Intel Corp (NASDAQ: INTC) reports second-quarter financial results Thursday after the closing bell, with investors expected to look for updates on whether the company has started easing the supply constraints that executives said limited revenue in the first quarter. Supply Limited Revenue in Q1
During the first-quarter earnings call in April, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said demand continued to outpace supply across Intel's businesses, particularly for Xeon server CPUs, even as the company expanded factory output.
The company CFO, David Zinsner, said first-quarter revenue "would have been meaningfully higher" if more supply had been available, and expected supply to improve in the second quarter and continue increasing through the rest of the year.
AI Demand Continues To Pressure Chip Supply
In June, Micron Technology Inc (NASDAQ: MU) CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said the company still did not have line of sight into when memory supply would catch up with AI-driven demand.
Micron added that tight memory conditions are expected to persist beyond 2027 because of structural supply constraints.
Earlier this week, SK Group, the parent company of SK hynix (NASDAQ: SKHY), said current memory prices were "abnormally high," with Chairman Chey Tae-won adding that the industry should focus on expanding memory supply rather than maximizing profits from the current shortage.
Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore, in a note to clients, said the memory shortages driven by data center demand "show no signs of abating" and expects memory prices to rise at least 25% from the second quarter to the third quarter, according to a report by MarketWatch.
Moore expects memory shortage to worsen through 2028.
Q2 Earnings Forecast
Analysts expect Intel to report second-quarter revenue of $14.40 billion, up from $12.86 billion a year earlier, according to Benzinga Pro.
Wall Street also expects Intel to report earnings of 19 cents per share, compared with a loss of 10 cents per share in the year-ago quarter.
Price Action: INTC closed 2.68% lower on Wednesday at $102.62 and gained 1.14% in extended trading.
According to Benzinga Edge rankings, INTC has a 99th percentile Momentum score, with a negative short-term price trend and positive medium- and long-term price trends.