Intel today reported second-quarter revenue of $13.8 billion, mainly due to the good performance of the company's PC and data center businesses.
The company also generated approximately $5.5 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $1.1 billion, and used $2.1 billion to repurchase 74 million shares of stock.
"Our second-quarter results showed the strength of our strategy to extend the reach of Intel technology from the data center to PCs to the Internet of Things," said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. "With the ramp of our Baytrail SoC family, we have expanded into new segments such as Chrome-based systems, and wer are on track to meet our 40 million unit tablet goal. In addition, we hit an important qualification milestone for our upcoming 14nm Broadwell product, and expect the first systems to be on shelves during the holidays."
Intel intends to return more cash to shareholders by lowering its cash balance further through increased share repurchases. The board of directors authorized an increase of $20 billion to its share repurchase program and the company is forecasting share repurchases of approximately $4 billion in the third quarter, with additional share repurchases in the fourth quarter.
During Q2, Intel's PC Client Group revenue reached the $8.7 billion, up 9 percent sequentially and up 6 percent year-over-year. The company's Data Center Group revenue rose 14 percent sequentially and up 19 percent year-over-year. The Internet of Things Group revenue of $539 million, up 12 percent sequentially and up 24 percent year-over-year.
Mobile and Communications Group revenue of $51 million, down 67 percent sequentially, and the Software and services operating segments revenue was $548 million, down 1 percent sequentially and up 3 percent year-over-year.
Intel believes the worst is over for a personal computer industry hammered by the mobile revolution.
"PCs have stabilized," Chief Financial Officer Stacy
Smith said. He said he
expects shrinking demand from consumers in China and
other developing countries to rebound, just as it
recently has in the United States.
Intel expects the market's recovery to help it grow
its full-year revenue about 5 percent, slightly higher
than prior expectations.
Delays in the company's production of the upcoming Broadwell chip won't push back its successor, Skylake, still expected next year.
On Tuesday, Intel shot down suggestions of any delay to Skylake, saying it was on schedule to ship some time next year. Intel currently ships PC chips code-named Haswell, which will be followed by Broadwell and then Skylake.
Intel is still trying to finalize the exact release date of Skylake, and it will be pinned down in the second half this year, said Krzanich.
Skylake, which is based on a brand-new microarchitecture, also will be made using the 14-nanometer process. Intel hasn't otherwise shared much about Skylake, other than that the chip will be able to use DDR4 memory. Intel's efforts to free wires from PCs will also start with Skylake: In 2016, the chip maker will deliver a Skylake-based reference design that will enable wireless docking, charging, display and data transfers.
Intel has also started shipping Xeon E5 chips based on the Haswell microarchitecture to server makers, and the chip will be in servers this quarter.
The new chips, code-named Grantley, will succeed former chips code-named Romley, which are based on the Ivy Bridge microarchitecture.
The Grantley chips have already started shipping to cloud and high-performance computing customers who build their own computing gear, Krzanich said. Most chips ship out of the factory to server makers, who test the chips, design servers and then make products commercially available.
The Grantley chip will have DDR4 memory controllers, and memory DIMMs are expected to be available from Micron, Kingston and others this quarter.
For Q3 2014, Intel expects a revenue of $14.4 billion, plus or minus $500 million.