Intel records strongest quarter in 30 years

Intel has said that it has had its strongest financial quarter in 30 years, although profits are down on last year.

The company recorded profits of nearly US$1.9bn (AU$2.1bn), well above estimates, and revenues of US$9.4bn (AU$10.3bn), up US$1.4bn from the last quarter. The sales recovery was being led from demand in Asia and Brazil, but established markets like Europe and the US were also on the mend.

The enterprise market was doing well on the server side, but not so well on client sales. Chief executive Paul Otellini said that a lot would depend on next year's office PC refresh cycles.

“It's in the client side that the lights have been out for some time now,” he said.

“It comes down to CFOs and CIOs setting budgets for capital expenditure in 2010 There is a compelling evidence for refresh is out there. People are going to want to move to Windows 7.”

He said that Intel itself had been holding off from buying new PCs for its offices but was now doing so since the cost of running its 'ageing fleet' had grown too high.

As for cloud services and visualisation Otellini said “bring it on.”

He said the expected growth in datacentres would help spur sales of the company's more advanced server processors.