Intel issued a loss notice and its shares fell 9.74% in after-hours trading.

Beijing, January 27 (Xinhua) Intel Corp. said on Thursday that it expected a loss this quarter, while giving a bleaker than expected outlook in the PC market and its slow-growing key data center division, which surprised investors and sent its shares down more than 9% in after-hours trading.

"We have stumbled, lost market share and lost momentum," Intel CEO Pat Kissinger (Pat Gelsinger) said on a fourth-quarter conference call. We think it will stabilize this year. Intel's share of the data center market has been declining, which is actually an affirmation of the strength of its competitor AMD, he said.

Intel shares closed up 1.31% on Thursday. Intel shares fell $2.93, or 9.74%, to $27.16, or 9.74%, as of 18:53 EDT (7:53 Beijing time on Friday), giving a market capitalization of $124.2 billion. At the same time, the shares of other chip companies are also falling. AMD is down 2.6% and Nvidia is down 2%.

Intel shares tumbled 9.74% in after-hours trading. Supported by a boom in telecommuting during the epidemic, Intel's two most important markets experienced two years of strong growth, but are now weak. Now the PC industry is struggling to cope with a glut of chips as demand for consumer electronics falls sharply and corporate customers worried about the recession are slowing their spending on data centres.

Kissinger said customers were also emptying inventory. "We expect some of the largest inventory adjustments we have seen in the industry, which will have a significant impact on the first quarter's earnings guidance." He said.

"it all depends on the recovery of the PC market. AMD is not immune," said Wayne Lam, an analyst at CCS Insight. "Don't think we've seen a trough in Intel shares... they're not running a sustainable business model."

Intel's profit margin fell to 43.8% in the fourth quarter of last year from 58.4% in the fourth quarter of 2020, and is expected to decline further in the first quarter. "it is safe to say that it will take a long time for Intel to return to its future profit margin target of 60 per cent," said Angelo Zino, an analyst at CFRA Research.