Lemon
A-Share/HK/US Equity Commentary, Ex-HSBC Investment Banker
Intel is worth far more than the $130 a share Citi analysts imply. If AI grows the CPU market to $130B a year by 2030 and Intel keeps 47% share, that is about $61B of sales and $24-25B of operating profit at a standard 40% margin. Foundry capacity should be fully utilized from 2028 as orders from Apple, Google and TeraFab surge, adding $50-60B of sales and $20-25B of operating profit. The combined company would top $120B in annual sales and roughly $50B in operating profit. x.comÂ
Intel's growing server profit gives its recovery firmer support, though Q4's margin reset limits extrapolation. Data Center and AI revenue rose 78% to $7.3B; foundry losses narrowed to $1.85B but remain substantial. Management guides Q4 non-GAAP gross margin to 38% from 44.1% in Q3, while client sales fell 5%. The 14A milestone alone does not establish external foundry commitments. x.comÂ
US sovereign AI and defense demand for domestically made compute will bring Intel most, if not all, US semiconductor designers as customers. PC weakness also lets Intel shift wafers to higher-margin server CPUs, but that takes a few quarters; capacity to ship more server CPUs is the limiter. The $240 billion 2030 server CPU market forecast is a stretch case, not the base case, versus roughly $200 billion consensus. x.com x.com x.com x.com x.comÂ
Intel's lack of real AI or foundry plans is showing in weak Q4 guidance. It forecasts $15 billion to $16 billion of revenue versus $17.08 billion consensus and non-GAAP EPS of $0.25 versus $0.44, despite Q3 EPS of $0.52 and revenue of $16.51 billion beating expectations. x.comÂ
Intel's data-center and foundry growth could outlast its PC-driven weak guidance. Data-center revenue rose 78% to $7.3bn and foundry revenue rose 58%, but PCs still account for about half the business and management expects their slowdown through at least the first half of next year. Q4 revenue and margin guidance disappointed, and $0.17 of quarterly EPS came from a mark-to-market gain. The selloff prices in the PC problem, not the turnaround. Overweight; $130 target. x.com x.comÂ
Intel has shifted from a binary bet to a compounder, with Apple's preliminary deal for Intel to make its chips confirming the foundry customers are there as CPU demand explodes. A valuation model puts Intel at $1.2T, and it could reach $1-2T. x.com x.com x.comÂ
Intel looks priced for too much good news before it has actually delivered on anything. Its CPU story was carrying the share price. x.comÂ
Server CPU demand amid AI buildouts gives Intel's upcoming Q3 earnings a fundamental role in its bounce setup. The market expects roughly $16.5 billion in revenue; a potential triple bottom at $87 coincides with the 200 EMA, making a decent bounce highly likely from here. JPMorgan upgraded Intel from Underweight to Neutral, citing better execution and valuation. Losing the 200 EMA would invalidate the pattern and be a significant bearish signal. x.comÂ
Investors are aggressively funding Intel as an AI infrastructure manufacturer: its upsized $20B stock offering drew over $100B of demand, about 5x oversubscribed even after a huge run. The capital supports its push to high-volume 14A production by 2028 across foundry, advanced packaging and AI silicon. Tesla and Terafab as anchor external customers make this turnaround more credible than past ones. The cost is roughly 5% dilution. x.comÂ
Intel's high valuation is hard to justify while its foundry turnaround remains unproven. At about 59x forward earnings, nearly three times TSMC's 19x, Intel has slower projected revenue growth; its foundry lost $2.09 billion in Q2 2026, while TSMC's Q3 operating margin was 58.7%. A politician's stock purchase alone does not make Intel a buy. x.com x.comÂ
Intel at $112 is an opportunity not to miss, with a $150-plus target by year end, after earlier chances in Micron, Nokia and Arm. It holds $98 billion of backlog orders for 2027-2031, reports 180% annual revenue growth and has $3 billion of cash reserves. x.comÂ
