Intel reports record turnover but loses billions with mobile branch

Intel achieved record turnover in the fourth quarter of 2014 and the whole of 2014 will go into the books as a record year in terms of turnover. The blemish on the figures are those for the mobile division: Intel had to give up billions on that.

Intel’s PC Client Group delivered 6 percent more processors in the fourth quarter of 2014, but the company struggled with a lower average price per processor. The number of desktop processors delivered was 1 percent lower, while 11 percent more laptop chips were put away. The industry’s turnover amounted to 8.9 billion dollars, converted to 7.6 billion euros. That was 3 percent higher than revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The Data Center Group posted a 25 percent increase in revenue to $4.1 billion or $3.5 billion in the fourth quarter and now accounts for 30 percent of Intel’s total revenue. The turnover of the internet-of-things division increased by 10 percent.

The mobile division remains strongly loss-making. In the fourth quarter, Intel suffered an operating loss of $1.1 billion on the division and for fiscal 2014 that was a whopping $4.2 billion, in euros 3.6 billion. In 2013, the division’s loss was 3.1 billion dollars, or 2.66 billion euros. Intel has chosen to invest heavily to persuade manufacturers to use its chips in hopes of gaining market share over ARM chips. Intel hopes to reap the benefits of this in the future, with the switch to smaller production processes and architecture adjustments to make the chips more attractive to manufacturers.

In the end, Intel’s quarterly turnover came in at $14.7 billion, or 12.7 billion euros, and the annual turnover at 55.9 billion dollars, or 48 billion euros. The annual profit rose by 22 percent to 11.7 billion dollars, or 10 billion euros. For the coming quarter, Intel expects a 7 percent drop in sales, but this could be due to seasonal influences.