The share price of Intel rose 20% to $80.10 per share in an after-hour trading of Thursday, April 24, 2026, after its 1Q26 earnings beat estimates with a strong guidance for the second quarter from the management.
Intel delivered quarterly revenue and adjusted earnings that significantly exceeded market expectations, buoyed by robust data center demand and new manufacturing agreements. The company’s results, coupled with fresh contracts with Musk-owned Terafab and Google, have strengthened its financial outlook.
Intel reported revenue of $13.58 billion for the quarter, surpassing analyst projections of $12.42 billion according to LSEG data. Adjusted earnings per share reached $0.29, compared with the consensus estimate of $0.01. On a GAAP basis, revenue rose 7% year over year to $13.6 billion.
The company’s gross margin under GAAP improved to 39.4% from 36.9%, while R&D and MG&A expenses decreased 8% to $4.4 billion. Intel posted a GAAP operating margin of negative 23.1%, which dropped from negative 2.4% a year before. The reported tax rate was negative 8.5%, up from negative 51.4% in the prior year. Net loss attributable to Intel widened to $3.7 billion, compared with $0.8 billion the previous year, resulting in a diluted loss per share of $0.73, up from $0.19. The company noted that some of these comparisons were not meaningful.
On an adjusted basis, Intel showed improved performance with a non-GAAP gross margin of 41.0%, up from 39.2%. Non-GAAP R&D and marketing, general and administrative (MG&A) costs fell by 9% to $3.9 billion, and the non-GAAP operating margin expanded to 12.3%, compared to 5.4% a year earlier.
Cash generated from operations totaled $1.1 billion for the period. Intel CFO David Zinsner stated that the company remains committed to optimizing its manufacturing capacity to support ongoing customer demand.
Segment performance was led by Data Center and AI revenue, which climbed 22% to $5.1 billion. Total Intel Products revenue increased 9% to $12.8 billion, while Intel Foundry revenue advanced 16% to $5.4 billion. Other revenue declined 33% to $0.6 billion.
New business wins were a highlight. Intel announced a manufacturing partnership with Terafab, which lists SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla among its clients. In a separate agreement, the company entered a multi-year deal with Google to supply Xeon CPUs for Google Cloud’s AI inference and other operations.
Management indicated that these recent contract wins underpin its second-quarter guidance, forecasting revenue between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion. The midpoint of this range surpasses consensus estimates by $1.2 billion, with the company citing these committed orders as the basis for its outlook.
