Intel Corporation (Nasdaq: INTC) stock traded higher by more than 5 percent on Friday morning after the company reported big first-quarter earnings and revenue beats and raised its full-year revenue guidance.
Intel reported first-quarter earnings per share of 87 cents on record revenue of $16.77 billion. Analysts were expecting EPS of 72 cents on revenue of $15.08 billion. Revenue was up 9 percent from a year ago.
First-quarter non-GAAP gross margin was 62.3 percent, down from 63.3 percent last year.
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The company said it generated $6.3 billion in cash from operations on the quarter, paid out $1.4 billion in dividends and invested $1.9 billion buying back 41 million shares of stock.
By segment, Intel reported Client Computing Group revenue of $8.2 billion, up 3 percent. Data Center Group revenue, which includes artificial intelligence, cloud computing and data center processors, jumped 24 percent to $5.2 billion. Data Center revenue growth increased from 20 percent last quarter and now represents 49 percent of the company’s total revenue.
“Coming off a record 2017, 2018 is off to a strong start,” CEO Brian Krzanich says in a statement. “The strength of Intel’s business underscores my confidence in our strategy and the unrelenting demand for compute performance fueled by the growth of data.”
Looking ahead, Intel raised its full-year 2018 revenue guidance by $2.5 million to $67.5 billion. In the second quarter, Intel is expecting EPS of 85 cents on revenue of $16.3 billion.
Intel also said its Mobileye autonomous vehicle unit has begun testing AVs in Israel and has plans to expand that testing to other locations. In March, Intel competitor Nvidia Corp. ( NVDA) announced that it was suspending its public road AV testing after a fatal crash in Arizona. On Thursday, Tesla ( TSLA) confirmed that its Autopilot head Jim Keller is leaving the company to join the Mobileye team at Intel.
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GBH Insights head of technology research Daniel Ives says Intel’s huge quarter helped restore investor confidence that the semiconductor industry is showing no signs of cooling down.
“This was a major confidence booster not just for Intel but the overall chip industry,” Ives says. “The company, despite noise in the market, delivered robust earnings that will be a rallying cry for the Intel bulls.”
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Intel Corporation (INTC) Stock Soars After Earnings originally appeared on usnews.com
