Intel Corporation will introduce new entry-level PC processors in the second and third quarters of the fiscal year 2016 despite the prevalent weakness in the PC market, according to recent reports by Digitimes. Intel's shares have been on a downward trend since the start of fiscal year 2015 (FY15) primarily due to the weak demand for PCs. In late August, the stock fizzled down to its 52-week low of $24.87.
The downturn in the overall PC market has urged the chip maker to seek other revenue streams as a result of which Intel acquired a programmable chip maker, Altera Corporation. Intel has also recently rewarded its shareholders through healthy reports at its annual analysts’ day. The company managed to restore investor confidence with the announcement of a hike in quarterly cash dividends as well as its full-year 2016 outlook. Moreover, Intel has also made strides in the manufacture of memory chips. It launched 3D Xpoint technology alongside Micron technology. Wall Street analysts consider Intel's upcoming 3D Xpoint technology to be revolutionary and are hence bullish over it. Furthermore, Intel has announced that it will spend more than $5.5 billion to convert its old factory in China to manufacture its 3D NAND technology. Intel Corporation stock is up by 0.23% to trade at $34.77 in today's pre-market trade.
Despite the soft PC market, demand for mini PCs and gaming notebooks has remained strong, especially those equipped with Intel’s entry-level processors (the Pentium and Celeron dual-core lines), which continue enjoying strong demand in Europe, North America and South, as well as Southeast Asia. Inexpensive PCs and mini PCs using Intel's Core i3, Pentium or Celeron processors are currently priced between NT$8,000-20,000 (as opposed to the newer and more expensive core i5, i7, and Xeon lines favored by PC aficionados and gamers alike).
Seeing the trend, Intel is scheduled to mass produce its next-generation Apollo Lake-based processors in June-August 2016 with related entry-level PC products becoming available in the market in October 2016, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Currently, over 500 million existing PCs worldwide have already been used for more than five years, and PC players including Intel, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell and Lenovo have all been aggressively promoting their new PCs, looking to attract consumers to replace their old products.
Intel is now mainly pushing its 14nm Braswell-based SoC processors for the entry-level PC market, succeeding the 22nm Bay Trail. Intel will release upgraded versions of the Braswell processors in the first quarter of 2016 for desktops, and an upgraded one for notebooks in the second quarter.
The Braswell processors will then be succeeded by the Apollo Lake-based processors. Apollo Lake processors adopt a dual/quad-core design, 14nm process and Gen9 GPU, and support Ultra HD output, USB Type-C and eMMC 5.0.
Story sources: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20151201PD200.html
http://www.bidnessetc.com/58422-intel-corporation-to-debut-new-line-of-entrylevel-pc-processors-by-2016/
images: http://pcrefresh.intel.my/images/intel_inside.png
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/uk-pc/intel/widi/intel_look_inside_banner._V367878116_.png
No comments:
Post a Comment