Intel announces record-breaking financial results

Otellini: "We enter 2010 in a very strong position"

Intel has reported better-than-expected financial results for the fourth quarter of 2009, and says 2010 looks like a year of solid growth.

The company made profits of $2.3bn in the last quarter of the year, 875 per cent higher than the results for the same quarter in 2008. Chief financial officer Stacy Smith said it was one of the most profitable quarters ever for Intel.

Revenue was up 28 per cent for the quarter, he said, making this the largest year-on-year increase in over a decade.

“Our fourth-quarter results cap a great year for Intel,” said chief executive Paul Otellini. "We had an outstanding quarter and enter 2010 in a very strong position. We’ve emerged from the recession with better products and our restructuring has produced good results in hard times and excellent results in good time.”

Otellini said demand for notebooks was leading the way in sales, but servers were also very popular – especially higher-end models – which improved overall selling prices.

Netbooks were also selling well, he said, with Atom sales surging ahead. Over the year the company had 600 Atom-based design wins across 230 customers, 93 of which are brand new to Intel.

He also noted that a quarter of sales of netbooks were part of deals with telecommunications providers.

However, the year has still been hard, as sales for 2009 were down seven per cent from 2008, and final earnings for the year of $4.4bn are down 17 per cent year on year. The $1.45bn fine from the EU and $1.25bn paid to AMD were also not included in the figures.

Nevertheless the results, and the figures from last quarter, will give more hope that the technology recession is over.