Intel's trusty microprocessor business carried the company to a record fourth quarter, as losses in other businesses narrowed and boosted revenue as well.

Intel reported revenue of $8.74 billion for the quarter - a 22 percent year-on-year rise. This total just beats out the previous record $8.73 billion posted in the third quarter of 2000.

For all of 2003, Intel churned out $30.1 billion in revenue, up 13 percent from the $26.8 billion posted in 2002. Net income for 2003 was $5.6 billion versus $3.1 billion in 2002.

"2003 began with a question mark and ended with an exclamation point," said Intel's CFO Andy Bryant. "Fourth quarter results were a little better than we anticipated . . . supported by sales of microprocessors, especially in the server product line."

Highlights for the company in the quarter included record processor shipments with a higher than average number of server chips being sold. Motherboard and Ethernet products were also at record levels.

On the downside, flash memory continued to be flat.

The processor business, including motherboards and chipsets, accounted for $7.671 billion of revenue in the quarter. The company's communications group, which includes Ethernet products and embedded computing systems, brought in $592 million but posted a $49 million net loss. The wireless communications group also posted a net loss of $97 million on $469 million in revenue. Both losses, however, narrowed compared to last year. In future earnings reports, Intel will report revenue for the wireless and communications groups in one figure after combining them to form the Intel Communications Group.

In its first quarter, Intel expects revenue to come in between $7.9 billion and $8.5 billion. ®