Intel has $55.9B record year, ships 46M tablets

[TurtleCrusher]

they're gift wrapping each slowtrail with a $50 bill?!?

Slowtrail? They're perfect netbook/tablet class processors. Enough single thread to do anything mobile, enough threads to do something intensive without a loss of responsiveness, and incredibly low power consumption where it actually matters. When the wife wants to do photo editing without being pinned to the desk, the 3735F is fast enough.

Talk smack about it all you want, but Baytrail is exactly what netbooks/tablets should've had in the first place. They offer good/snappy performance when paired with an ssd/emmc drive and 2GB ram. If you have any interest in keeping Windows/x86 around, products like Baytrail are what the market actually needs. These aren't anemic CPUS paired with garbage HDDs/SSDs like every netbook I've had. I don't need to lug around a full size laptop after a photoshoot to get right to work. That's a big deal in terms of mobile computing.

 

[ninaholic37]

edit: Spam/promotion link removed.

 

[kimmel]

Still they make lots and lots of money from Desktop/Notebook/Servers but even with contra revenue they didnt reach the 50M tablets mark for 2014.
Cherrytrail will have a tough year, i fail to see how they will sell 70M tablet SoCs in 2015 without contra revenue.

Good thing the goal was 40 million. I love how you made it sound like it was 50 million.

 

[Vesku]

40+ million free or nearly so Bay Trail chips given out and it is truly not hurting Intel financially. Definitely worth the hit to net income to establish themselves in the mobile device category. Hope that keeps up for Cherry Trail, wasn't happy with BT GPU performance but the next revision looks satisfactory in that regard.

 

[Nothingness]

I didnt even know intel made tablets, let alone 46 million of them.

Exactly what I was going to write :biggrin:

It should be noted that rumors claimed that Intel internal goal was 60M not the official 40M. Nice achievement nonetheless even if that cost them billions. Now let's see how things turn when no contra-revenue is given.

 

[mrmt]

According to Rueters global PC shipments fell 2.4% Q3-Q4.
According to Rueters Intel's PC group sales fell 3% Q3-Q4.

If Intel's sales declined more than the market then somebody else had to pick up those additional sales Intel lost. In this case there's only one somebody else.

I think it's quite the opposite, AMD will have a hang over quarter. Intel said that they burned a lot of Bay Trail inventory they were holding, that should have brought Intel revenues down because of ASP dilution but can even amount to a market share increase.

 

[mrmt]

It should be noted that rumors claimed that Intel internal goal was 60M not the official 40M. Nice achievement nonetheless even if that cost them billions. Now let's see how things turn when no contra-revenue is given.

Digitimes is funny: One day they say Intel aims for 60MM, which would mean the contra-revenue program was underfunded and Intel would have lied to its investors, but another day they say that Intel wouldn't reach the 40MM mark...

 

[NTMBK]

Mobile division literally had negative revenue in this quarter, and overall lost $4.2bn. How the heck are Intel getting away with this kind of market manipulation? It's textbook monopolist tactics, rely on overwhelming dominance in one business sector to fund dumping in another sector and choke the competition.

 

[mrmt]

Mobile division literally had negative revenue in this quarter, and overall lost $4.2bn. How the heck are Intel getting away with this kind of market manipulation? It's textbook monopolist tactics, rely on overwhelming dominance in one business sector to fund dumping in another sector and choke the competition.

I don't see Qualcomm, Mediatek, Apple and others being choked by the evil monopolist.

 

[NTMBK]

I don't see Qualcomm, Mediatek, Apple and others being choked by the evil monopolist.

How much growth do you think Mediatek and QC would have had without Intel's dumping tactics?

 

[R0H1T]

Mobile division literally had negative revenue in this quarter, and overall lost $4.2bn. How the heck are Intel getting away with this kind of market manipulation? It's textbook monopolist tactics, rely on overwhelming dominance in one business sector to fund dumping in another sector and choke the competition.

