Intel Stock Forecast 2025-2030: Will Intel Recover to Rival TSMC?

Intel stock (INTC) seems like it should be a winner, capturing artificial intelligence upside alongside a wider proliferation of advanced computing requirements as we increasingly digitize our economy.

But that isn’t quite the case. Poor operational decisions and financial challenges have put Intel stock in investors’ spotlights — but not for the right reasons.

Intel’s stock price has plummeted almost 55% since the start of 2024, and analysts believe there is currently limited upside potential.

In our Intel stock forecast, we examine the reasoning behind analysts’ INTC predictions and their specific price targets for 2025 and beyond.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Summary of the Latest Intel Stock Predictions
3. Intel Stock Analysis: A Year in Review
4. What's Driving Intel Stock?
5. Intel Stock Price Predictions: Expert Opinions
6. Latest Intel Stock Forecasts for 2024, 2025 & 2030
7. The Bottom Line: Should I Invest in Intel?
8. FAQs
9. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Summary of the Latest Intel Stock Predictions
3. Intel Stock Analysis: A Year in Review
Show Full Guide
4. What's Driving Intel Stock?
5. Intel Stock Price Predictions: Expert Opinions
6. Latest Intel Stock Forecasts for 2024, 2025 & 2030
7. The Bottom Line: Should I Invest in Intel?
8. FAQs
9. References

Summary of the Latest Intel Stock Predictions

Intel Stock Analysis: A Year in Review

Investors have had a year to forget so far in 2024. The INTC stock price has fallen 55% since the beginning of January.

As the stock market closed on September 18, 2024, shares were trading at $20.77 and analysts aren’t expecting a dramatic turnaround in fortunes when it comes to their Intel stock forecast 2025.

The current level is 45.17% lower than the same time last year and a world away from its all-time high closing price of $62.07 in April 2021.

In fact, the only bright spot in recent history came in December 2023, when the price was $50 on the back of wider artificial intelligence enthusiasm.

The end-of-year bump came after the company secured a $3.2 billion strategic investment from the Israeli government and showcased its offerings in a flashy “AI Everywhere” event.

Unfortunately for Intel, that enthusiasm proved short-lived as reality set in. Today, Intel is one of the S&P 500’s worst-performing stocks.

Likewise, Intel’s dismal performance this year underperforms broad market indices like the S&P 500, which is up 18% over the same period – let alone direct tech competitors like Nvidia (NVDA), whose shares are up almost 130%.

What’s Driving Intel Stock?

A key part of our INTC stock forecast is looking at what’s behind the stock price movements of the recent past.

While Intel is part of the broader artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and tech-centric sector, a range of specific factors and Intel news contribute to investor interest in the stock.

Meager Earnings, Worse Outlook

Most of Intel’s rapid downside this year came from its first-quarter filing that was published in April. The earnings report included slim improvements to top- and bottom-line stats and a relatively dismal forecast for the rest of the fiscal year.

However, the stock price fell again after Intel announced second-quarter results that revealed revenue of $12.8 billion, down 1% year-over-year.

The GAAP loss per share for the period was $(0.38), while the company forecast a loss per share of $(0.24) for the third quarter.

In a statement, Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger acknowledged it wasn’t a great set of numbers for investors to digest.

He said: “Our Q2 financial performance was disappointing, even as we hit key product and process technology milestones.”

Gelsinger admitted that second half trends were “more challenging than we previously expected” and revealed plans to improve operating and capital efficiencies.

“By implementing our spending reductions, we are taking proactive steps to improve our profits and strengthen our balance sheet,” he said. “We expect these actions to meaningfully improve liquidity and reduce our debt balance while enabling us to make the right investments to drive long-term value for shareholders.”

Cost Reduction Plan

Intel announced its plan to create a “sustainable financial engine” that accelerates profitable growth and enables further operational efficiency and agility.

