Intel Q2 profit soars 41 percent year-over-year

Intel posted record second-quarter revenue of $17.0 billion, an increase of 15 percent versus the year-earlier period. PC-centric revenue was up 6 percent while datacenter oriented sales grew 26 percent. On a GAAP basis, net income was up 78 percent, while the adjusted non-GAAP figures show an increase of 41 percent year-over-year to $4.9 billion. On an earnings per share basis, this comes down to $1.04 per share, an increase of 44 percent versus a year ago.

Revenue beat Wall Street estimates by $180 million while EPS was 7 cents higher than expected. The chip giant also increased its guidance for the full year, to a range of $68.5 billion to $70.5 billion. Intel shares are currently down 3.28 percent to $50.45 in after-hours trading, presumably because data center chips sales were below consensus.

News Summary:

Record second-quarter revenue was $17.0 billion, up 15 percent year-over-year (YoY); data-centric businesses* grew 26 percent and PC-centric revenue grew 6 percent.

GAAP earnings-per-share (EPS) of $1.05 rose 82 percent YoY; non-GAAP EPS of $1.04 was up 44 percent.

Year-to-date, generated $13.7 billion in cash from operations, $6.3 billion of free cash flow and returned $8.6 billion to shareholders (dividends of $2.8 billion and share repurchases of $5.8 billion).

Raising full-year revenue outlook to approximately $69.5 billion, GAAP EPS outlook to approximately $4.10 and non-GAAP EPS of $4.15; up $2.0 billion, $0.31 and $0.30 from April guidance, respectively.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 26, 2018 -- Intel Corporation today reported second-quarter 2018 financial results. Record second quarter revenue of $17.0 billion was up 15 percent YoY driven by strength across the business and customer demand for performance-leading Intel platforms. Collectively, data-centric businesses grew 26 percent, approaching 50 percent of total revenue. PC-centric revenue was up 6 percent on strength in the commercial and enthusiast segments. Operating margin leverage and lower tax rate drove excellent EPS growth.

“After five decades in tech, Intel is poised to deliver our third record year in a row. We are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the need to process, store and move data, which has never been more pervasive or more valuable,” said Bob Swan, Intel CFO and Interim CEO. “Intel is now competing for a $260 billion market opportunity, and our second quarter results show that we’re winning. As a result of the continued strength we are seeing across the business, we are raising our full year revenue and earnings outlook.”

In the second quarter, the company generated approximately $7.4 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $1.4 billion and used $3.9 billion to repurchase 76 million shares of stock.

In the second quarter, Intel achieved revenue growth in every business segment. The PC-centric business grew 6 percent driven by strong demand for Intel's performance leading products with particular strength in gaming and commercial. The Client Computing Group (CCG) launched several new 8th Gen Intel Core processors including: the powerful 8th Gen Intel Core i9 processor for high performance laptops, 8th Gen Intel® Core™ vPro™ processors for business, and the 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-8086K limited-edition processor for gaming.

Collectively, Intel's data-centric businesses grew 26 percent year-over-year led by 27 percent growth in the Data Center Group (DCG). DCG saw strong demand from cloud and communications service providers investing to meet the explosive demand for data and to improve the performance of data-intensive workloads like artificial intelligence. DCG customer preference for Intel’s highest-performance products continued; Intel® Xeon® Scalable momentum continued.

The workload optimization trend in the data center is also fueling demand for FPGAs; Intel's Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) revenue grew 18 percent.

Intel's memory (NSG), Internet of Things Group (IOTG) and Mobileye businesses each achieved record quarterly revenue. Mobileye revenue grew 37 percent year-over-year as the adoption of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) increases.