Intel’s profit rose only 6 percent in the fourth quarter, the company said, as the impact of last year’s catastrophic flooding in Thailand, which devastated hard-drive production, began to affect PC sales, The Telegraph reported.
The company posted net income of $3.4 billion, or 64 cents a share, up from $3.2 billion, or 56 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago. Intel’s revenue increased 21 percent to $13.9 billion, from $11.5 billion in the year-earlier period.
Intel warned analysts on Dec. 12 that revenue would be weaker than they had predicted. After the announcement in December, Wall Street analysts lowered their average forecast to 61 cents a share, from 69 cents, on $13.72 billion in revenue.
Intel’s chief executive, Paul S. Otellini, said 2011 was an exceptional year. “The company performed superbly, growing revenue by more than $10 billion and eclipsing all annual revenue and earnings records,” he said in a news release. Intel has said that overall PC demand remains strong in the long term. The company expects the impact of the hard-drive shortage on PC sales to decline by the end of the year.
The company is focusing on increasing the sales of its higher-margin chips that are used in ultrathins, the smaller, lighter computers that Intel calls Ultrabooks. Chips for the ultra-thin notebooks, like those sold by Toshiba, Lenovo and Acer, typically cost many times what PC chips cost, in large part because they are more energy-efficient, so profit margins are higher.
