With Spectre and Meltdown security flaws coming to light one might consider that Intel’s sales would drop, however, that is not the case as company’s stock rose over 5.5% for the fourth quarter of 2017 and according to the company itself, 2017 was a record year for Intel.
According to the earnings report, the revenue for the fourth quarter of 2017 was $17.05 billion which is 4% up year over year. As for 2017, as a whole, the company saw a total revenue of $62.8 billion. According to the company’s CEO Brian Krzanich:
“2017 was a record year for Intel with record fourth-quarter results driven by strong growth of our data-centric businesses. The strategic investments we’ve made in areas like memory, programmable solutions, communications and autonomous driving are starting to pay off and expand Intel’s growth opportunity. In 2018, our highest priorities will be executing to our data-centric strategy and meeting the commitments we make to our shareholders and our customers.”
The company’s Client Computing Group brought in $9 billion, however, it was down 2% year over year for the 4th quarter of 2017.
It seems that Spectre and Meltdown flaws had no effect on company’s stock as Intel chips saw a large impact of these security flaws in its chips. However, these flaws were made public recently and we might see its impact on sales in the coming quarter or year. You can check out the full earnings report here.
Furthermore, Intel has promised that it will bring the Spectre Hardware fix for its chips by the end of 2018.
Krzanich revealed that the company is working on a hardware fix for its next line of processors that will be available in 2019. According to Brian, the company plans ‘in-silicon” fixes by the end of the year.
Also, the company didn’t share any specifics of the Spectre Hardware Fix for Intel chips and it is not known if the Spectre Hardware fix will impact the performance as the BIOS and OS patches have slowed down performance to varying degrees based on the chip.
Intel has also asked users to not download these patches as they create the reboot issues in systems. According to Intel, they are working on new patches that are currently being tested and the new solution will be rolled out once the testing has been done.
