Intel's Earnings Put Investors to Sleep

Intel's third-quarter earnings announcement was quite the snoozer. Revenue and net income were essentially flat on the year, leaving little for investors to get excited about.

For the quarter, Intel brought in $13.5 billion in revenue, translating to $3 billion in net income, or $0.58 a share in earnings. This beat the analyst consensus, which expected Intel to bring home $13.45 billion in revenue and $0.54 a share. The company expects its fourth-quarter revenue midpoint will be $13.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million, falling short of the $14 billion consensus.

The bright spots
Intel's data center group continues to remain the brightest segment of its operations, driven by robust demand across all of its lines, including cloud computing, storage, and high-performance computing.

Source: Intel Q3 2013 earnings release.

The honorable mention goes to Intel's PC client group for only experiencing a decline of 3.5% year over year, faring much better than the 7.6% decline IDC pegged for worldwide PC shipments in the third quarter.

A small blip
During the conference call, CEO Brian Krzanich told investors that the production of Broadwell, Intel's upcoming 14-nanometer processor, has been delayed one quarter and will now begin production in the first quarter next year. In the grand scheme of things, a three-month delay isn't a huge deal, but when Intel has been so intent on making a bigger splash in mobile computing, this could certainly be frustrating for investors. If you fall into this camp, your best bet is probably to just continue standing by. You've already waited this long.

Getting in the holiday spirit
Inventory levels wouldn't suggest it, but Intel is expecting the holiday season to be filled with plenty of low-cost tablets, 2-in-1 devices, and laptops powered by Intel Bay Trail and Haswell. By the time Black Friday rolls around, potential buyers should be able to score Bay Trail tablets for as low as $99, 2-in-1s for $349, and Haswell-powered laptops for $299. Naturally, the billion-dollar question remains if consumers will flock to these devices.

A friendly reminder
Intel's earnings serve as a solid reminder that it remains deeply entrenched in the PC market, which as I'm sure you've heard by now, hasn't been faring so great. Coupled with the fact that Intel's mobile ambitions continue to get pushed out into the future, it becomes clear why the stock trades at a deep discount relative to the overall market.

Unfortunately, there's little here for investors to get excited about in the near term, despite its healthy dividend and consistent profitability. For these negative sentiments to change, PC sales will need to stabilize and eventually return to growth, and Intel needs to make some serious inroads in mobile.

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The article Intel's Earnings Put Investors to Sleep originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Steve Heller owns shares of Intel. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Intel. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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