Intel shares surged 20% in pre-market trading on the U.S. stock market, driven by the company's first-quarter financial results exceeding analyst expectations for both revenue and profit. Strong data center sales contributed to a better-than-expected second-quarter performance outlook.
The company projected second-quarter revenue between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion, surpassing Wall Street estimates of $13.03 billion. Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger stated that the next wave of artificial intelligence will bring intelligence closer to end users, transitioning from foundational models to inference and then to intelligent agents. This shift is significantly increasing market demand for Intel's CPUs, wafers, and advanced packaging products.
Gelsinger emphasized that the company is capitalizing on this opportunity by listening to customer needs and leveraging its technological expertise and differentiated intellectual property. This strategic reset has enabled Intel to exceed its own revenue expectations for the sixth consecutive quarter and has fostered new, deeper relationships with strategic partners.
Revenue from Intel's Data Center and AI business reached $5.1 billion, exceeding market expectations of $4.41 billion. Although Intel initially missed the first wave of the AI boom due to a lack of chips capable of running AI models, it is now beginning to benefit from the AI expansion. Intel's stock has risen 77% year-to-date as investors bet that its large-scale transformation efforts will continue to succeed.
Gelsinger, who became CEO over a year ago, told investors that his efforts to revitalize Intel are yielding results. He noted that a year ago, external discussions about Intel focused on whether the company could survive, whereas today, the focus is on how quickly it can increase manufacturing capacity to meet substantial demand. He described Intel as a fundamentally different company today.
In the A-share market, major indices collectively declined on April 24. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.33%, the Shenzhen Component Index dropped 0.69%, and the ChiNext Index decreased by 1.41%. A total of 2,036 stocks rose, with 68 hitting the daily limit-up, while 3,352 stocks declined.
The lithium battery industry chain performed strongly against the market trend, with Yongxing Special Materials Technology, Shenzhen Senior Technology Material, and Rongjie Shares among the stocks that hit the daily limit-up. Semiconductor chip stocks also rose, with Fullhan Microelectronics and Shenzhen Huaqiang hitting the limit-up, and Hua Hong Company rising over 10%. Power stocks underwent adjustments, with Zhejiang New Energy approaching the daily limit-down.
The market's main focus was on the sharp decline of Eoptolink Technology, a leading stock in the optical communication sector, which fell over 10%, putting pressure on the entire segment. Due to its first-quarter results falling short of expectations, Eoptolink not only saw a significant drop in its stock price but also recorded a record-high trading volume of 50.1 billion yuan. This surpassed the previous record of 47.967 billion yuan set by SMIC, making it the technology stock with the highest single-day trading volume in A-share history. This trading volume ranks fourth overall in A-share history, behind only East Money Information, PetroChina, and Ping An Insurance.
Another notable point in the market was the collective decline of large model-related stocks in Hong Kong. DeepSeek officially announced the launch of a preview version of its new model series, DeepSeek-V4, which will be open-sourced. It also projected that the price of the Pro version would significantly decrease in the second half of the year after the batch release of the Ascend 950 super nodes.
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