according to the company's observation, the machine usage rate of international chip manufacturers is slowly rebounding and the industry is undergoing a correction. The inventory of storage related chips is further decreasing, and the prices of such chips have also slightly rebounded.
In addition, it is understood that with the acceleration of market recovery, 2024 will be a year for semiconductor industry enterprises to accelerate their expansion of production capacity layout. In the field of semiconductor foundry, TSMC's Japan factory plans to start large-scale production by the end of 2024. SMIC's previously invested 50 billion yuan to build a 12 inch chip factory in Beijing and plans to start mass production in 2024. In terms of Intel OEM services, Intel 7 has achieved large-scale mass production, Intel 4 is ready for production, Intel 3 is progressing as planned, and the Intel 18A process is expected to be ready for mass production by 2024.
Signs of a rebound in the consumer market are also evident in the performance of other Intel departments. Intel's client computing business (CCG), including its laptop and desktop chip businesses, had revenue of $7.867 billion in the third quarter, a decrease of 3% compared to $8.128 billion in the same period last year. However, the department's revenue in the second quarter was $6.8 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 12%, compared to the narrowing of the decline in data in the third quarter.
According to data released by market research firm IDC in early October, Lenovo's shipment volume in the third quarter increased by 12.67% month on month, and its market share increased by 0.4%; HP's shipment volume remained basically unchanged month on month, with a 2% decrease in market share; Dell's shipment volume remained unchanged month on month, with a 1.8% decrease in market share. There is evidence to suggest that the decline in the PC market has finally bottomed out, "said Mikako Kitakawa, chief analyst at Gartner. Although corporate PC demand remains weak, seasonal demand in the education market boosted shipments in the third quarter, offsetting some of the decline. Suppliers have also made continuous progress in reducing PC inventory, and it is expected that inventory will return to normal by the end of 2023.
However, it should be noted that just two days before Intel released its financial report, Qualcomm released the Snapdragon X Elite, a PC processor specifically designed for AI, which is based on Qualcomm's self-developed core "Oryon". The release of this processor marks Qualcomm's official "first shot" in besieging Intel's CPU business.
In fact, rumors have been circulating in the market that NVIDIA and AMD are also developing PC processors that can be used in the Windows operating system. Intel currently holds the majority of the PC chip market outside of Apple, with AMD ranking second in terms of share. The company's previous CPUs were also based on x86 architecture. It can be seen that Intel's CPU business is facing a situation of "wolf in the front and tiger in the back", and all parties are eyeing it eagerly.
On October 19th, Intel disclosed its "AI PC Acceleration Program". This plan aims to connect independent hardware and software suppliers to form a thriving AI PC ecosystem around their processors. Intel predicts that this plan will bring AI features to over 100 million PCs by 2025.
However, Intel's artificial intelligence business did not perform well in the first three quarters of this year. In the third quarter, the company's data center and AI (artificial intelligence) revenue was $3.814 billion, a 10% year-on-year decrease. The department's revenue in the second quarter was $4 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 15%, and a year-on-year decrease of 39% in the first quarter.
In terms of other businesses, the revenue of Intel's network and edge computing businesses in the third quarter was $1.45 billion, down 32% year on year; The operating profit was $17 million, compared to $197 million in the same period last year. Its autonomous driving department, Mobileye, had a revenue of $530 million in the third quarter, a year-on-year increase of 18%; The operating profit was $170 million, compared to $142 million in the same period last year.
After the financial report was released, Intel's post market stock price surged by nearly 9%. Intel expects its revenue to reach between $14.6 billion and $15.6 billion in the fourth quarter of the 2023 fiscal year, with an average outlook of $15.1 billion, exceeding analysts' expectations.