PC chip maker, Intel, has revealed that its profits in Q3 of this year has slipped marginally but it still beat Wall Street predictions.
Intel reported that its net income for the quarter ending September 28, 2013 was $2.95 billion, or 58 cents a share, which has slightly dropped from $2.97 billion, or 58 cents a share, in the same quarter of 2012. The revenue of the company was $13.48 billion, which is just modestly up from from $13.46 billion a year ago. Analysts expected a profit of 53 cents per share on revenue of $13.4 billion.
Shares of Intel fell 59 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $22.80 in extended trading after the release of results.
The desktop computer chip making division of the company saw sales fall by 3.5 percent. PC sales have now fallen for six consecutive quarters for the company and has hit a five-year low in the July-to-September period.
The growing popularity of tablets and smartphones is seen as one of the key factors for the drop of PC sales. Many companies are now manufacturing tablets and smartphones, and the price of these devices has also reduced significantly in recent times.
IDC has reported that worldwide PC shipments fell by nearly eight percent during Q3 of 2013 to 81.6 million. Market research firm Gartner has indicated the decline as almost nine percent, to 80.3 million. With the increasing demand and popularity of mobile devices worldwide, PC shipments may fall even further in the near term.
Even though the company's core business of making microprocessors for PC has suffered, other departments of the company have done well in the quarter. Intel's data centre business, which makes hardware for corporate servers and massive storage computing reported record sales of $2.9 billion, which is up by 12 percent.
"The third quarter came in as expected, with modest growth in a tough environment," said Brian Krzanich, Intel's CEO, in the earnings release. "We're executing on our strategy to offer an increasingly broad and diverse product portfolio that spans key growth segments, operating systems and form factors. Since August we have introduced more than 40 new products for market segments from the Internet-of-Things to data centers, with an increasing focus on ultra-mobile devices and 2 in 1 systems."
For Q4 of 2013, Intel projects revenue of $13.2 billion to $14.2 billion while analysts predict revenue of $14.0 billion.
