Intel stock (NASDAQ:INTC) has barely moved this year, up just 2%, as the company continues to struggle with shrinking relevance in its core CPU market and underwhelming progress in its foundry ambitions, despite investing over $50 billion in the space. Revenue has collapsed from $79 billion in 2021 to $53 billion in 2024. While the broader PC market is showing signs of stabilization, Intel’s top line is projected to decline again this year – suggesting revenue stagnation could become the norm. Meanwhile, stocks of competitors like AMD and Nvidia are soaring, up 43% and 24% respectively in 2025. Could Intel stock plunge to $10 – half its current value? It may seem extreme, but given the steady erosion of its fundamentals, it’s no longer unthinkable. Below, we provide a scenario considering three key metrics, namely revenues, net margins, and price-to-earnings multiple. That said, if you want upside with a smoother ride than an individual stock, consider the High Quality portfolio, which has outperformed the S&P, and clocked >91% returns since inception.
SANTA CLARA, CA – JULY 15: An Intel sign is displayed in front of the Intel company headquarters … More
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Revenues Could Stagnate
Intel’s sales have declined considerably of late. Intel revenues declined from $79 billion in 2021 to $53 billion in 2024 as Intel’s CPU sales declined due to the cooling off of the PC market post-Covid-19, and also due to market share gains by rival AMD. The rise in mobile devices and increasing demand for AI chips – areas where Intel has a limited presence – have also hurt. While the PC market is recovering with sales projected to grow by low single-digits this year, Intel’s revenues don’t look like they will stabilize just yet, with consensus estimates projecting a 2% dip in sales this year. There remains a possibility that Intel could see its revenues stagnate in the interim due to a host of factors. While Intel struggles, Will AGI Take Nvidia Stock To $300?
Foundry business may not be taking off: There’s are increasing signs that Intel’s foundry bet isn’t taking off the way the company had expected. During its most recent earnings call, Intel appeared to play down hopes of winning major external customers for its 18A process – its most advanced manufacturing tech to date – with the leadership noting that 18A will primarily be used for internal products to begin with. Intel also said in its quarterly filing that it could potentially “pause or discontinue” its next-generation 14A process if it was unable to win a significant customer. However, the market for foundry services is actually booming. Taiwan’s TSMC – the world’s largest foundry player – sees its AI-related chips revenue doubling in 2025 and rising at a mid-40% levels over the next five years. Intel, on the other hand, is witnessing very little of the action.
CPU market share losses: Intel’s CPU business could face further pressure, despite new launches, as the generative AI era could open the doors to more competition as PC makers look to incorporate more smarts into their devices. For instance, both chip-designer ARM and mobile chipset specialist Qualcomm are pushing into the PC space and Microsoft’s latest Copilot+ PCs use ARM chips that offer AI features and consume less power. On the server front too, there could be challenges as accelerated computing servers used for generative AI applications typically require just one CPU for eight or more GPUs in AI servers. Moreover, GPU makers such as Nvidia are playing a bigger role in overall server system design, looking to replace dedicated CPUs from the likes of Intel with lower-powered ARM chips instead of Intel’s. This could impact Intel’s bread-and-butter CPU business.
Foundry utilization dilemma: Intel also faces a dilemma of sorts. While competitors like AMD and NVIDIA use TSMC’s superior, cutting-edge manufacturing processes, Intel must balance product competitiveness with the financial health of its own costly foundries. Intel has already been sending some chip orders TSMC’s way in recent years for crucial components of some of its recent processors. While this outsourcing boosts Intel’s product performance, it simultaneously starves its internal manufacturing division of crucial orders needed to cover fixed costs. This forces Intel into a difficult choice: risk using its own possibly less advanced fabs and falling behind rivals in the CPU game, or undermine its internal foundry operations by further embracing TSMC.
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Intel is clearly on the back foot. While the company is keen to build momentum – employee morale can’t be high either. Customers and buyers are more likely to want the ‘best’ and if the word on the street is that Intel isn’t the ‘future’ – it’s less likely to be the choice ‘now.’ Everything becomes just a tad harder. Intel revenues are projected at about $52 billion for this year per consensus estimates and there is a possibility that sales could remain flat in the coming years, due to the aforementioned factors.
Margins Fall Further?
Intel’s adjusted net margins (net income, or profits after expenses and taxes, calculated as a percent of revenues) have been on a declining trajectory – they fell from levels of over 28% in 2021 (and in years before that) to just about 8.5% in 2023 due to sales declines and considerable losses in the foundry business. The metric fell to negative levels in 2024 as Intel posted losses. While the markets are likely betting that Intel’s margins could eventually expand to historical levels as it sets its product and manufacturing roadmap in order, there remains a possibility that margins could remain depressed, remaining at about 5% levels in 2025.
Costs associated with the foundry ramp-up could hurt Intel’s bottom line. Moreover, Intel’s move to outsource production of its Arrow Lake chip to TSMC could potentially reduce the utilization of its own manufacturing facilities. Intel has also not exactly been known for production efficiency. For perspective, in 2023, Intel’s foundry business reported an operating loss of $7 billion on sales of $18.9 billion. Separately, higher competition in the CPU space – where new entrants such as Qualcomm and ARM – might also force Intel to resort to some amount of discounting.
How This Impacts Intel’s Stock
Now at the current market price of about $20 per share, Intel trades at about 160x estimated 2025 earnings and about 1.7x consensus revenue. Since Intel was unprofitable in 2024, let’s ignore the P/E multiple for this year. In 2023, Intel traded at about 19x. So what explains the difference in Intel’s P/E multiple using 2023 and 2025 earnings? It’s because investors are betting that things will get better going forward. However, if Intel doesn’t deliver in the interim, investor sentiment could go further downhill.
If we combine the scenario we detailed above – which assumes no meaningful annual revenue growth between 2025 and 2027 with adjusted net margins falling to about 5% – this means that adjusted net income could fall from about $4.4 billion in 2023 ($1.05 per share) to about $2.5 billion in 2027 ($0.58). Bad times make it easier to imagine worse times – and when that happens, things can spiral causing investors to assign an even lower multiple to Intel re-assessing Intel’s recovery path. For example, if Intel’s investors assign a multiple of 18x to Intel, following its continued underperformance, this would translate into a stock price of just about $10 per share.
What about the time horizon for this negative-return scenario? While our example illustrates this for a 2027 timeline, in practice, it won’t make much difference whether it takes two years or four. If the competitive threat plays out, with Intel also continuing to struggle with manufacturing, we could see a meaningful correction in the stock.
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