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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsTo evaluate Intel stock, separate product-business performance from the cost and progress of building Intel Foundry, then test whether operating cash can support the investment plan. Intel’s latest reported quarter in the available filings was Q2 2026, ended June 27: revenue was $16.1 billion, up 25% year over year, but Intel also reported a $11.0 billion GAAP net loss attributable to Intel. Foundry revenue included substantial internal sales and the segment remained loss-making. These figures describe the business; they do not establish whether the shares are cheap or expensive.
The figures below are Intel-reported and in U.S. dollars. The main sources are Intel’s July 23, 2026 earnings release, its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 27, 2026, and its fiscal 2025 Form 10-K. Management’s guidance and forward-looking statements are not guarantees, and the company cautions that past results may not reliably indicate future performance.
How do I evaluate Intel stock?
Use a consistent scorecard rather than treating a single headline—revenue growth, margin improvement, a process-node milestone, or quarterly earnings—as proof of a turnaround. Compare Intel’s product business and manufacturing strategy on separate but connected measures:
- Products: revenue growth, unit volumes, selling prices, product mix, and supply availability.
- Margins: product profit and repeatable unit economics, distinguished from impairments, inventory charges, and other period costs.
- Foundry: external customer revenue and commitments, segment losses, manufacturing economics, and technical milestones.
- Funding: operating cash flow against capital spending and other cash sources and uses.
- Valuation: expected future earnings or cash flow relative to a dated share price, with assumptions made explicit.
For the latest reported quarter, Intel posted a mixed picture: sales and gross margin rose year over year, while the company recorded a large GAAP net loss and Foundry reported a substantial operating loss. The useful question is what drove each result and whether those drivers can persist.
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What does Intel’s latest reported quarter show?
| Measure | Intel-reported Q2 2026 result | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $16.1 billion, up 25% year over year | Growth needs to be separated into volume, price, mix, supply, and portfolio effects. |
| GAAP gross margin | 40.4%, compared with 27.5% in Q2 2025 | The year-over-year improvement included both higher product profit and lower period charges. |
| Non-GAAP gross margin | 41.8%, compared with 29.7% in Q2 2025 | Read alongside GAAP results and Intel’s reconciliation, not as a replacement for them. |
| Net result | $11.0 billion GAAP net loss attributable to Intel; $2.2 billion non-GAAP net income | The difference makes it important to inspect the adjustments and noncash items. |
| Cash from operations | $7.0 billion for Q2 2026 | Compare cash generation with investment needs, not just with reported net income. |
| Q3 outlook | Revenue of $15.8 billion to $16.8 billion | This was company guidance in the July 23, 2026 release, not an independent estimate or reported result. |
Intel’s Form 10-Q reported $4.8 billion of Intel Products operating income in Q2 2026, up $2.1 billion year over year. That segment result helps show the product business separately from manufacturing, but it does not by itself settle how much of the consolidated business’s future cash should be allocated to Foundry investment.
Is Intel’s revenue growth coming from repeatable demand?
Start with the reported increase, then ask what happened to units, average selling prices (ASPs), product mix, end-market demand, and the ability to ship. Intel’s Q2 2026 Form 10-Q said client revenue benefited from higher ASPs even as client unit volume fell 8% year over year. Server unit volume rose 9%, and server ASPs rose 48%; Intel said most of that ASP increase came from a richer premium-product mix. Those figures describe different drivers, not a uniform increase in demand across Intel’s products.
Supply also constrained the comparison. Intel said demand exceeded available supply because of factory and broader industry constraints, which it expected to persist into 2027. That is a company expectation, not an assured outcome. If products cannot be supplied, demand may not translate into shipments; if supply improves, revenue may change even without a matching change in underlying demand.
Portfolio changes can make year-over-year comparisons less direct. Intel deconsolidated Altera from its consolidated financial statements effective September 12, 2025, after selling 51% of its shares, and flagged the change as affecting comparability. Account for that when interpreting consolidated or segment changes rather than attributing the entire difference to organic growth or decline.
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Does the gross-margin increase indicate durable improvement?
Not on its own. Intel’s Q2 2026 GAAP gross margin was 40.4%, up from 27.5% in Q2 2025. In its Form 10-Q, Intel attributed the improvement to $1.5 billion of higher product profit and $1.5 billion of lower period charges. The lower charges included the absence of $797 million in noncash impairment and accelerated depreciation recognized in Q2 2025, partly offset by an inventory-related charge in Q2 2026.
That breakdown means the year-over-year margin change was not solely evidence of better recurring product economics. To judge durability across coming periods, track the components separately:
- Whether product profit and unit economics improve over several quarters, rather than in one comparison.
- How premium-product mix, wafer costs, factory utilization, and available supply affect the margin.
