Intel’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results read like a company that has stopped the bleeding but still hasn’t found its stride, and the numbers quietly confirm that impression. Revenue of $13.7 billion in Q4, down 4% year over year, capped a flat full year at $52.9 billion, which might sound like resilience until you remember how much restructuring, cost cutting, and portfolio surgery it took to merely stand still. The deconsolidation of Altera muddies comparisons, but even allowing for that, growth remains elusive. EPS tells the same story in two voices: GAAP shows ongoing pain with a Q4 loss of $(0.12) per share and a full-year loss of $(0.06), while non-GAAP paints a cleaner picture at $0.15 in Q4 and $0.42 for the year, the kind of adjusted profitability that signals management control rather than true operational strength. It’s progress, yes, but it’s still fragile.
What’s actually working is clearer when you look under the hood. The Data Center and AI group grew 9% in Q4 and 5% for the year, quietly becoming Intel’s most credible growth engine, while Client Computing keeps shrinking, down 7% in the quarter and 3% for the year, reflecting a PC market that has stabilized but not rebounded. Foundry revenue ticking up 4% in Q4 and 3% for the year matters more strategically than financially, because it’s tied to Intel’s long, expensive bet on manufacturing sovereignty. The 18A ramp into high-volume manufacturing in Arizona and Oregon is real, and it is probably the most important line in the entire release, even if it doesn’t yet show up in margins. Gross margin erosion in Q4, down to 36.1% GAAP, is the tax Intel is paying for rebuilding itself while trying to compete, and the company is very open about supply constraints bottoming in Q1 2026 before easing later in the year. That’s corporate speak for “don’t expect miracles next quarter.”
Guidance reinforces the idea that 2026 starts soft. Revenue of $11.7–12.7 billion and GAAP EPS of $(0.21) for Q1 signal another weak patch, even as non-GAAP EPS is expected to break even. The contrast between the confident AI rhetoric and the cautious financial outlook is striking, almost awkward, but understandable. Intel needs the AI PC story, the 18A narrative, and the Foundry vision to land, because the present tense still looks like a holding pattern. Even the $5 billion NVIDIA equity investment, while strengthening the balance sheet, feels symbolic of where Intel stands: strong enough to attract strategic partners, not yet strong enough to lead the cycle.
Overall, this is a stabilization quarter, not a turnaround quarter. Intel has clearly regained operational discipline, cut costs aggressively, and narrowed losses, but growth is concentrated in one segment while the core PC business continues to sag. The company is betting that CPUs remain central in the AI era, and that bet is plausible, but the financials show that Intel is still in the middle of the crossing, not on the other side. The next two to three quarters will matter far more than this one, because that’s when we’ll find out whether 18A and AI platforms actually translate into revenue momentum, or whether Intel is just getting better at telling a story while waiting for the numbers to catch up.