Traditionally Intel is one of the first companies in the IT industriy to present their quarterly results. Because of their weight on the market they're also in important indicator wether the industry is doing well or struggling. With total revenues of 12.9 Billion US-Dollar Intel doesn't break records this time, but they exceeded analysts forecasts. We had the chance to talk about Intels first quarter 2012 with Dario Bucci. He is Country Manager for Intel Italy and Switzerland.
Marc Büchel: On Tuesday evening, after the New York stock exchange closed, Intel presented its result for the first quarter 2012. What do you think about it in general?

Dario Bucci: Also in this quarter Intel exceeded analysts expectations and therefore it surely is a solid start into 2012. Although it's no new record, like people are almost used to, it's still a good result. The industry had to face a tough environment and therefore it's even more important that Intel was able to perform with a solid first quarter. There was for example the HDD crisis which hit several companies hard. And then there was also a lot of anxiety in the industry and people were nervous. Another reason for concern was the overall economic situation. One reason why Intel was performing well can be found with the emerging markets. As an example there is the chinese market which has grown by 17 percent. On the other hand there are the mature market - like Switzerland - where Intel has seen a decrease in the consumer segment by ten percent. Nevertheless the overall situation is good. Especiall the large enterprise and data center business is growing. Furthermore there is the networking and storage part which was also able to perform well. Only the server business showed flat revenues.

Marc Büchel: Obviously the delay within the Intel Architecture Group has had an negative effect on the income compared to last years first quarter. What do you expect for the second quarter 2012?

Dario Bucci: Intel has started to ship 22 naometer processors to OEMs. These new processors are not just a Die shrink, these CPUs there are also based on three dimensional transistors now. Furthermore there were several major architectural changes, especially regarding the integrated graphics. Therefore Intel had to face tough challenges. Furthermore expectations in the industry are very high when Intel is going to lunch a new product and Intel works very hard to come up to these expectations. Probably in June a new wave of Ultrabooks will hit the market and we feel confident that this will take mobile computing to a whole new level.

Marc Büchel: You just jumped to the Ultrabook initiative. Do you see some trends specific for the Swiss market?

Dario Bucci: It is well known that the Swiss market is very responsive, especially for high-end products and components. Therefore the business with Ultrabooks started very well in Switzerland. Intel also has a very powerful marketing tool at hand with its Intel Inside programm. This allows us to act very agil in all targeted markets via our OEMs like, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, ... They all have Ultrabooks in there line-up which generating solid sales in Switzerland. At IDF we presented the first Intel smartphone. We hope we can present this exciting product at the beginning of next year or even this year.