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Intel’s fiscal 2014 was its best year ever, reporting record revenue as the silicon vendor continues to push into new markets as well as continuing to grow the PC market.
For the fourth quarter of 2014, Intel reported revenue of $14.7 billion, up by six percent year-over-year. For the full 2014 fiscal year, Intel’s revenue was $55.9 billion, also up by six percent year-over-year. Net Income for the fourth quarter was reported at $3.9 Billion for a 39 percent improvement over the fourth quarter of 2013. Full year Net Income was reported at $11.7 billion, for a 22 percent year-over-year gain.
Looking forward, Intel provided first quarter fiscal 2015 guidance for the midpoint of its revenue range to be $13.7 billion.
“The fourth quarter marked a strong finish to a great year,” Brian Krzanich, Intel CEO said during his company’s earnings call.
Krzanich said that Intel began 2014 expecting roughly flat year-over-year revenue and operating income. Instead the company’s full year revenue grew by six percent, hitting an all time record of $55.9 billion.
Growth for Intel came from multiple area including a surprising gain in its PC Client Group over the course of 2014.
“In the PC Client Group, our goal was to stabilize the PC business,” Krzanich said. “We expected revenue to be down by a low single digit percentage and for operating profit to be roughly flat year-over-year.”
Krzanich added that what actually happened in Intel’s PC business was that the 2014 year closed with a four percent increase in revenue and a 25 percent increase in operating profit. Growth in the PC market has come by way of innovation across multiple segments of both the consumer and enterprise market.
“You’ve got PCs from Chromebook starting at $199, Windows Systems at $249 all the way up from there to the real innovative systems like Sprout,” Krzanich said. “I look at it and say that the innovation and the options of the PC market have never been better and so I am feeling pretty good about where we are in the PC market.”
Intel’s push into the tablet and phablet market is also working out in Intel’s favor. Krzanich said that the market reception so far for Intel tablets has been very strong.
“There is a strong brand value just in Intel tied to a tablet, no matter who is the manufacturer,” Krzanich said.
The phablet market is another area that Krzanich addressed during his company’s earning call and how phablet’s compete against PCs.
“We think that that the phablet is probably taking a little bit more out of the tablet market than the PC,” Krzanich said. “I think people still are going to use the PC for their high-end usages when they have to have a keyboard, when they have to have the higher-end compute.”
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist
