Intel last night said quarterly net profit rose but supply constraints crimped the revenue forecast at the world's biggest chipmaker, disappointing some investors, and its shares slipped 3 per cent.
Andy Bryant, chief financial officer for Intel, said in an interview that its ability to make enough microprocessors to satisfy demand had improved from last quarter, but it was still somewhat hampered in making enough chipsets - collections of individual chips - to meet demand.
"You've got this supply issue and people want to see how they execute through the quarter," said RBC Capital Markets analyst Apjit Walia, referring to the chipsets.
"I'm confident their chipset supply issues will get resolved." Intel said third-quarter net income rose to $2 billion, or 32 cents per share, from $1.91 billion, or 30 cents per share, a year earlier.
The results included an approximate 2 cent-per-share charge for a legal settlement. Revenue rose to $9.96 billion from $8.47 billion.
Results also included 2 cents per share for a legal settlement and 4 cents per share in tax expenses to repatriate money earned outside the US.
In September, Intel narrowed the range of its quarterly revenue forecast but left the midpoint unchanged, saying business remained within expectations.
"In the third quarter, we achieved all-time records in company revenue and unit shipments across all of our major product lines," said Intel chief executive Paul Otellini.
For the current quarter, Intel said it expects revenue in a range of $10.2 billion to $10.8 billion, the midpoint of which is $10.5 billion.
Analysts currently expect Intel to have fourth-quarter revenue of $10.7 billion. Intel, as usual, did not issue a per-share earnings forecast.
The Santa Clara, California-based company also said it expects fourth-quarter gross margin of 63 per cent, plus or minus a couple of points, compared with 59.7 per cent in the third quarter.