The key points are:

• Reducing operating expenses: The company will streamline operations, cutting both spending and headcount. The spending will be cut to approximately $20 billion in 2024 and $17.5 billion in 2025. The headcount will be reduced by greater than 15%, with most of this completed by the end of 2024.
• Reducing capital expenditures: The plan is to reduce gross capital expenditures in 2024 by more than 20% from prior projections to between $25 billion and $27 billion.
• Reducing cost of sales: The company expects to generate $1 billion in savings in non-variable cost of sales in 2025. The product mix will continue to be a headwind next year.
• Maintaining core investments to execute strategy: Intel plans to sustain investments to build a resilient and sustainable semiconductor supply chain in the US and around the world.

Stiff Competition

Though Intel was once the name in chipmaking, particularly for CPUs, it’s lost much of its competitive edge to nimbler firms like Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC), which increasingly prove themselves able to better adapt to changing economic and market conditions than Intel.

At the same time, some of Intel’s biggest (former) customers, like Apple (AAPL), are increasingly creating core components in-house rather than contracting to third-party manufacturers like Intel – hurting its sales streams and shrinking the company’s overall market share.

Still, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has emphasized that Intel is confident in its foundry business competitiveness and ability to overtake Taiwan’s TSMC.

.@SCClemons: "Are you going to be able to beat TSMC?"@intel CEO @PGelsinger: "Yes. We have laid out a course to rebuild technology, leadership, rebuild manufacturing capabilities." #WES2024 pic.twitter.com/hdRQHxBgcL

— Semafor (@semafor) April 17, 2024

Allied With Israel

It isn’t all bad news for the overall Intel stock forecast — as alluded to earlier, the company signed a fairly hefty deal with Israel late last year to build a $25 billion chip plant, with the regional government contributing a sizable $3.2 billion.

The plan includes expansion of existing infrastructure to, according to Intel, “foster a more resilient global supply chain.”

If the chips (pun intended) fall in Intel’s favor, Southeast Asian supply chain disruptions, as we saw throughout the pandemic, could cripple Taiwan Semiconductor’s contributions to the sector, as much of their infrastructure rests in Taiwan and Japan.

Developing peripheral manufacturing areas is a smart move by Intel that could prove beneficial in the worst-case scenario.

Intel Stock Price Predictions: Expert Opinions

Are the Best Days Over?

So, what are the Intel share price forecast of the experts? Brian Colello, strategist at Morningstar, has mixed views.

“We expect Intel will remain the market share leader in central processing units, or CPUs, in PCs and servers for years to come,” he said. “However, Intel’s best days are likely behind it, as it currently has a chip manufacturing disadvantage against Taiwan Semiconductor and its processor partners, such as AMD, Nvidia, and Apple.”

Colello believes Intel’s aspirations to “regain parity with TSMC” is the right path forward but highlights the execution risk.

“Even if successful, Intel’s competitors will be stronger than when the firm was dominant a decade ago,” he said. “In turn, we assign Intel a no-moat rating, a disappointing erosion from previous narrow- and wide-moat ratings.”

Challenging Outlook

According to Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, Intel has a challenging journey.

She told Techopedia:

“The agreement reached to make chips for AWS is another sign of progress for Intel but it’s still going to be a long road ahead before it can gain back a bigger foothold in the chipmaking market.”

While the deal with Amazon (AMZN) won’t be enough to pull Intel out of its slump, Streeter sees it as a “small and welcome” vote of confidence. “It also underlines a growing trend of big tech players wanting to diversify manufacturing processes,” she added.

More broadly, she believes Intel’s difficulties have been exacerbated by the intensifying competition from more successful rivals like TSMC. But as geopolitical risks loom, there is clearly a willingness not to put all manufacturing eggs in one basket.

“Intel is being given a leg-up here with the $3 billion injection from the US government under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act,” she said. “The deal with AWS and the government support is clearly a win, but Intel still faces a huge task ahead to reshape its chipmaking division to be fit-for-purpose, and finding the required talent is an uphill struggle.”

Elsewhere, finding efficiencies to help drive profitability will be central to the plans, which is why its pressing pause on cost-intensive factory projects in Poland and Germany.

