Three months after Intel CEO Paul Otellini claimed the PC market had "bottomed out," he's proving accurate with stronger than expected sales.
Intel is forecasting sales of $8.5 billion, give or take $400 million, this quarter, which beat analyst expectations of $7.8 billion. In the second quarter, Intel topped analyst forecasts of $7.28 billion with $8 billion in sales, BusinessWeek reports.
Those strong numbers are thanks in large part to consumer PC sales, which were surprisingly healthy in the U.S. In China, a government stimulus package contributed to Intel's success. "Consumers are buying PCs," Doug Freedman of Broadpoint Research told BusinessWeek. "That's one strong takeaway."
It's not clear from the report what kind of PC purchases are powering the sales growth. "From a consumption standpoint, consumer purchases led the way with a strong rebound in mobile processor shipments," Otellini said in a conference call with analysts.
"Mobile processor" could refer to either the Atom chip powering most netbooks or Intel's line of Core processors with Centrino technology, commonly found in more powerful laptops. I'd guess that Otellini is talking about a rebound in laptop sales, because netbooks haven't really faltered lately, except that a recent forecast from DisplaySearch expects notebook shipments to flatten.
Either way, a sales boost is good news for Intel. If netbooks are behind it, that only suggests there's a viable business in cheap computing.
