Intel to cut 12,000 jobs as PC industry swoons

By Narottam Medhora

(Reuters) - Intel Corp said on Tuesday it would cut 12,000 jobs globally, or 11 percent of its workforce, as it refocuses its business towards making microchips that power data centers and Internet connected devices and away from the declining personal computer industry it helped found.

Tech companies including the former Hewlett Packard Co and Microsoft Corp have reorganized in the face of the PC industry decline. Many new tech users rely on mobile phones for their computing needs and corporations increasingly rely on big computers rather than desktop models to run their businesses. Global personal computer shipments fell 11.5 percent in the first quarter, tech research company said on Monday.

Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, lowered its revenue forecast for the year. It now expects revenue to rise in mid-single digits, down from its previous forecast of mid- to high-single digits.

Intel's shares were down 2.6 percent at $30.78 in extended trading.

The company also said Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith will move to a new role leading sales, manufacturing and operations. Intel said it would begin a formal search process for a successor.

"We now expect the PC market to decline in the high single digits in 2016 versus our prior forecast of mid single-digit decline," Smith said.

The Santa Clara, California-based company has been focussing on its higher-margin data centre business as it looks to reduce its dependence on the slowing PC market. Intel has also made inroads into the mobile devices market, although competitors such as Qualcomm Inc dominate that area.

Intel said in a statement the job cuts would be carried out by mid-2017 and the restructuring would "accelerate its evolution from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices." Sales of products for the data centre and the Internet of things accounted for 40 percent of revenue and the majority of operating profit, it added.

Raymond James analyst Hans Mosesmann said the problems leading to the job cuts were likely more specific to Intel. "The bigger issue is the restructuring and will it be enough for the company to properly adapt to a changing environment where cloud and IoT competitive dynamics are quite different."

The brokerage has an "Under Perform" rating on Intel.

Most of Intel's factories are in the United States, although it did not identify where cuts would be focussed geographically. It said it would record a pretax restructuring charge of $1.2 billion in the second quarter. (http://bit.ly/1WDPfBm)

On a per share basis, the company earned 42 cents per share, in the first quarter, up from 41 cents a year earlier.

Net revenue rose to $13.70 billion from $12.78 billion.

Non-GAAP net revenue came in at $13.80 billion, compared with analysts' average estimate of $13.83 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Up to Tuesday's close, Intel's shares had fallen 8.4 percent this year, compared with a slight gain in the broader semiconductor index <.SOX>.

(Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru and Peter Henderson in San Francisco; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Diane Craft)