INTC Intel Corporation

By Asa Fitch 

Intel Corp. posted strong fourth-quarter earnings that benefited from an upswing in personal-computer shipments and robust demand for chips to power data centers.

The chip maker Thursday said adjusted earnings per share in the quarter rose to $1.52 from $1.28 in the year-prior period. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting $1.25 per share on an adjusted basis.

Sales in the period rose 8% to $20.21 billion, beating the $19.23 billion analysts had expected.

Intel's sales in recent quarters have benefited from strong demand for cloud-computing as companies migrate from owning servers to renting data storage and processing horsepower. That has driven cloud-computing vendors to build up big data centers, the chip-hungry server farms where the data is stored. Intel posted 2019 annual sales of $71.97 billion, topping the $71 billion the company forecast in October.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, the largest U.S. chip maker by revenue, also has enjoyed stronger than expected demand for chips powering PCs. Vendors of those computers shipped large numbers of devices running a newer version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system before the software giant, this month, stopped supporting the older Windows 7. PC shipments rose by 4.8% in the quarter, according to International Data Corp. figures, helping boost Intel's chip sales.

Intel also gave an upbeat outlook for the full year. Sales, it said, should reach about $73.5 billion. Analysts are expecting sales to reach $70.98 billion.

Intel shares rose more than 7% in after-hours trading.

Chief Executive Bob Swan said the company was outperforming revenue and earnings expectations in its long-term financial plan.

Write to Asa Fitch at asa.fitch@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 23, 2020 16:38 ET (21:38 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.