Last month, former CEO Pat Gelsinger was let go, well ahead of finishing his four-year strategy aimed at revamping the company after years of manufacturing issues and missed chances in the booming AI sector, which have put the once-great American chipmaker behind its competitors.
Additionally, Intel projected that its revenue for the current quarter would fall short of estimates on Thursday.
"At this point bad results from Intel no longer burn the way they used to as investors are likely growing numb to the company's travails," Bernstein strategists said in a note.
"And frankly, beats or misses on their business fundamentals likely take a back seat for now to the impending CEO transition (if we get one) and what they and the board might choose or not choose to do with the company."
The company has appointed CFO David Zinsner and senior executive Michelle Johnston Holthaus as interim co-CEOs while the board looks for a new leader.
Once a powerhouse in the PC market, Intel has been losing ground to competitor Advanced Micro Devices in recent years. They also missed out on investing in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, before the chatbot took the tech world by storm.
With companies eager to leverage generative AI technology, there's been a shift towards investing in specialized AI processors that can handle massive data loads, which has reduced the demand for Intel's traditional server processors.
"Strategic alternatives will be the primary bull case for the foreseeable future, but we don’t see how this gets done with the Foundry business behind on technology and fully reliant on product business with no real foundry customers in sight," said Jefferies analyst Blayne Curtis.
On Friday morning, shares of Nvidia dipped nearly 1%, while Advanced Micro Devices saw a rise of about 1%. In 2024, Intel's stock plummeted by 60%, while AI chip leader Nvidia surged by 171%. Qualcomm increased by 6%, and AMD dropped by 18% during the same timeframe. Intel's 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio stands at 24.67, compared to Nvidia's 28.17 and AMD's 23.45.