Intel Earnings Rise as Windows 8 Release Nears

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Intel reported second quarter fiscal 2012 earnings late Tuesday showing continued growth amid a sluggish global economy.

For the quarter, Intel reported revenue of $13.5 billion, for a 4 percent year over year gain. Net Income was reported at $2.8 billion with earnings per share of $0.54. For the full fiscal 2012, Intel is now predicting full year revenue growth to be in the 3 to 5 percent range.

From a business segment perspective, Intel’s Data Center Group posted strong revenue growth of 15 percent while the PC Group grew by only 4 percent.

“High-performance computing continues to be one of the fastest growing segments within our data center business,” Intel CEO Paul Otellini said during his company’s earning call.

Otellini reminded investors that Intel has a new technology coming out later this year called the Xeon Phi. The Xeon Phi will deliver the throughput of highly parallel computing together with the programming models of the Intel architecture.

“Phi will be an impressive product for the HPC market segment with more than 50 cores manufactured on our 22-nanometer Tri-Gate process technology,” Otellini said. “We already have more than 40 customers lined up to support the architecture.”

On the PC side of the business, Intel is continuing to place its bets on the ultrabook form factor. According to Otellini, ultrabooks are continuing to build momentum.

“We are very pleased with the level of innovation and invention being brought into this category, and are now tracking over 140 Ivy Bridge base designed in the pipeline,” Otellini said. “Of those, more than 40 will be touch enabled and a dozen will be convertibles.”

Another area that Otellini was asked about during the Intel earnings call was tablets. To date, Intel has not had much of a tablet story, but that is set to change in the months ahead.

“Certainly over the last couple of years as tablet volumes have ramped up, they do present and have presented an alternative for consumer share of wallet,”Otellini said. “Particularly at the time when consumer share of wallet is tighter than it has been in the past.”

Otellini stressed, however, that tablets are still just incremental machines and people still have primary computers alongside tablets. “As Intel-based tablets are shipping both on Windows 8 and Android, we expect to be able to participate in that fast growing market, but I don’t think those numbers are going to be material this year,” Otellini said.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.