Classic Darwinism err capitalism at play D:

I don't see Qualcomm, Mediatek, Apple and others being choked by the evil monopolist.

Let's see one of'em report a loss first & then complain to the EU or China, pretty sure there won't be any leniency this time with Intel :whiste:

 

[Nothingness]

Let's see one of'em report a loss first & then complain to the EU or China, pretty sure there won't be any leniency this time with Intel :whiste:

Given how much money Intel invest in China, they are unlikely to ever complain.

 

[Nothingness]

Digitimes is funny: One day they say Intel aims for 60MM, which would mean the contra-revenue program was underfunded and Intel would have lied to its investors, but another day they say that Intel wouldn't reach the 40MM mark...

I think they just report all the "information" they get without trying to assess credibility. But they get things right quite often.

 

[mrmt]

I think they just report all the "information" they get without trying to assess credibility. But they get things right quite often.

Which makes them useless, since you can only know what predictions were correct and what predictions are fud after the correct one pans out.

 

[dealcorn]

I am not an attorney but I think a party who is irrelevant in a market (e.g Intel with tablets) is allowed to lose money as it attempts to become a factor in the marketplace. This is permitted (encouraged) because the consumer benefit of permitting competition is big. Look at how rich consumer's tablet choices are today versus the ARM only world. Today, even x86 Windows matters.

Intel took it's foot off the contra revenue accelerator pedal last quarter but it may take about a year for existing commitments to wind down. I expect Intel will honor any contra revenue commitments it made but wrap up contra revenue as soon as feasible. Intel partners made investments to bring X86 to the tablet market. Intel is not going to cut them off at the knees by failing to honor it's commitments.

 

[mrmt]

How much growth do you think Mediatek and QC would have had without Intel's dumping tactics?

Dunno, but they don't seem to be very concerned.

 

[Nothingness]

Which makes them useless, since you can only know what predictions were correct and what predictions are fud after the correct one pans out.

Well that doesn't prevent you from using their claims

 

[RussianSensation]

Mobile division literally had negative revenue in this quarter, and overall lost $4.2bn. How the heck are Intel getting away with this kind of market manipulation? It's textbook monopolist tactics, rely on overwhelming dominance in one business sector to fund dumping in another sector and choke the competition.

That's 4.2 Billion of profits lost in 1 year. Where are all those naysayers that kept ripping apart AMD for not spending $ to enter the mobile/tablet sector? AMD's greatest mistake for the mobile market strategy was selling their mobile assets for $65 million to Qualcomm. However, after that mistake was made, later on management realized it would be too costly to re-enter the market and compete with Samsung, Apple, MediaTek, Qualcomm on the mobile space. Even Intel can't do it after flushing $4 billion straight into the toilet. :whiste:

Intel has lost twice AMD's entire market cap in a year on mobile. About 1.5X an AMD last year. I really hope those billions lead to strong products in the coming years...

Well given that Asus ZenPhone 2 packs potent specs for just $199 (!), not only is Intel giving away their mobile chips, they are likely starting to pay OEMs to use them. No Snapdraggon or Exynos or Apple chip with such specs would ever sell in a $199 phone.

Why give away a flagship mobile SOC for free (probably with subsidies to OEMs too) despite supposedly class leading performance? It's basically Intel's way to try and establish its brand in the mobile space as 99% of consumers don't take Intel's SOC chips seriously.

A $0 Atom + $$$ subsidy to Asus would certainly explain how Asus could go 4GB of RAM, 13 MP camera, fast-charging, 5.5" display and still hit $199 price. It's like Intel is essentially paying for Asus' costs and absorbing them just to say they have an Atom in a smartphone.
--

Not surprised that Intel's other divisions are doing well. Xeon is very potent in the server space and mid-range and high-end performance desktop segments are more or less completely locked up by Intel, with mobile i3/i5/i7s probably having 90%+ of the $600+ laptop market. In the last 6 months I recommended a 4790K build for one friend and a 5820K build for the other, while a 3rd friend got a combo of MacBook Air and an iMac with Intel CPUs. It's very hard if not impossible to recommend an AMD CPU above $150 nowadays.

