Intel CEO: PC sales appear to have bottomed out

The CEO of Intel says that PC sales may have bottomed out. The chip maker posted a net profit of $647 million in the first quarter of 2009; that is 55 percent less than in the same period last year.

Intel’s revenue fell 26 percent from the first quarter of 2008 to $7.1 billion, according to the published Numbers. Intel CEO Paul Otellini said during the presentation of his quarterly figures that PC sales may have bottomed out and that the market now appears to be stabilizing. According to Otellini, demand for new hardware will remain higher in the consumer market than in the business market, while the markets in China and the US appear to be recovering faster than those in Europe and Japan.

Striking in the figures is the sharp drop in sales of the Atom processor. This energy-efficient CPU is widely used in the fast-growing netbook segment, but Intel only sold $219 million worth of Atoms in the first quarter, a 27 percent drop compared to the fourth quarter of 2008. Intel explains the drop in the statement that hardware manufacturers have first cleared their old stocks and expects sales of the Atom processor to pick up again during the year. Furthermore, Intel will not cut back on its research & development budget, despite the sharp drop in profit and turnover; with an amount set aside for 2009 of USD 10.4 to 10.6 billion, this remains unchanged for the time being.

Intel declined to make concrete predictions for the coming year. According to the largest chip manufacturer in the world, there are too many uncertainties to be able to make a substantiated statement about the longer term. Intel did say that revenue in the current quarter will be similar to that of the first. Partly due to the refusal to make a longer-term forecast, the share of the chip manufacturer on Wall Street fell by several percent.