- Whether impairments, inventory charges, restructuring costs, and other period items recur or fade.
- How much reported improvement depends on cost savings versus revenue and product economics.
Use GAAP and non-GAAP measures side by side. Non-GAAP results can help isolate items Intel excludes under its stated methodology, but the reconciliation matters: exclusions do not make the costs economically irrelevant or guarantee they will not recur. A single quarter’s margin increase should not be annualized without accounting for its drivers.
Is Intel’s foundry business making progress?
There are two different tests: manufacturing milestones and commercial economics. A technology or production milestone can show execution against a roadmap, but does not by itself establish competitive yields, cost, customer volumes, or attractive returns.
What the reported financials say
Intel Foundry reported $5.765 billion of revenue in Q2 2026, of which $5.5 billion was intersegment revenue and $293 million was external revenue. It recorded a $2.1 billion operating loss. Since most of the segment’s reported revenue came from activity within Intel, its total revenue should not be read as third-party customer sales. External revenue is the more direct indicator of business from outside customers, though it should be assessed alongside customer commitments, production scale, and profitability.
What the roadmap milestones do—and do not—show
Intel said its first products manufactured on Intel 18A entered high-volume production at the start of 2026, and that the Intel 18A-P derivative entered risk production in June 2026. In Q2, Intel committed to completing development of Intel 14A. It said the pace of expansion would ultimately depend on committed demand from Intel’s own product roadmap and external-customer design wins.
These are company disclosures, including forward-looking plans; they are not independent verification of yield, cost competitiveness, or future customer volumes. To test whether technical progress is becoming a viable business, follow external revenue and named customer programs alongside operating losses, wafer costs, utilization, yields, capital spending, and the level of committed demand.
Can Intel generate enough cash to fund its fabs?
Operating cash flow is only one side of the funding question. Compare it with property, plant, and equipment investment, and then account for capital-related incentives, partner contributions, lease financing, working-capital movements, and other financing or investing cash flows.
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For the six months ended June 27, 2026, Intel reported $8.102 billion of cash from operating activities and $6.192 billion of cash additions to property, plant, and equipment. Subtracting the latter from the former gives approximately $1.910 billion before considering incentives, partner contributions, finance-lease payments, or other cash flows. This is a simple subtraction, not Intel’s adjusted free cash flow measure.
Intel’s FY2025 Form 10-K reported $9.697 billion of operating cash flow and negative $1.612 billion of adjusted free cash flow. Adjusted free cash flow is a company-defined non-GAAP measure. Intel’s reconciliation accounts for operating cash flow, net property, plant, and equipment additions, capital incentives, net SCIP contributions, and finance-lease payments under its stated treatment. Use that reconciliation rather than assuming the label follows a generic formula.
Capital needs are also forward-looking. As of December 27, 2025, Intel disclosed $9.1 billion of capital expenditure commitments for 2026; this was a dated commitment disclosure, not a statement that all the cash had already been spent. In its July 2026 release, Intel said it was meaningfully increasing investments in equipment, clean-room space, and substrates. Consider whether operating cash generation, available financing, incentives, and partner support can cover the manufacturing roadmap without relying on an untested assumption that future demand will arrive on schedule.
Quarterly net income alone is an incomplete guide to cash generation. Intel reported $7.0 billion of Q2 cash from operations even as it reported an $11.0 billion GAAP net loss attributable to Intel. Its Q2 filing also reported a $13.619 billion mark-to-market loss on Escrowed Shares in the first half of 2026. To understand the relationship between earnings and cash, distinguish noncash accounting effects from working-capital changes and actual investment and financing flows.
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What does this mean for Intel stock valuation?
Operating results do not establish a fair value or a buy-or-sell verdict. The cited company filings provide operating information and management outlook, but not an October 4, 2026 share price or a valuation conclusion. A valuation requires a time-stamped market price and a stated method, such as comparing price with expected earnings or cash flow, plus explicit forward assumptions.
A useful scenario analysis should vary the factors that can change Intel’s future economics:
- Product revenue growth, unit volumes, ASPs, and premium mix.
- How gross margin develops as one-time charges, supply constraints, and factory utilization change.
- Whether Intel Foundry wins external business at a scale and margin that can reduce its operating losses.
- Capital intensity, funding sources, and the time required for new manufacturing nodes to earn returns.
- The share-count basis, potential dilution, and treatment of the balance sheet in the valuation method.
Risks include prolonged product supply limits; failure to improve manufacturing yields or costs; continued Foundry losses or weak external demand; capital needs exceeding internally generated cash; execution problems with process-node or facility plans; and portfolio or accounting changes that make periods harder to compare. Intel warns in its Q2 filing that historical results may not reliably indicate future performance.
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