Appleの買収がIntelの5G機会を後押し、CEOによると
チップメーカーは、予想を上回る2019年第2四半期の収益を報告しました。しかし、CEOのBob Swanは、企業と政府のデータセンターセグメントは「残酷なものとなっている」と認めています。Intel reported better-than-expected second quarter 2019 revenue and a $1 billion sale of the bulk of its smartphone modem business to Apple this afternoon. On a call with investors, CEO Bob Swan said the sale “enables us to focus on the more profitable 5G network opportunity where we are growing and gaining share.”
Swan said the 5G networking infrastructure market reached $4 billion last year, which represented a 40% compound annual growth rate since 2014. Intel will work to meet the 5G needs of network operators, telecommunications equipment manufactures, and cloud service providers, he added.
Under the terms of the agreement with Apple, about 2,200 Intel employees will join Apple, along with intellectual property, equipment, and leases. The companies expect the acquisition to close in the fourth quarter.
The news of the Apple deal along with better-than-expected earnings and upbeat guidance sent Intel shares up more than 7% late Thursday — despite the chipmaker’s second consecutive quarterly revenue decline.
Intel reported second-quarter revenue of $16.5 billion, down 3% year-over-year. And its data-centric revenue dropped 7%. This business segment includes its data center, IoT, Mobileye (vision-based driver-assistance systems), memory, and programmable chips divisions.
Within Intel’s Data Center Group, the communications service provider segment grew 3% while the cloud segment declined 1% and enterprise and government revenue tanked 31%.
On the positive side, Intel’s new 10 nanometer (nm) processors, code-named “Ice Lake,” are finally shipping and expected to be in volume systems on retail shelves this 2019 holiday selling season. And the company’s on track to launch its 7 nm technology in 2021, which Swan said will be comparable to competitors’ 5 nm chips.
Swan admitted that the enterprise and government data center segment “has been brutal for the first six months of the year. Q1 was really soft and Q2 was even softer.” He attributed this to “really strong growth” in the enterprise and government segment in 2018, and trade tensions with China resulting in weak sales.
Looking ahead to the remaining six months of 2019, Swan forecast that enterprise and government sales “won’t get dramatically better, cloud will get a little bit stronger, and comms will get a little bit stronger.”
Intel forecast $69.5 billion in revenue for the full year 2019, a 2% year-over-year drop but a $500 million increase from its Q1 guidance.
“The [second] quarter played out much stronger than we expected,” Swan said. “And therefore from that confidence we’re raising our full-year outlook and feel good about performance six months through the year.”
