Mergers help Intel report record growth

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Bouyed in part by recent acquisitions, Intel Corp. posted its fifth consecutive quarter of record revenues. Though profits edged up only slightly, the company issued a bullish forecast for about 25 percent in revenue growth for its current fiscal year.

Intel reported quarterly revenue of $13.0 billion up 21 percent from the same period last year. Net profits were up just two percent to $3 billion.

The company saw growth across all its product sectors except its Atom processors and chip sets that were down 15 percent to revenue of $352 million. Revenue growth was strongest in its embedded and communications section at 25 percent, followed by servers and PCs at 15 and 11 percent respectively.

The company's acquisitions of McAfee Inc. and Infineon Wireless Solutions contributed revenue of $1.0 billion in their first full-quarter of results.

Intel has yet to penetrate the rapidly growing smartphone market with its Atom chips. The CPUs have fueled netbooks, a market that has peaked, and some tablets, but none that have been big sellers to date. To bolster its position in mobile chips, Intel recently revamped its Atom road map.

To keep growth coming, Intel bid this week to acquire Fulcrum, a supplier of relatively high margin 10 Gbit/s Ethernet chips. Average selling prices for Intel processors was flat from the prior quarter and up by an unspecified amount from the same period a year ago.

"Intel's 23 percent revenue growth in the first half and our increasing confidence in the second half of 2011 position us to grow annual revenue in the mid-20 percent range," said Paul Otellini, Intel's chief executive, speaking in a press statement.