Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

Intel's financial performance in the fourth quarter of 2010 exceeded analysts' expectations, spiking Chipzilla's stock's value by around 3 per cent in after-hours trading.

"2010 was the best year in Intel's history. We believe that 2011 will be even better," said president and CEO Paul Otellini in a statement accompanying the results.

For the entire year, net income was $11.7bn on revenues of $43.6bn. Compared with 2009's Meltdown-reduced take, those figures represent improvements of 167 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively. Investors will be pleased to note that the company's earnings per share was $2.05 for 2010, a 166 per cent jump from jumpy 2009.

Compared with 2009, 2010's revenue from the company's PC Client Group was up 21 percent, and revenue from the Data Center Group was up 35 percent. Atom and chipset revenue hit $1.6 billion, up 8 percent.

But the news is not unreservedly positive. When compared to the third quarter of 2010, revenue from each of those three segments was essentially flat.

Speaking of flat, Intel projects that its revenue for the first quarter of this fiscal year will match that of the fourth quarter of 2010: $11.5bn – although it does give itself a margin of error of plus or minus $400m.

But when compared to the numbers that Intel was posting at this same time two years ago, when the bottom had dropped out of the financial bucket, things look mighty fine. For the fourth quarter of 2008, Intel posted a net income of $234m on revenues of $8.2bn.

We'll do the math for you: today's numbers show a 1,352 per cent growth in income on a 40 per cent growth in revenue when compared to dark, dank, dollar-dinky days of late '08. ®

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