Intel issued disappointing quarterly guidance on Thursday, but reported earnings and revenue that topped estimates. Shares were up 3% after hours.
Here’s how the company did in the fourth quarter compared with LSEG estimates:
Earnings per share: 13 cents adjusted vs. 12 cents expected
Revenue: $14.26 billion vs. $13.81 billion expected
Intel’s revenue declined for a third straight quarter, decreasing 7% from a year earlier, according to a statement. The company’s net loss for the quarter totaled $126 million, or 3 cents per share, compared with net income of $2.67 billion, or 63 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
It’s the chipmaker’s first earnings report since announcing the departure of Pat Gelsinger as CEO. Gelsinger, who took the help in CEO, had a brutal tenure, giving up market share to competitors and falling way behind in the artificial intelligence race while committing billions of dollars for manufacturing plants.
Intel appointed two interim co-CEOs, finance chief David Zinsner and Intel Products CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus, to succeed Gelsinger.
“Dave and I are taking actions to enhance our competitive position and create shareholder value,” Johnston Holthaus was quoted as saying in Thursday’s release.
The search for a new CEO is progressing, but there’s nothing new to report, Zinsner said on a conference call with analysts.
Johnston Holthaus said the company has decided to only use its planned Falcon Shores artificial intelligence processor for servers as a test chip and won’t be selling it, based on industry feedback. In 2023 Intel said it would focus on Falcon Shores after canceling its Rialto Bridge graphics processing unit for servers.
Intel will now focus on a product called Jaguar Shores “to address the AI data center more broadly,” she said.
Adjusted results exclude stock-based compensation, acquisition-related adjustments and interest on an annulled fine from the European Commission.
Intel said it will report breakeven profit for the first quarter, with revenue of between $11.7 billion and $12.7 billion. The LSEG consensus was $12.87 billion in revenue and 9 cents in adjusted earnings per share.
Management pointed to seasonality, economic conditions and competition, and said clients are digesting inventory. The prospect of tariffs adds to the uncertainty, Zinsner said.
Intel’s Client Computing Group, which sells PC chips, produced $8.02 billion in revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter. Revenue was down 9% year over year but above the $7.84 billion consensus among analysts polled by StreetAccount.
“While difficult to quantify, we suspect a portion of Q4 revenue upside was due to customers hedging against potential tariffs,” Zinsner said.
The Data Center and Artificial Intelligence segment, which provides processors to cloud providers and corporate server farms, generated $3.39 billion in revenue. That was down 3% and inline with StreetAccount’s $3.38 billion consensus.
Intel’s Network and Edge unit contributed $1.62 billion in revenue, up 10% and above the $1.5 billion consensus from StreetAccount.
During the quarter, Intel finalized a $7.86 billion U.S. government grant to support manufacturing in four states.
The company expects volume chip production based on its 18A process technology in the second half of 2025, according to a presentation. Next-generation laptop chips carrying the code name Panther Lake will launch in the second half of the year, Intel said.
In October, CNBC reported that Intel was looking to sell at least a minority stake in Altera, its business that sells field-programmable gate array chips. Intel acquired Altera for $14.5 billion in 2015.
“We are, you know, far along on the process of Altera,” Zinsner said. “I suspect that by the time we get to earnings next, next quarter, we’ll have something to say there that will help generate some cash that we can use to to deliver.”
Before Thursday’s close Intel shares were down 1% for the year, while the S&P 500 index was up about 3%.
Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems said on Friday that it’s withdrawing plans for an IPO, days after announcing that it raised over $1 billion in a fundraising round.
In a filing with the SEC, Cerebras said it does not intend to conduct a proposed offering “at this time,” but didn’t provide a reason. A spokesperson told CNBC on Friday that the company still hopes to go public as soon as possible.
Cerebras filed for an IPO just over a year ago, as it was ramping up to take on Nvidia in an effort to create processors for running generative AI models. The filing revealed a heavy reliance on a single customer in the United Arab Emirates, Microsoft-backed G42, which is also a Cerebras investor.
In its prospectus, Cerebras said it had given voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States about selling shares to G42. In March, the company announced that the committee had provided clearance.
Since its initial filing to go public on the Nasdaq, Cerebras has shifted its focus away from selling systems and more toward providing a cloud service for accepting incoming queries to models that use its chips underneath.
The announced withdrawal comes three days into a U.S. government shutdown that’s left agencies like the SEC operating with a small staff. In a plan for a shutdown published in August, the SEC said its electronic system EDGAR “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”
On Tuesday, Cerebras said it had raised $1.1 billion at a valuation of $8.1 billion in a private funding round. At the time, CEO Andrew Feldman said that the company still wanted to go public, rather than continue to raise venture capital.
“I don’t think this is an indication of a preference for one or the other,” he told CNBC in an interview. “I think we have tremendous opportunities in front of us, and I think it’s good practice, when you have enormous opportunities, not to let them fall by the wayside for lack of capital.”
Feldman thought the original prospectus from last year was out of date, especially considering developments in AI, the spokesperson said on Friday.
Well heeled technology companies have been quickly signing up for additional infrastructure to handle demand. On Tuesday CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia chips through a cloud service, said it had signed a $14.2 billion agreement with Meta. ChatGPT operator OpenAI said last week that it had committed to spending $300 billion on cloud services from Oracle.
The government shutdown did not factor into Cerebras’ decision, the spokesperson said.
An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.
David Ryder | Getty Images
Amazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery.
The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb.
“Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close these Amazon Fresh locations,” Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said in a statement. “We’re working closely with affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon wherever possible.”
At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November, and that employees would receive a severance package, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details were confidential.
The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.
Last week, Amazon said it intends to close 14 Fresh grocery stores in the U.K. and convert its five other locations there into Whole Foods markets.
Amazon said it regularly evaluates its store portfolio, which can lead to opening, reopening, relocating or closing certain locations. In the U.S., the company has more than 60 remaining Fresh stores. Last year, the company removed its “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from the stores. It’s also been culling its footprint of Go cashierless convenience stores.
Amazon has been determined to become a major grocery player for nearly two decades. The company launched Amazon Fresh in 2007, then a pilot project for fresh food delivery, before acquiring upscale chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, its biggest purchase on record.
Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery chain in 2020, with an eye toward mass-market shoppers. The rollout has been turbulent since its early days.
The company opened a flurry of Fresh locations by 2022, but the expansion plans ran into CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts as the company reckoned with the impact of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. In 2023, Amazon announced it would shut some Fresh stores and halt further openings temporarily as it evaluated how to make the chain stand out for shoppers.
While it’s closing Fresh stores, Amazon continues to “innovate and invest in making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable,” Buch said. The company still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.
On Wednesday, Amazon also launched a new “price-conscious” grocery brand that will be offered online and in its physical stores. And last month, Amazon expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S.
Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks. Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.
Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.
CNBC
Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.
Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.
The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.
Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.
In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”