Intel (INTC) will announce its first-quarter 2025 earnings on April 24. While the company’s Q1 financials will remain under pressure due to multiple headwinds, including heightened competition and macroeconomic uncertainty, the quarter may see a modest boost in demand, thanks to customers stockpiling chips ahead of potential U.S. tariffs. This preemptive buying, triggered by fears of future price hikes, could offer temporary relief to Intel’s revenue.

However, this demand boost may come at the expense of future quarters, potentially exacerbating already looming weaknesses. Such front-loading of sales often leads to subdued performance later on — especially in a market already grappling with PC inventory balancing and increasing competition.

Intel: Q1 Expectations and Financial Projections

Wall Street is bracing for continued pressure on Intel’s financials. Analysts expect Intel to post a loss of $0.14 per share in Q1. That would mark a sequential and year-over-year deterioration in profitability. Intel delivered a loss per share of $0.06 in the same period a year ago.

Notably, Intel has mostly underperformed and exceeded analysts’ bottom-line expectations only once in the last four quarters. The company delivered a 50% earnings beat in its most recent report.

Historically, Intel's first quarter tends to be seasonally weak. The company often registers high single- to low-double-digit sequential declines. This time around, management has guided revenue in the range of $11.7 billion to $12.7 billion. This reflects a drop of 11% to 18% from the previous quarter. Pressure is expected across all major business segments. Moreover, macroeconomic headwinds and increasing competition, especially from rival chipmakers aggressively expanding into AI and next-gen computing, will remain a drag.

What’s Ahead for INTC Stock?

Intel has been losing ground to competitors, struggling with shrinking profit margins and tepid revenues. Further, a slower-than-expected transition into the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution that has energized its peers has weighed on its performance. Intel’s recent stock performance has mirrored these struggles.

The company is banking on its upcoming product lineup to spark a turnaround, with AI-powered PCs and the next-generation Panther Lake CPU leading the charge. These innovations could help Intel gain ground in the high-performance computing space and better align its portfolio with the industry’s accelerating shift toward AI integration.

Despite recent setbacks, Intel still has significant growth opportunities in enterprise computing. Many of the world’s data center workloads continue to run on Intel hardware, and the company’s well-established ecosystem gives it a strong foundation to build upon. Heading into 2025, Intel plans to stabilize its market share and reposition itself for long-term growth.

A particularly compelling opportunity lies in the AI data center market. Intel maintains a solid position as the host CPU for AI servers and sees long-term potential in CPU-based inference solutions, especially on-premises and at the edge. However, the company has yet to make a meaningful dent in the cloud-based AI data center segment — a fast-growing area where rivals have pulled ahead. Intel is streamlining its product roadmap and reallocating resources to better target this crucial space.

Intel is doubling down on operational efficiency. Management is focusing on boosting the performance and profitability of its Foundry business. The company is investing heavily in infrastructure and manufacturing capacity and expects to hit break-even operating income in the Foundry division by the end of 2027.

Moreover, in a strategic move, Intel recently announced the sale of a 51% stake in its Altera business to Silver Lake, a prominent technology investment firm. The deal allows Intel to retain a meaningful 49% stake, giving it a foothold in Altera’s potential growth while allowing greater focus on its core operations.

The announcement reflects Intel’s commitment to sharpening its focus on core business, lowering its expense structure, and strengthening its balance sheet. The move will enable Intel to focus on its core business and strengthen its financial position.

Is Intel Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?

Intel’s transformation story is still in progress, and patience will be required for a recovery in its stock. Meanwhile, industry-wide headwinds, such as macro uncertainty, cyclical slowdowns, inventory issues, and stiffening competition, pose significant challenges. Meanwhile, Intel’s rivals continue to push ahead aggressively in the AI and chip design space, hurting its market share.

Given the current landscape, Wall Street is largely in “wait-and-see” mode. Most analysts maintain a “Hold” rating on the stock ahead of the company’s upcoming Q1 earnings report. Even for long-term investors, INTC may remain a “Hold” as the company works on its comeback plan.