Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) is set to release its earnings results for the third quarter of 2019 on Thursday after the market closes. The results will be hurt by a fall in data-centric businesses as the chipmaker is struggling in the cloud segment as well as enterprise and government segments.
The company has remained the go-to-processor supplier for most PC manufacturers but was facing misfortune due to the ongoing chip shortage. This has frustrated many PC makers, who turned towards Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) for chips. The CPU shortage is likely to ease by the start of the fourth quarter of 2019.
Intel has been spending substantially greater amounts on marketing and research and development. This is likely to lift the expenses for the company. For maintaining the market position, the company will continue to invest heavily in R&D, new manufacturing facilities, and marketing.
Looking forward in the artificial intelligence and autonomous automotive space, the company began focusing on a string of strategic purchases. For the long term, Intel is tightening the competition string by deciding to sell 5G smartphone modem business to Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).
Analysts expect the company’s earnings to drop by 11.40% to $1.24 per share and revenue will decline by 6% to $18.05 billion for the third quarter. The company has surprised investors by beating analysts’ expectations in all of the past four quarters. The majority of the analysts recommended a “buy” rating with an average price target of $53.13.
For the second quarter, Intel reported a 17% drop in earnings due to lower revenue. The results exceeded the company’s expectations as the growth of data and compute-intensive applications are driving customer demand for higher performance products in both PC centric and data-centric businesses.
For the third quarter, the company expects GAAP EPS of $1.16, adjusted earnings of $1.24 per share and revenue of about $18 billion. For the full year 2019, the company lifted revenue outlook by $500 million to $69.5 billion and adjusted earnings guidance by 5 cents to $4.40 per share. The GAAP earnings for the full year is now anticipated to be $4.10 per share, lower than the prior estimate of $4.14 per share.