Intel will be keen to forget 2024 despite its products selling well because its foundries still keep on swallowing money

You'd be forgiven for thinking that 2024 was a year that Intel would prefer to just forget about. Raptor Lake chips self-destructing, Arrow Lake disappointing, and Pat Gelsinger getting the boot (sorry, retiring) were just some of the low points from last year. However, it wasn't all gloom and doom as it turns out that Intel's products all generated more revenue than the previous year, despite making a substantial $19 billion loss.

So how did Intel manage to do well and poorly at the same time? In the case of the latter, the 2024 financial year statement shows the culprits to be its foundry service (Intel's chip-making plants) and something called intersegment eliminations. I'm certainly no financial expert but as I understand it, that refers to money being transferred between different segments of a business and in Intel's case, it was a pretty steep $17 billion in transferred revenue.

While the other divisions (Client, Data Center and AI, Networking and Edge) only generated a little extra revenue apiece, compared to 2023, they all turned in a net profit. Networking and Edge did especially well in 2024, although Data Center was down a touch. So while PC gamers might not have liked the Core Ultra 200S range all that much, it's clear that OEMs, system builders, and others are still buying plenty of Intel processors.

Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in the early 1980s. After leaving university, he became a physics and IT teacher and started writing about tech in the late 1990s. That resulted in him working with MadOnion to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its PC gaming section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com covering everything and anything to do with tech and PCs. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open-world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days?