Intel Says It Expects No Revenue Growth in 2014

Intel, the world’s largest computer chip manufacturer, has said that despite growth towards the end of 2013, it expects to record no revenue growth next year.

Dealing with an ever-shrinking PC industry, the company came in just short of industry estimates, and stated that it expected “approximately flat” revenues in 2014. The news led shares in the company to fall by nearly five percent, and comes after Intel announced earlier this week that it was shelving plans to open a new factory in Arizona it had built to manufacture computer chips.

For the full year of 2013, the company reported overall revenues of $52.7 billion (£32bn) and a net income of $9.6 billion (£5.83bn), down 13 percent from a year ago.  Earnings from its PC operations were down 4 percent on 2012, but still brought in revenues of $33.0 billion (£20bn). However the company’s Data Centre operations provided a 7 percent boost in revenue compared to 2012, bringing in $11.2 billion (£6.8bn).

Branching out?

Intel posted fourth quarter net earnings of $2.6 billion (£1.6bn), or 51 cents a share, compared with $2.5 billion (£1.5bn), or 48 cents a share, in the fourth quarter of 2012 – a total rise of 6 percent. Fourth-quarter revenue was $13.8 billion (£8.4bn), compared with $12.5 billion (£7.6bn) in the year-ago quarter.

“We had a solid fourth quarter with signs of stabilisation in the PC segment and financial growth from a year ago,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. “We’ve built a strong foundation for our business by bringing innovation to the market more quickly across a wide range of computing platforms.”

Last week at CES, Krzanich took to the stage to show off a handful of wearable computing devices, including prototype earbuds with a built-in heart rate monitor, products which, he said, “weren’t on our roadmap six months ago.”

This diversifaction may prove quite important for Intel’s future, particularly as the company struggles to find a foothold in the mobile device processor industry, where it has struggled to compete in a market already dominated by Qualcomm and Nvidia.

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