Intel (INTC 5.69%) was one of the comeback stories of 2025, with the tech giant's shares nearly doubling. Yet even after that huge rebound, Intel has still been a disappointment to long-term shareholders. Even more worrisome is the fact that even with the big bounce in its share price, Intel still saw its business lose money in 2025.
The stock market anticipates future news rather than getting mired in the past, and so Intel stock's strong performance clearly suggests that the business will fare better in the future than it has recently. Nevertheless, it's still worth looking at past results to see how Intel got itself into its current situation and what it's going to take to move forward. That's the primary goal of this second article in the Voyager Portfolio series on Intel.
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Intel's fall from grace
Intel posted its peak sales year in 2021, with revenue topping out at $79 billion. However , even at that point, there were some signs that the chipmaker's business wasn't entirely healthy. Rising costs of goods sold had already pulled gross margin down 3 percentage points over the previous two years to 55.5%, and rising research and development expenses had dealt a 6 percentage point hit to Intel's operating margin, to 24.6%.
After that, things turned ugly quickly. 2022 was a tough year in the tech industry, with the bear market in stocks largely reflecting weaker consumer demand due to high inflation and macroeconomic pressures. Revenue plunged 20%, and net income took a nearly 40% hit. Intel had benefited from high demand for PCs early in the COVID-19 pandemic, but as conditions started returning to normal, bloated PC inventories took their toll on Intel's business.
The pullback continued in 2023, with net income taking a nearly 80% haircut and sales falling another 14%. In addition to weak demand, Intel continued to lose market share to semiconductor stock rivals like Nvidia (NVDA 1.53%) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 3.46%), both of which had been much more aggressive in pursuing AI-related opportunities.
Change at the top
2024 proved to be the last hurrah for former CEO Pat Gelsinger. In the third quarter , the financial axe fell, as Intel took $15.9 billion in impairment charges and $2.8 billion in restructuring charges. Despite efforts to follow through on a plan to cut costs by $10 billion, Intel's poor performance in its PC and foundry divisions offset signs of strength in its smaller data center and AI segment. Only a month later, the Intel board forced Gelsinger's resignation.
NASDAQ: INTC
Key Data Points
After a brief interim period, Intel named Lip-Bu Tan as CEO in March 2025. Tan's previous experience in technology leadership prompted the move, particularly because he had served as a director on Intel's board between 2022 and 2024.
Unfortunately, the recovery from Intel hasn't yet fully taken shape. 2025 gross margin rose more than 2 percentage points to 34.8%, and spending on R&D and general overhead expenses was down 17%. Yet the company still posted a GAAP loss of around $300 million, or $0.06 per share. Revenue for the year was flat, with the PC segment again offsetting gains in data center and AI sales.
Still, there were some positive signs. On an adjusted basis, Intel had positive earnings of $0.42 per share. Operating cash flow of $9.7 billion showed that Intel's business can still generate capital.
Still betting on the CPU
Tan believes that central processing units (CPUs) will still play an essential role in the AI era. That's a contrast to the strategy that Nvidia and AMD have followed, with their emphasis on graphics processing units (GPUs) as the foundation for their AI chips.
Whether Tan is right will make all the difference as to whether Intel can make good on its rebound hopes. The third and final article of this series for the Voyager Portfolio will look more closely at Intel's strategic plan and what it'll take to make it successful.
