The Intel manager, who is responsible for the core business with processors, shows the latest generation of chips from his group, which he is leaving after three decades.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
Munich For more than three decades, the blue stickers with the slogan “Intel Inside” have adorned the majority of all PCs and notebooks. Recently, however, the stickers from the world’s largest processor manufacturer have been missing more and more: more and more computers are using competing components, above all from AMD.
A downward trend that Intel must stop as soon as possible in order to maintain the dominant position in the semiconductor industry. Most recently, Gregory Bryant, head of the Client Computing Group, the US company’s core business, presented two model series with 50 completely redesigned processors for mobile devices and desktops. “This is the biggest change in our architecture in a decade,” the manager told Handelsblatt. Processors function as the brain of every computer and are Intel’s biggest revenue generator.
They are the fastest laptop processors in the world, underlined Bryant. Above all, they are particularly well suited to running many demanding applications in parallel – as is often the case in the home office. Intel achieves this with a technical trick: The chips consist of different parts, the so-called performance and efficiency cores. The workload is intelligently distributed among these elements. “We are leaders with these products,” assured Bryant.
Intel is lagging behind in manufacturing
That is no longer a matter of course. The semiconductor manufacturer lags behind the competition when it comes to manufacturing processes in the Group’s own factories – and does not deny that: “We are working on getting back to the top with our process technology,” emphasized Bryant.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Intel is under pressure. Intel’s market share of the widespread X86 processors fell to a good 60 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021. Two years ago the proportion was more than 80 percent. Long-time rival AMD is rapidly gaining market share and is now more than 30 percent. Especially in the gaming sector, the AMD chips are gaining more and more fans thanks to the price-performance ratio and coordinated graphics components. Unlike Intel, the competitor does not produce itself: The Californians obtain their chips from the contract manufacturer TSMC in Taiwan and thus fall back on the most advanced production processes in the world.
Major customer Apple is also increasingly using processors developed in-house in its notebooks and is doing without components from Intel. In addition, Qualcomm, the leading supplier of cell phone chips, is pushing into the PC and notebook business. Its CEO, Cristiano Amon, took office last summer to open up new markets, including computers and cars.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who has been in office for almost a year, doesn’t just want to master the difficult task of defending the top position. Intel should also conquer the market for graphics chips, the so-called GPUs. The business is currently dominated by Nvidia and AMD with models for all performance classes, Intel does not play a role.
The new “Arc” GPU series would soon be used by large computer manufacturers such as Acer, Dell and HP, according to Bryant. “The market is hungry for Intel GPUs,” claims the manager. Soon 50 computer models with these semiconductors will be available. In fact, due to the global shortage of chips, existing GPU series have been in short supply for months – and overpriced.
Investors are skeptical about Intel
For Bryant, the latest product launch was the last. After 30 years at Intel, the manager leaves the company at the end of the month. In future, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, head of sales to date, will head the company’s most important division. The timing is well chosen: a four-year development phase ends with the new processors. The main thing now is to push the chips into the market.
However, investors are not yet convinced that Intel will succeed in turning things around. The shares are currently listed slightly below the level of the beginning of 2021. The price of AMD, however, has climbed by more than 40 percent within a year, Nvidia’s shares have doubled their value in the past twelve months.
The Intel boss wants to regain lost ground in the core business with processors for PCs and notebooks and at the same time conquer a new field with graphics chips.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
The rest of the industry has recently been much more dynamic than Intel. The world market leader achieved a meager one percent increase in sales in the first nine months of 2021. For the entire industry, however, the industry association World Semiconductor Trade Statistics expects a global increase in sales of almost 26 percent for the past year.
The outlook from Intel is all the more exciting: On January 26, CEO Gelsinger will present the latest quarterly figures and give a forecast for 2022. Anything but a strong increase in sales would be a bitter disappointment in view of the product offensive.
More: Manufacturers are already warning of bottlenecks: How Apple is bringing chargers with new chip material to the masses