Intel's Audacious Turnaround Plan in 1 Chart
When a company faces no real competition for a long time, complacency inevitably sets in. That's the story of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) for much of the 2010s. Advanced Micro Devices, the other half of the x86 processor duopoly, was a train wreck until around 2017. It didn't matter that Intel was running into all sorts of problems on the manufacturing side. The profits kept flowing.
After years of pushing out uncompetitive products, AMD turned the market for PC and server CPUs on its head with its Zen-powered chips. This was partly enabled by Intel's chronic manufacturing delays, and partly by the rapid technological progress made by third-party foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC). Intel sat idly by as its manufacturing edge slipped away, and AMD took advantage.
AMD has been winning market share, which is particularly problematic in the lucrative server chip market. Meanwhile, companies Apple and others have been able to have their own custom chips manufactured by TSMC using bleeding-edge tech that Intel simply can't match. In all, it's not a good situation for the half-century-old semiconductor giant.
Source Fool.com
