Intel reported a sharply higher quarterly profit today as it benefited from stronger computer demand.
In the company's first quarter ended March 27th, it earned $1.7 billion, or 26 cents a share, on revenue of $8.1 billion. In the same period a year earlier, Intel reported a profit of $915 million, or 14 cents a share, on revenue of $6.75 billion.
Intel forecast revenue for the second quarter in the range of $7.6 billion to $8.2 billion, compared to analysts' expected range of $7.85 billion to $8.40 billion.
The company also said it expected second-quarter gross profit margin, a measure of the profitability of each sale, of 60 per cent, plus or minus a couple of points.
Shares of Intel, last year's best performer in the Dow Jones industrial average, closed up 7 cents to $27.67 on Nasdaq before the results were released. The shares dipped to $27.60 in after-hours trading on INET.
Wall Street was expecting a first-quarter profit in the range of 25 cents to 28 cents a share, with an average estimate of 27 cents.