Intel reported a 35% decline in third-quarter profits and a 12% drop in revenues, but the chip maker beat Wall Street's tepid expectations and shipped record numbers of microprocessors for mobile devices and computer servers, an Associated Press report said.
The report said net income for the three months ended September 30 was $1.3 billion, compared with $2 billion in the same period last year.
Revenue fell to $8.74 billion from $9.96 billion, the report added.
Analysts had been expecting profits of $1.01 billion on sales of $8.62 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Financial, the report said.
In the third quarter, Intel began shipping the world's first 'quad-core' processor chips, months ahead of those expected from Intel's nimble rival, Advanced Micro Devices, which had been dramatically gaining market share that Intel once had nearly to itself, the report further said.
Intel CFO Andy Bryant acknowledged that the company's financial performance bottomed out in the past two quarters, but expressed confidence that performance would improve in the fourth quarter and throughout 2007, according to the report.
He said revenue in the current quarter would be between $9.1 billion and $9.7 billion, in line with analysts' expectations averaging $9.46 billion, the report added.