Intel beat Wall Street in Q1 with $13.58 billion in revenue and $0.29 adjusted EPS
Intel came into Thursday with a lot to prove and left with a much louder number set. The chipmaker posted first-quarter results that beat what Wall Street had penciled in, and traders pushed INTC shares up 15% in after-hours trading right after the release.
Intel reported $13.58 billion in revenue for the quarter, above the $12.42 billion estimate from analysts polled by LSEG. Adjusted earnings per share landed at $0.29, while the Street was only looking for $0.01. That is the kind of gap that gets attention fast.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said, “With a solid foundation in place, we are addressing this opportunity by listening to our customers and driving their success with our technical expertise and differentiated IP. This deliberate reset to how we operate drove a sixth consecutive quarter of revenue above our expectations, as well as new and deepened relationships with strategic partners.”
Intel reports higher sales, wider gross margin, lower operating costs, and stronger adjusted profit
On a GAAP basis, Intel posted $13.6 billion in revenue, up 7% from $12.7 billion in the same quarter last year. Gross margin rose to 39.4% from 36.9%, an increase of 2.5 percentage points. R&D and MG&A costs fell to $4.4 billion from $4.8 billion, down 8%.
The GAAP operating margin came in at negative 23.1%, compared with negative 2.4% a year earlier. The GAAP tax rate was negative 8.5%, versus negative 51.4% last year. GAAP net loss attributable to Intel widened to $3.7 billion from $0.8 billion, and diluted GAAP loss per share was $0.73, compared with $0.19 a year ago. The company labeled some of those comparisons as not meaningful.
The adjusted view looked much better for Intel. Non-GAAP gross margin rose to 41.0% from 39.2%, up 1.8 percentage points. Non-GAAP R&D and MG&A fell to $3.9 billion from $4.3 billion, down 9%. Non-GAAP operating margin climbed to 12.3% from 5.4%, up 6.9 percentage points.
The non-GAAP tax rate was 11.0%, down from 12.0%. Non-GAAP net income attributable to Intel reached $1.5 billion, up from $0.6 billion, a gain of 156%. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share rose to $0.29 from $0.13, up 123%.
Intel also generated $1.1 billion in cash from operations during the quarter. David Zinsner, CFO of Intel, said, “We remain focused on maximizing our factory network to improve available supply and meet our customers’ needs throughout the year.”
Intel expands product lines, grows data center capacity, and sets Q2 targets
Data Center and AI revenue came in at $5.1 billion, up 22%. Total Intel Products revenue reached $12.8 billion, up 9%. Intel Foundry brought in $5.4 billion, up 16%. All other revenue was $0.6 billion, down 33%.
Intersegment eliminations were negative $5.3 billion, leaving total net revenue at $13.6 billion, up 7%. Intel said operating segment revenue includes intersegment transactions and rounded figures, so totals may not fully add up.
On the product side, Intel rolled out Xeon 600 processors for workstation, Core Ultra 200S Plus and Core Ultra 200HX Plus chips for desktop and mobile, Core Series 2 processors for health and life sciences edge computing, and Core Ultra Series 3 processors with Intel vPro.
The company also launched Core Series 3 processors that bring Intel 18A, newer IP, modern features, and all-day battery life into the mainstream line. Intel also signed a multiyear deal with Google to keep deploying Xeon processors across workload-optimized instances, including Xeon 6 chips powering C4 and N4 instances.
That deal also includes joint work on custom ASIC IPUs built to improve utilization, cut complexity, and scale AI workloads more efficiently. Xeon 6 was also chosen as the host CPU for NVIDIA’s DGX Rubin NVL8 systems.
Intel joined the Terafab project with SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla. Intel Foundry expanded assembly and test capacity in Penang, Malaysia. Intel also repurchased the 49% minority equity interest in the joint investment entity linked to Fab 34 in Ireland.
For Q2 2026, Intel guided for revenue of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion, GAAP gross margin of 37.5%, non-GAAP gross margin of 39.0%, a GAAP tax rate of 4%, a non-GAAP tax rate of 11%, GAAP diluted EPS of $0.08, and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.20.
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