Intel emerges from the red for a single quarter
Numerous extraordinary revenues provide Intel with a uniquely good business result. A downturn is expected again in three months.
(Image: Mark Mantel / heise medien)
Intel is emerging from its red swamp for one quarter: The chip manufacturer reports a net profit of 4.1 billion US dollars for the third quarter of 2025 reports a net profit of 4.1 billion US dollars. For various reasons, the comparison with the previous year's period seems absurd – on paper, net profit increases by more than 20 billion dollars. This is due to several one-off effects in both periods.
In the third quarter, Intel received various financial injections: 5.7 billion dollars from the US government, which now holds 9.9 percent of Intel shares, 2 billion from investor Softbank, 4.3 billion from the partial sale of FPGA specialist Altera, and 900 million from the partial sale of automotive specialist Mobileye. The 5 billion from Nvidia are still missing.
A year ago, Intel's results were primarily affected by write-downs, leading to a large paper loss of 16.6 billion dollars. In reality, both quarters are much closer. This is also shown by the revenue development: it only increased by three percent to 13.7 billion dollars within a year. At least the operating result is now slightly in the black again; Intel reports 683 million dollars for the group as a whole.
Almost 28 percent fewer employees
Due to the many one-off effects, Intel's financial reports are hardly interpretable. However, it does underline that mass layoffs are continuing: in the third quarter, around 10,000 more employees were let go, and approximately 3,300 Altera employees are no longer included in the overview. Intel itself now employs 83,300 people. A year ago, this number was 115,000, a decrease of almost 28 percent.
Correspondingly, expenses for research and development are also decreasing. Most recently, these amounted to just over 3.2 billion dollars, 20 percent less than in the same period last year. Intel is using third-party investments to reduce its own debt. The company paid back almost 3.8 billion dollars.
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Core processors largest source of revenue
Processors for notebooks and desktop PCs remain Intel's most important source of income. Their revenue increased by five percent to 8.5 billion dollars within a year. However, operating profit decreased by eight percent, presumably due to lower selling prices.
(Image:Â Intel)
Products for data centers and servers are showing a minimal decline with 4.1 billion dollars. However, the group is significantly more profitable again with almost one billion dollars in operating profit (+153 percent).
The chip manufacturing division, Intel Foundry, is largely stagnating with a revenue of 4.2 billion dollars. All revenue comes from Intel's product division. The manufacturer still has no external customers generating significant revenue. The division remains Intel's biggest concern: it is making an operating loss of 2.3 billion dollars because it is not profitable with Intel processors alone.
(Image:Â Intel)
Supply bottlenecks
Intel's CFO David Zinsner anticipates supply bottlenecks across the entire product portfolio. AI workloads, for example, are now expected to increase CPU demand for traditional servers as well.
Intel can only partially benefit from this demand. There are "definitive bottlenecks" for older processors from manufacturing generations Intel 10 and 7, whose production the company is no longer increasing. "In a way, we are living off our inventory," Zinsner admits in an analyst conference.
Problems are also brewing on the manufacturing side. For example, carriers for chips are expected to become scarce again. They are essential as a bridge between the mainboard and the CPU.
Stock market pleased
In the current fourth quarter, Intel expects revenue between 12.8 and 13.8 billion dollars. In the best-case scenario, the company will maintain its current results. Compared to the end of 2024, revenue is expected to shrink; at that time, Intel generated 14.3 billion dollars in sales.
Ultimately, Intel expects a net loss of 14 US cents per share again. This corresponds to a total loss of more than 600 million dollars. Apparently, this already includes five billion dollars that Nvidia intends to invest in Intel. Intel expects this financial injection by the end of the year.
Overall, investors are pleased with the business report. After its announcement, Intel's stock promptly rose by ten percent. Since then, it has only slightly declined. This puts the stock at its highest level since April 2024 – even though it has been diluted by new issues since then.
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