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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wanna_bmw who wrote (151102)	12/4/2001 11:30:33 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

``We believe Intel will guide to the higher end of this range,'' wrote Lehman Brothers analyst Dan Niles in a note to clients. ``We believe there is a possibility of increasing the upper end of the range, but given a third of revenues still have to be done in December, this is not a foregone conclusion.'' Intel has been moving as quickly and as aggressively as possible to make only the Pentium 4 chip and phase out the less expensive Pentium III chip by the end of the year. Robertson Stephens analyst Eric Rothdeutsch estimates that Intel gets an average $210 per Pentium 4 chip, compared with an estimated $140 for the Pentium III. MORE PENTIUM 4 Intel shipped about 800,000 Pentium 4 chips in the first quarter, 1.8 million in the second quarter and 6.5 million in the third quarter, Niles estimated. And Intel has forecast that it will ship twice as many Pentium 4 chips in the fourth quarter than in the third. Santa Clara, California-based Intel will issue its mid-quarter update on Thursday after the close of U.S. trading, holding a brief teleconference call and issuing a press release. Intel and other semiconductor makers have suffered a bruising year of falling sales and profits as the $200 billion industry has been mired in its worst-ever slump amid slowing economies and weak demand. With a 78 percent share of the market for microprocessors, the primary computing engines of personal computers, Intel relies on processors, chipsets and motherboards for about 80 percent of its sales. Niles also raised his fourth-quarter earnings per share estimate for Intel to 10 cents from 8 cents, as well as his sales forecast to $6.8 billion from $6.6 billion. Citing a favorable mix shift to the Pentium 4, solid chipset sales and seasonally stronger sales of flash memory chips, Robertson Stephens' Rothdeutsch raised his 2001 per-share estimates to 48 cents from 47 cents and his sales estimate to $26.4 billion from $26.1 billion. Most don't expect particularly strong holiday sales of PCs and other devices in the fourth quarter, typically the industry's strongest. However, sales during the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend appeared to improve from last year's weak levels, PC makers and analysts said. Despite the economic downturn, PC makers, including Compaq Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., which plan to merge next year, said consumers bought more computers and electronics than a year ago. That said, consumers are leaning toward less expensive computer packages and bundles. ``PC sales, in general, post-Thanksgiving have been decent but not spectacular,'' Niles wrote. Another analyst, Doug Lee, of Banc of America Securities, expects Intel ``management to express comfort with the high end of revenue guidance,'' he wrote in a report. ``Sales of the company's Pentium 4 processors have been particularly strong quarter-to-date.'' Intel shares rose 82 cents to $32.86 on the Nasdaq, and have fallen 25 percent year-to-date.