Фото: Intel
In recent days, mobile processor manufacturer Qualcomm has expressed its intention to acquire Intel. This is reported by The Wall Street Journal with reference to knowledgeable sources.
The Intel acquisition deal, which has a market value of approximately $90 billion, became possible due to one of the biggest crises in the fifty-year history of the computer processor manufacturer. Sources note that the deal is still far from being realized. Even if Intel agrees, a deal of this magnitude will undoubtedly attract the attention of antitrust regulators. To complete the deal, Qualcomm may resell Intel’s assets or parts to other buyers.
Shares of Intel, once the world’s most expensive chipmaker, have fallen by about 60% this year. Back in 2020, the company’s market value exceeded $290 billion. Qualcomm is now worth about $185 billion, and its shares are up about 17% this year. The deal will significantly expand Qualcomm’s horizons and will complement its business from mobile chips Intel processors for laptops and PCs, servers, and embedded systems.
Qualcomm, headed by Cristiano Amon, had been working with Intel on potentially manufacturing its chips at Intel’s fabs. But Qualcomm stopped its efforts due to technical reasons. The acquisition attempt by Qualcomm comes amid more than three years of efforts by Intel under Pat Gelsinger to overcome the crisis, which have not yet yielded significant results. The manufacturing division has been unprofitable and has not received many orders from customers other than Intel itself since Helsinger opened up fabs to third-party chipmakers three years ago.
In August, after a disappointing quarterly report, Intel said that plans to lay off thousands of employees and suspend dividend payments as part of cost-saving measures. Last month, the company published a plan to cut costs by more than $10 billion in 2025 and reported a loss of $1.6 billion for the second quarter, compared to a profit of $1.5 billion in the same period last year.
At the end of August, Director Lip-Bu Tan suddenly resigned from Intel’s board. His resignation came as a shock to many who considered him the future leader of Intel’s business if the company were to be split up.
Earlier this week, Intel announced that plans to separate chip production and design departments, will suspend the construction of fabs in Germany and Poland for two years, as well as the construction of a fab in Malaysia until demand recovers. These moves, including a multibillion-dollar deal to produce cloud chips for Amazon, follow an Intel board meeting in early September to discuss the company’s strategy.