San Francisco, Oct 15: Intel Corp., the world's largest maker of semiconductors, on Tuesday beat analysts estimates with sharply higher quarterly profit and revenue driven by record shipments of microprocessors and other chips. The company also forecast higher revenue in line with bullish Wall Street expectations and an equally strong gross margin in the fourth quarter.
Chief Financial Officer Andy Bryant attributed the year-over-year rise of nearly 150 per cent in net income to "cost cutting, cost containments (and) investment in new products hitting at a time when demand picks up a little bit."

The company is able to keep gross margins high partly due to strong sales of pricier products like laptops and servers, he said. Intel makes microprocessors, the brains that run a computer, as well as other chips designed to work together to perform various functions.
In a conference call with analysts, Bryant said he did not yet see a notable return of corporate spending, the reduction of which contributed to the chip industry's worst downturn.

There has been "no overwhelming rush to increase IT (information technology) budgets that we've seen," he said.
Net income for the third quarter was $1.7 billion, or 25 cents per share, more than doubled the $686 million, or 10 cents per share, posted a year earlier, Intel said. Bureau Report