On January 27, Intel announced the company's fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results. Throughout fiscal 2021, Intel's adjusted revenue was $74.7 billion, up 2 percent from $72.9 billion in fiscal 2020, and net profit was $22.4 billion, up 4 percent from $21.6 billion in the previous year, the report showed. In the fourth quarter, Intel's revenue was $19.5 billion, up 4 percent from $18.9 billion in the year-ago quarter, and net profit was $4.5 billion, down 27 percent from $6.1 billion in the year-ago quarter.
By business, sales in Intel's largest business customer computing group, the Client Computing Group, fell 7 percent year-over-year to $10.1 billion in the fourth quarter, but remained above the average analyst estimate of $9.6 billion. Full-year 2021 revenue of $40.5 billion, up 1% compared to the previous year. Data Center Group revenue rose 20 percent to $7.3 billion, above the average forecast of $6.7 billion.
Among other businesses, Mobileye grew more than 40% year-over-year in 2021, and the Internet of Things Division (IOTG) reached $1 billion in fourth-quarter revenue.
Intel CEO Henry Kissinger said the annual decline in the aforementioned segments, which include Intel's PC chip business, is the result of customers and PC makers shifting sales from one quarter to another. Since the onset of the 2020 pandemic, including a quarter in December last year, personal computer sales have been on the rise.
"Revenue is the best (achievement) in Intel's history, both in a single quarter and for the whole year." Intel CEO Kissinger said that the IDM 2.0 strategy will continue to be implemented in the future.
It is reported that Intel's IDM2.0 strategy consists of three key parts: first, continue to complete the production of most products internally; second, further enhance cooperation with third-party foundries; third, will invest in building a world-class foundry business, becoming a major provider of foundry capacity, starting from the United States and Europe to meet the huge global demand for semiconductor production.
Starting in March last year, Intel began an aggressive fab-building program. On January 21 this year, Intel announced a new investment plan to build a new chip production base in the United States, which is expected to start production in 2025, which will house eight chip manufacturing plants. Intel said the investment was at least $20 billion.
In addition, Intel may receive $52 billion in subsidies from government subsidies, at which point Intel may invest as much as $100 billion to build factories in the United States.
Under Kissinger's leadership, Intel is trying to reverse its product performance in the short term to regain manufacturing supremacy. But judging from the latest ranking of global semiconductor manufacturers, the challenges facing this chip company are still huge.
According to the 2021 operating income ranking of semiconductor manufacturers released by the US research company Gartner on January 19, South Korea's Samsung Electronics, which uses memory as the main product, surpassed Intel in the United States and once again jumped to the first place since 2018. Samsung revenue increased 31.6% from 2020, driven up overall by stronger memory due to higher prices and increased availability. Intel, which fell to Second Place, saw revenue growth of just 0.5 percent, the slowest growth rate among the top 25 companies.
In the field of wafer foundry, Samsung said in November last year that the 5nm process-based 12-inch fab will settle in Texas, the United States, with an investment of about $17 billion, is expected to start construction in 2022, and start production in 2024, while south Korea's Pyeongtaek 5nm expansion production line will also start production in June 2021, with a monthly production capacity of 20,000 pieces.
As another opponent of Intel, TSMC CEO Wei Zhejia said in a recent earnings meeting that TSMC's 3nm process will be mass-produced in the second half of this year. In the original plan, TSMC planned to invest $100 billion in the next three years to increase production capacity to support the research and development of high-end process technology.
In the industry's view, whether it is a new investment plan or a capacity expansion plan, it is only the beginning for Intel to regain its manufacturing leadership position, because the opponent's offensive speed is not slow.