Intel shares fell roughly 29% on Friday to $65.76 after the company's fourth-quarter outlook came in well below Wall Street expectations. According to CNBC, it was the stock's worst day since the 1970s. Intel had closed at $92.07 on Thursday, right before it posted its third-quarter 2026 results.
Oddly enough, the quarter itself was a good one. Revenue came in at $16.5 billion, up 21% year over year, and adjusted EPS of $0.52 easily beat the roughly $0.40 analysts were expecting. Data Center and AI revenue jumped 78% to $7.3 billion, while the Client Computing Group slipped 5% to $8.1 billion.
Investors, however, were looking at Q4. Intel expects revenue between $15 billion and $16 billion, against a consensus of around $17 billion, with adjusted EPS of just $0.25. Non-GAAP gross margin is also expected to fall to about 38% from 44% in Q3. Part of the shortfall comes from a plant shutdown in Israel. CFO David Zinsner said Intel sees "the PC slowdown continuing at least through the first half of next year."
On the earnings call, the company said it expects the PC market to shrink by about 12% in units this year, and it reportedly sees another 10% decline in 2027. Rising memory prices are the main culprit, as pricier DRAM and SSDs push up system costs and squeeze IT budgets. IDC already reported a 20.1% year-over-year drop in global PC shipments for Q3, down to 62.7 million units. Intel, meanwhile, is leaning on its data center business, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan says the immediate priority is unlocking more supply to meet demand for Xeon chips.
Source: TechPowerUp News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing