Market AnalysisJul 27, 20262 Min
Intel shares jump 5% after Q2 earnings: Key takeaways for investors
Chipmaker Intel Corp. left a solid impression on investors when it announced its earnings for the second quarter after the closing bell on Thursday.
The company exceeded expectations on all aspects – revenue, profit progress and outlook. Revenue growth, in fact, was the highest for any quarter since the year 2011.
Impressed Wall Street investors sent Intel shares soaring over 5% in extended trading hours on Thursday. This number is significant as the stock has otherwise had a difficult month so far, dropping around 28%. Though it remains up over 170% for 2026.
Analysts said that Intel was benefiting from the rapid rise of agentic AI, where autonomous software agents perform tasks such as coding and other knowledge work on behalf of users. The resulting expansion of AI data centers has fuelled demand for Intel’s central processing units (CPUs).
Intel said revenue jumped 25.4% year-on-year to $16.13 billion, while adjusted profit was 42 cents per share. This compared well with consensus estimates of $14.42 billion and 21 cents per share.
The company’s data center and AI division generated $6.26 billion in revenue, ahead of analysts’ expectations of $5.37 billion.
The client computing group division, which sells laptop and desktop processors, generated $8.88 billion in revenue versus expectations of $7.89 billion.
The foundry business, meanwhile, reported second-quarter revenue of $5.77 billion, exceeding analysts’ estimates of $5.55 billion.
Intel’s adjusted gross margin came in at 41.8% in the second quarter compared with estimates of 38.8%. The company also informed that it generated $7 billion in cash from operations.
“Our Q2 results represent our strongest revenue growth in more than 15 years, enabled by greater speed, accountability, and customer focus,” said Lip-Bu Tan, Intel CEO.
Intel CFO Dave Zinsner said: “We delivered a strong second quarter, exceeding our financial guidance on robust demand and improved execution, including volume upside driven by higher factory yields and improved cycle times.”
Healthy outlook
What was even better was that Intel forecast better-than-estimated third-quarter revenue and profit on booming demand for AI data center chips.
The company expected third-quarter revenue of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion, above analysts’ average estimate of $15.1 billion, according to LSEG data. Adjusted earnings are forecast at 38 cents per share, compared with expectations of 27 cents.
Analysts noted that Intel’s Q2 results bolster the CEO’s efforts to restore Intel’s technology leadership and compete more effectively with rivals such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in the AI computing market.
Investors would continue to focus on the company's data center and foundry businesses as key measures of the turnaround in future.
