Intel today posted record results for the fall. Its net profit was up 48 percent year-to-year and 10 percent sequentially, to $3.4 billion, but was owed almost exclusively to its large-scale server group and investments. Its revenues for both Atom chips and its regular processors were both flat compared to the summer.
The discrepancy was reflected in the company’s yearly performance. Although its computer processor, datacenter and other chip architecture groups were up 21, 35 and 27 percent respectively compared to 2009, the Atom group’s revenue was up only eight percent.
Atom processors and their companion chipsets cost less than their full-power counterparts but until this year were still strong components of Intel’s results due to volume. The category has been in decline for much of the year due in part to customers buying iPads instead of notebooks or Windows based tablets. Early estimates for PC sales in the fall have shown a huge drop for Acer as its over-reliance on its Aspire One netbooks may have cost it over a quarter of its computer sales. Dell and HP, which have leaned on netbooks to a lesser extent, also dropped in key areas.
The company is still the dominant full processor designer but is thought by many to have missed its chance to get in on tablets, having only just launched its more tablet-ready Oak Trail (Atom Z600) design in 2011.
Intel is poised to thrive in 2011 based mostly on its second-generation Core processors, which beyond speed improvements have much faster graphics that reduce the need for dedicated video for many users. At the same time AMD has DirectX 11 graphics in their new APUs while Intel is DirectX 10.1.
