Intel said it was the victim of a hacker who stole financially sensitive information from its corporate website on Thursday, prompting the company to release its earnings statement ahead of schedule.
The US chipmaker believed an attacker had obtained advanced details about a strong earnings report it was due to publish after the market closed, said George Davis, chief financial officer.
Intel’s shares rose more than 6 per cent during the day, including nearly 2 per cent in the final 15 minutes of trading on Thursday.
It published its formal earnings announcement upon discovering the problem, with the news coming out six minutes before the market closed.
“An infographic was hacked off of our PR newsroom site,” Mr Davis said. “We put [our earnings] out as soon as we were aware.”
He did not provide more details, but said that the leak was the result of an illicit action that had not involved any unintentional disclosure by the company itself.
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An Intel spokesperson added: “We were notified that our infographic was circulating outside the company. I do not believe it was published. We are continuing to investigate this matter.”
The earnings revealed an unexpectedly strong bounce in Intel’s sales of chips for PCs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, as more people bought laptops to work and study from home, as well as more powerful gaming PCs.
The volume of PC chips Intel sold jumped 33 per cent in the quarter, a period in which tech research group IDC said the number of machines shipped globally had risen by 26 per cent, to cap the strongest year for the PC industry in a decade.
Mr Davis said the huge jump highlighted the importance to Intel of owning its own manufacturing plants, making it possible to redirect production to the areas of strongest demand and grab more market share.
Intel has come under pressure from Wall Street after a series of manufacturing slip-ups, and activist investor Third Point has called for it to reconsider whether it should continue making its own chips.
Although Intel’s revenue slipped 1 per cent in the fourth quarter, to $20bn, that was $2.5bn ahead of Wall Street expectations. Revenue from PC chips rose 9 per cent, to $10.9bn.
Data centre chip revenues dropped 16 per cent, to $16.1bn, as demand fell back after a period of unexpectedly strong demand from cloud services companies.
Pro-forma earnings per share of $1.52 were unchanged from a year before, and 42 cents ahead of expectations.
Based on formal accounting principles, Intel reported a 15 per cent decline in net income to $5.9bn, or $1.42 a share, mainly reflecting an absence of a gain it reported the year before from a divestment, as well as changes in its reported tax charge.