I don't even see how anyone would buy a laptop with an AMD CPU at $1000+. I bet Intel has 99% market share at that point.

65% gross margins for Intel are pretty wild.

 

[R0H1T]

Given how much money Intel invest in China, they are unlikely to ever complain.

Given how China overwhelmingly favors their homegrown firms like Rockchip, Mediatek, Allwinner et al, that hardly qualifies for an excuse, case in point ~
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db5b55e6-752c-11e4-b1bf-00144feabdc0.html

Not saying that it'll happen for certain anytime soon but if you think just because Intel invests billions in that country China will oblige then you're sorely mistaken.

 

[mrmt]

Well that doesn't prevent you from using their claims

That were facts reported by other sources as well, and far more limited than implying that Intel is lying to their shareholders as Digitimes did.

 

[Nothingness]

Given how China overwhelmingly favors their homegrown firms like Rockchip, Mediatek, Allwinner et al, that hardly qualifies for an excuse, case in point ~
www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db5b55e6-752c-11e4-b1bf-00144feabdc0.html

Not saying that it'll happen for certain anytime soon but if you think just because Intel invests billions in that country China will oblige then you're sorely mistaken.

MediaTek is a Taiwanese company. Rockchip is working with Intel on SoFIA. Intel invested $1.5B in Spreadtrum and RDA. Intel invests $1.6B to upgrade one of its fab in China. It's also likely Intel substantially discounted Xeon Phi boards to make Tianhe-2 reach the 1st place in Top500.

I agree it doesn't mean China won't attack Intel, but for sure Intel is investing a lot of money in Chinese companies.

 

[R0H1T]

MediaTek is a Taiwanese company. Rockchip is working with Intel on SoFIA. Intel invested $1.5B in Spreadtrum and RDA. Intel invests $1.6B to upgrade one of its fab in China. It's also likely Intel substantially discounted Xeon Phi boards to make Tianhe-2 reach the 1st place in Top500.

I agree it doesn't mean China won't attack Intel, but for sure Intel is investing a lot of money in Chinese companies.

Yes it is technically a Taiwanese firm but AFAIK China already considers Taiwan its own little island :sneaky: doubt they'll give Intel any concessions if/when Mediatek complains to them. The only reason, as far as I'm concerned, they've allowed this sort of market manipulation thus far is because Intel is literally pouring billions to subsidize a ton of these homegrown products coming out of China from the likes of Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE et al. The moment this stops (contra revenue) & they (Intel) start jacking up the price &/or force the given ODM's to use their chips at a higher price that's the time you'll see action being taken by China, probably EU as well.

 

[Vesku]

Intel is playing nice (upfront $$$) as well as smart (invested $$$) with China, don't see them objecting to "contra-revenue" any time soon. In a way Intel is using Chinese tablets as a shield against European action. Intel is paying that money in China so EU would have to go after the tablet sellers and makers for "dumping" instead of directly fining Intel.

 

[witeken]

Bloomberg is claiming it's more to the tune of $4.2 B. That's one hell of a bath.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-...s-would-have-sunk-most-rivals.html?cmpid=yhoo

I refer to the investor meeting in November. You can go watch is, I even made a topic about it.

If Intel hadn't invested in mobile in 2014, the majority of that 4B would have been lost in other groups. It's just how reporting works: mobile takes its part in the costs.

Contra-revenue was probably about $1B in 2014, so that's a real loss, but ignoring that, the mobile investment is only a couple hundred million USDs per quarter, which isn't much at all. This is the whole beauty of IP leverage across different markets: the Atom core is also used in desktop, in laptop, in DCG, in IoT.

 

[witeken]

If you lose a billion by shipping 16 million craplets, that means they're gift wrapping each slowtrail with a $50 bill?!? Holy smoke!!!! They getting their butt handed to them by qualcomm

This math is *horribly* wrong, see my post above.