Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) will report its Q1 2025 earnings report today after the closing bell. Traders and investors will be watching to see whether the company’s Q1 performance has improved amid recent market changes.
Intel is navigating changes under its new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, who assumed leadership in March 2025.
Due to years of production failures, pressure from competitors, and a changing geopolitical environment, Intel is going through a complete transformation.
According to Tan’s plan, staff reduction will be made, the leadership structure will be flattened, and artificial intelligence (AI) innovation will be intensified.
Earnings Outlook and Estimates
- Earnings Per Share: $0.01
- Revenue: $12.30 billion
Intel’s recent earnings show a mixed performance. Q3 2024 was impacted by significant losses from impairment and restructuring charges, indicating ongoing challenges in its turnaround efforts and competitive pressures in the semiconductor market.
Their Q4 2024 performance showed resilience through better-than-expected results despite a year-over-year revenue decline. ⁽¹⁾
Key Factors to Watch
- Leadership transition and strategy
- AI and data center segments
- Cloud computing group performance
- Foundry and manufacturing operations
- Financial performance guidance
- Cost reduction and restructuring
AI Innovation and Product Advancements
Intel is boosting its AI efforts to take back its position. The company launched Intel AI Edge Systems, Edge AI Suites, and Open Edge Platform software, designed to simplify AI integration in sectors like manufacturing, retail, and smart cities.
Additionally, Intel launched Intel Core Ultra processors, which improve mobile computing for IT applications, gaming, and content production, and Xeon 6 processors with Performance-cores, which provide up to two times higher AI processing performance. ⁽²⁾
Server Segment Struggles and Competitive Pressures
With AMD and Nvidia dominating the AI chip market with their H100 and Blackwell GPUs, the company is projected to report revenues of $2.96 billion, a 2.4% year-over-year decline for Intel’s data center and AI business (DCAI).
Due to its high margins, the server segment—once Intel’s most lucrative—is losing market share as businesses choose other solutions.
Analysts predict that server revenues will continue to be under pressure, and that tariff-driven consumer gains won’t be enough to make up for these losses. The fading of artificial demand post-Q1 could lead to a “demand vacuum,” complicating inventory management and production planning. ⁽³⁾
Tariff-Driven Demand
Despite a temporary rise in sales due to tariff-driven chip stockpiling, Intel’s client computing group (CCG) is bracing for a 9% decline in Q1 2025, with expected revenues of $6.85 to $6.89 billion.
Despite a 4.9% increase in PC shipments due to this “pull-forward” demand, analysts caution that an impending inventory surplus may stifle future sales.
Notebook chip sales may see slight growth, yet structural issues and competition from AMD in the PC market continue to challenge Intel’s performance. ⁽⁴⁾
Staff Layoff
Intel is set to reduce its staff by over 20%, following a 15% reduction in 2024 that removed 15,000 jobs. part of a $10 billion cost-reduction plan, address high costs, shrinking margins.
The layoffs aim to improve liquidity and focus resources on core operations, though they reflect the tough decisions Tan warned employees about upon taking the helm. ⁽⁵⁾
Comeback in Play?
After facing a volatile and troubled 2024, Intel has put the past behind and moved forward by ending 2024 with a good Q4 earnings report, with EPS coming in at $0.13, higher than analysts’ estimates at $0.12. Revenue came in at $14.26 billion, also beating estimates at $13.83 billion. ⁽⁶⁾
In March 2025, the board of Intel hired a new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, who was a former board member on Intel. The appointment brought optimism in the company and led Intel’s stock price to rise. Tan aims to streamline operations, cut middle management, and focus on engineering, AI, and the 18A process. ⁽⁷⁾
To enhance agility and innovation, Tan has restructured Intel’s leadership, flattening the organization so that key chip groups—data center, AI, and personal-computer divisions.
Tan’s hands-on approach, as he noted, involves working closely with engineering teams to “strengthen our solutions,” aiming to eliminate bureaucratic inefficiencies and refocus on an engineering-driven culture.
Geopolitics Impact
Intel faces risks as China, its largest market, plans to phase out foreign chips by 2027, escalating China-U.S. trade tensions. Although margins are strained by high debt and competition from Nvidia and AMD in the server and AI areas, Intel’s distinct position as a significant US semiconductor manufacturer is in line with the growing need for self-sufficiency.
Its varied AI portfolio, which includes games and driverless cars, has potential, but overcoming these obstacles will be essential to achieving CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s goal.
Intel’s stock is expected to see heightened volatility around the earnings release, as traders and investors look for clues on whether the company is poised to reclaim market share or stay trending downward.
