Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) 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.
Will AI create the world’s first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an “Indispensable Monopoly” providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »
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 (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD), both of which had been much more aggressive in pursuing AI-related opportunities.
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.