Citing uncertainty as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the world, Intel (INTC -3.45%) withdrew its guidance for all of 2020 and offered up a lower-than-expected outlook for the current second-quarter.
In conjunction with its first-quarter earnings report, the world’s biggest chipmaker said it was no longer guiding for the full year because of limited visibility caused by COVID-19.
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“Our factories remain operational and in Q1, we are able to mitigate most of the COVID-19 related supply chain disruptions and fulfill all of our customers' committed client CPU orders as expected,” said Intel CEO Bob Swan during a conference call to discuss the quarter and outlook with Wall Street. “Near term PC demand has increased due to work-from-home and online learning. But the second half demand picture is more uncertain.” In a slide show presentation, Intel said it expects data center demand from enterprise and government customers to be weaker in the second half of 2020.
As for the tech stock’s second-quarter, Intel said adjusted earnings should come in at $1.10 a share, and revenue should be $18.5 billion, which is lower than what some Wall Street analysts were looking for. If Intel is able to achieve that target it would mean 12% year-over-year growth in revenue and a 4% increase in EPS, the company said. That's much lower than the growth it achieved in the first quarter.
For its first-quarter, Intel weighed in with adjusted earnings of $1.45 a share and revenue of $19.83 billion. Revenue was up 23% year-over-year with data-centric sales up 34%, and PC centric revenue up 14% compared to last year. EPS was 63% higher year-over-year.
“The role technology plays in the world is more essential now than it has ever been, and our opportunity to enrich lives and enable our customers' success has never been more vital,” said Intel’s CEO in prepared remarks. “I am confident we will emerge from this situation an even stronger company."
