Re: sounds like nerves reacting to the up-coming earnings report.
Relax. They are reporting on last quarter, which had a 6 week period when Intel's big "clear out the inventory" push was dominating retail sales. There was no competition for Intel in mobile or servers of any kind last quarter, either.
I'd guess they'll beat the 10 cent projection by a penny or two, and report a small increase in units sold.
They'll ignore the current influx of AMD notebooks and AMD's return to the large retail presence it had early in Q1 and base guidance on the notion that the price war is over and that Jerry Sanders has suddenly decided he really doesn't care about market share.
So Intel will report, once again, that while this quarter was bad, next quarter will be great. The analysts will buy it hook, line, and sinker (as they have for every quarter in recent memory).
Mid-quarter, an amazed Intel will report that the price war seems to have continued after all, and in fact has spread to mobile units, and the flabbergasted analyst community will once again have to drastically lower earnings estimates for Intel mid quarter - but, they'll claim, next quarter will be much, much better.
Dan |
