Intel stock jumped over 7% in after-hours trading Thursday after the chipmaker delivered third-quarter results that actually exceeded Wall Street forecasts. The Intel stock price surge reflects renewed investor confidence as AI demand drives growth across the company’s product portfolio right now.
The semiconductor giant reported $13.7 billion in revenue for the three months ended September 27, which beat analyst expectations of $13.15 billion. The Intel stock earnings report showed adjusted earnings per share of $0.23, far above the $0.01 Wall Street had projected and also a significant improvement from the $0.46 loss during the same period in 2024.
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AI Growth and Q3 Earnings Boost Investor Confidence in Intel Stock
Strong Revenue Performance Driven by AI Demand
Accelerating artificial intelligence adoption across multiple sectors drove the better-than-expected quarterly performance. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said:
“AI is accelerating demand for compute and creating attractive opportunities across our portfolio.”
Intel manufactures CPUs—traditional computer chips that work alongside specialized AI processors in data center servers. The Intel stock news has been positive as Intel also deploys these chips in AI-enabled personal computers, along with data center applications that are experiencing rapid growth right now.
Fourth Quarter Guidance and Manufacturing Challenges
The fourth quarter results of the Intel stock earnings report were low, despite good results in the first quarter of the year, showing that the company has lower performance than the analyst estimates at the writing time. Intel cut EPS to $0.08 against expectations of $0.10 and revenue would also be 13.3 billion against forecasts of 13.4 billion.
Management attributed the guidance failure to the fact that Altera revenue was not included, a semiconductor company that Intel partially divested in the third quarter. These high profile investments have helped support the Intel stock price movements in the recent past. In late August, the U.S. government became a 9.9% stakeholder, with Nvidia investing 5 billion to gain a 4% stake, and SoftBank has also put money into the chipmaker.
However, Intel Foundry Services reported an operating loss of $2.3 billion for the third quarter. The foundry business, which Intel opened to external customers in 2021, has struggled to attract major commitments from outside companies. Intel has scaled back plans to promote the company’s 18A production process to outside customers after anticipated deals with Nvidia and Broadcom actually failed to materialize.
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Next-Generation Manufacturing Focus
Intel has redirected efforts toward 14A, which is its next-generation advanced manufacturing process. Pitzer told Yahoo Finance:
“We are very pleased by the feedback we’re getting with early customer engagements. Quite frankly, where we are today on 14A is absolutely ahead of where we [were] at a similar point in time in the 18A development.”
Creative Strategies principal analyst Ben Bajarin characterized the Intel stock price prediction as grounds for “cautious optimism,” adding that “all eyes move to foundry” as Intel attempts to establish itself as a credible third-party manufacturer. The Intel stock news going forward will depend heavily on whether the company’s manufacturing investments translate into sustainable profitability, which remains the central question for investors evaluating Intel stock right now.
