Intel (INTC) Third Quarter Earnings Report 2026

Intel shares fell Thursday after the chipmaker issued weak fourth-quarter forecasts, citing continued weakness in the global PC market.

Here are the company’s third-quarter results, compared to estimates from analysts surveyed by LSEG:

• Earnings per share: 52 cents adjusted against 40 cents expected
• Income: $16.51 billion versus $16.5 billion expected

Revenue climbed 21% from $13.7 billion a year earlier, the company said in a news release.

However, revenue at Intel’s Client Computing and Physical AI group fell 5% from the same quarter last year to $8.1 billion, missing estimates, even as data center and AI revenue jumped 78% to $7.3 billion.

Worldwide PC shipments fell 4% in the second quarter from a year earlier due to soaring costs of memory and other components, according to Counterpoint Research.

For the current quarter, Intel said it expects adjusted earnings per share of 25 cents on revenue between $15 billion and $16 billion. Analysts expected revenue of $17.1 billion and EPS of 43 cents, according to LSEG.

“We expect the PC slowdown to continue at least through the first half of next year, but we remain optimistic about opportunities across our broader portfolio,” David Zinsner, Intel’s chief financial officer, said in the release. “We will continue to make disciplined investments in capacity and working capital to increase supply and support future growth.”

Intel’s stock is on the rise, up about 150% year to date, although it was down about 23% in October on concerns about the extent of development in artificial intelligence.

Best known for its industry-leading central processing units, or CPUs, Intel has benefited from the rise of agentic AI. While chatbots and large models rely heavily on graphics processors of Nvidia And Advanced microdevicesAgentic applications such as Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dots rely on CPUs to help orchestrate tasks and data from a computer running in the cloud.

“Despite near-term headwinds affecting the entire PC industry, we continue to see robust demand for processors and, more broadly, for all of our computing platforms in the long term,” CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in the press release.

Nvidia, which has become the most valuable company in the world thanks to its dominance in GPUs, is expected to report results in mid-November. AMD reports next week.

Intel’s foundry business, meanwhile, is struggling to find its footing.

Intel is the only U.S. manufacturer of advanced logic chips and is currently producing its most advanced 18A chip in high volume at its new manufacturing facility in Arizona, providing an alternative to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

Although Intel remains the chip’s only major customer, analysts say a major fabless chip customer could choose Intel with its next chip, the 14A.

“People want a second source that can twist TSMC’s arm and keep them honest on pricing,” said Dan Hutcheson, an analyst at TechInsights. “All the big ones have done tests there.”

Last year, the Trump administration took a 10% stake in Intel after the company fell behind on its 7- and 10-nanometer technologies. Nvidia and Softbank also invested billions in Intel last year.

Tan has taken a more cautious approach to foundry spending than his predecessor, Pat Gelsinger, who launched an ambitious revival of the company’s foundry business.

Last week, Intel said crews had installed the first structural truss at its massive Ohio chip factory, which was initially expected to deliver chips in 2025. Its next factory in Arizona is expected to begin operations by the end of 2028.

Oracle unveiled an expanded deal with Intel this week, announcing at its annual AI conference that it would deploy the chipmaker’s next-generation Xeon server processors, as well as the latest rack-scale systems from Nvidia and AMD, while continuing to add data center capacity.

Intel completed a $23 billion stock offering in August. Tech giants have spent billions of dollars in recent years to meet the insatiable demand for AI and the infrastructure needed to support it.

WATCH: Can Intel’s new chip factory in Arizona bring it back from the brink?