Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) released its earnings report for the first quarter of 2013 yesterday after the market closed. The company’s results were generally in line with estimates but that hasn’t stopped many analysts worrying about the company, and its reliance on the dying PC market.
According to a new report, Nomura Equity Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) has shown that it’s willing to become more flexible and that’s exactly what the company needs going forward. One big factor that emerged from the earnings report was the company’s reduction of 2013 capex guidance to $12 billion from $13 billion.
Along with this the company said that it would keep an eye on the metric and reduce it if demand in the PC market declined at a faster rate than it had estimated. A large swathe of the company’s capital expenditure is being put to use repurposing factories in order to allow use of its new 14 nanometer manufacturing process.
The 14nm based chips, and the even smaller evolutions promised in the future, have been hailed by some as the Holy Grail in microprocessor technology, but they won’t do Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) any good if demand in the PC market slumps quickly and nobody buys them. The company’s admission that it is monitoring the situation was taken as an indication that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is willing to be more flexible, and that’s a good thing for investors.
In the first quarter, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) made good headway in its data center business. The company made $2.6 billion in that sector during the first quarter of the year. That number was in line with many estimates, though Nomura had thought the company could bring in $2.7 billion in the business in the first quarter.
Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) still has a great future ahead of it, but the PC market may not be where it makes its money in five years’ time. As one of the great innovators of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the company has shown it can change a market. Investors want the company to be willing to be changed by the market as well, and the comments on capital expenditure show that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) has heard those analysts.
The Nomura report maintained a price target of $18 on the company’s stock, a decidedly negative view. Nomura Holdings, Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:NMR) (TYO:8604)’s analysts think that the fall off in demand in the PC market will hurt the company, and it’s just not flexible enough to absorb that damage. Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) will have to prove them wrong.
