Enterprising
There have been some gloomy earnings reports of late, but three tech giants announced their Q1 figures yesterday, and they all beat expectations.
Intel reported Q1 revenues of $12.9 billion, which was a 25 percent year-on-year increase and a 12 percent increase on the previous quarter. The normal pattern is for Q1 sales to be less than in Q4. Intel's revenues and earnings per share of 59 cents were both records and well above analyst expectations, according to Forbes.
"The first-quarter revenue was an all-time record for Intel fueled by double digit annual revenue growth in every major product segment and across all geographies," said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. "These outstanding results, combined with our guidance for the second quarter, position us to achieve greater than 20 percent annual revenue growth."
Intel noted that growth in enterprise and emerging markets more than compensated for weak consumer demand in developed countries. But having said that, while revenue for the data centre group was up 32 percent year-on-year, it was down two percent sequentially. Meanwhile the PC client group, which accounts for two thirds of Intel's total revenue, was up 17 percent sequentially.
Sandy Bridge was apparently Intel's fastest -ramping platform ever, and Intel recovered from the Cougar Point chipset issue without any revenue impact. We wonder if its channel feels the same. Intel also told cnet that it has big plans for tablets and phones this year, but it's been saying that for as long as we can remember.
Two other tech giants to report yesterday are entirely enterprise-focused. IBM's revenues of $24.6 billion were ahead of expectations, as were VMware's of $844 million. Both companies spoke of the move by companies into the cloud as a positive factor.