“The delay rather than cancellation indicates its battening down the hatches to survive the ongoing storm of challenges but there is still optimism that production will need to be ramp up, if it can pull enough demand levers for its core products,” added Streeter.

Buybacks Questioned

Intel shareholders could be forgiven for wondering whether the firm could have put the $63 billion it has spent on share buybacks in the past decade to better use, according to Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

He said:

“A net cash pile has become a net debt position, Intel has thus far failed to extend its dominance in personal computers to the mobile communications and artificial intelligence arenas, and the company has stopped both buybacks and dividend payments. Worst of all, the share price is no higher than it was a decade ago.”

In his outlook for Intel stock, Mould suggested the money spent on financial engineering, and trying to goose earnings per share figures, especially during the tenures of Brian Krzanich as chief executive in 2013 to 2018 and his successor Bob Swan in 2018 to 2021 may have been better deployed on product engineering instead.

“Current boss Pat Gelsinger quickly cut out the buybacks, which was no surprise given his product background at the company as its chief technical officer under no less a leader than Andy Grove from 2001 to 2009 and the lack of progress in the company’s sales and profits,” he said.

Mould pointed out that they reflected the “mature nature” of the personal computing market, where Intel had reigned supreme, and its inability to replicate this dominance in mobile telecoms and now artificial intelligence.

“The company seems to be coming off worst in a market share fight with AMD and Nvidia, and Mr Gelsinger’s investment splurge to catch up is yet to bring the hoped-for benefits,” he added. “Sales have weakened in each of the last two years and profits have plunged, always a danger in a highly operationally geared business.”

It also means that Intel needs to run its chip fabrication facilities “at full tilt”, given the huge expenses and fixed costs associated.

“The company currently has a property plant and equipment valued at $103 billion in its balance sheet, well in excess of the analysts’ consensus forecasts for $55 billion in sales in 2024,” he added.

Latest Intel Stock Forecasts for 2024, 2025 & 2030

So, what do the experts believe is in store? Here we take a look at the Intel stock projections of analysts and aggregators.

According to data aggregated by TipRanks as of September 19, 2024, analyst consensus generally states that the current INTC stock price makes it worth a ‘Hold.’

While 26 analysts have ‘Hold’ recommendations in place, seven see it as a ‘Sell’ and only one as a ‘Buy.’ This illustrates the lackluster expectations for Intel stock.

The consensus view of those polled for their Intel stock predictions is for the stock to rise 22.63% over the coming year to $25.47.

However, opinions surrounding the INTC price target range from a fall to $18 to a rise to $42.

However, the consensus Intel stock prediction for 2025, based on the 30 analysts polled, is to ‘Reduce.’

The following table shows the 10 latest analysts’ Intel stock predictions as of September 18, 2024, showing what could happen to Intel’s future stock price.

What about an Intel stock long-term forecast?

Well, the Intel stock forecast for 2025 of crypto-centric analysts at CoinCodex sees only a slight improvement over the coming months with a $23.02 price target by January 2025.

Looking further out, CoinCodex’s Intel stock forecast 2030 suggests a more positive outlook with INTC shares potentially climbing to $38.45 by January 2030.

Note that analysts’ and algorithm-based projections might prove to be wrong.

The Bottom Line: Should I Invest in Intel?

So, is Intel a buy, hold, or sell? Practically speaking, it hinges on your current relationship with the stock. If you’re a current shareholder, the bottom-barrel pricing seems to be close to its floor, so it may make sense to sit and wait.

However, as we can see from analysts’ Intel stock predictions, there’s not much to catch the eye of would-be investors, especially those wanting exposure to the rapidly developing AI market.

A lot will depend on how successful Intel is at getting its own house in order and challenging the dominance of TSMC. If it succeeds and has a shot at regaining its dominant position, then that will be a fantastic turnaround story.

Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in the world of investment, and the chips seem stacked against Intel for the time being.

FAQs