Intel Value Stock - Dividend - Research Selection

Description of the company

We are a world leader in the design and manufacturing of essential products and technologies that power the cloud and an increasingly smart, connected world. Intel delivers computer, networking, and communications platforms to a broad set of customers including original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), original design manufacturers (ODMs), cloud and communications service providers, as well as industrial, communications and automotive equipment manufacturers. We are expanding the boundaries of technology through our relentless pursuit of Moore’s Law and computing breakthroughs that make amazing experiences possible. We were incorporated in California in 1968 and reincorporated in Delaware in 1989.

Company Strategy

Our vision is if it is smart and connected, it is best with Intel®. As a result, our strategy is to drive a "Virtuous Cycle of Growth" that enables the expansion of the data center as well as the proliferation of smart, connected things and devices, while continuing to fuel technology with the economics of Moore's Law.

People are experiencing a dramatic shift in their relationship to technology as things and devices become increasingly connected to each other and the cloud, merging the digital and physical worlds. Computing is becoming pervasive everywhere and in everything. The Virtuous Cycle of Growth leverages Intel's core assets to power the cloud and drive the increasingly smart and connected world.

Our businesses across the cloud and data center, through things and devices, are accelerated by memory and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technologies—all of which are bound together by connectivity and enhanced by the economics of Moore's Law. We further transform these technologies to deliver compelling user experiences.

• The Cloud and Data Center. We believe that the most important trend shaping the future of the smart and connected world is the cloud. We design and optimize our products to deliver industry leading performance and best in class total cost of ownership for cloud workloads. Intel is adding new products and features to our portfolio to address emerging, high growth workloads such as artificial intelligence, media, and 5G.

• Things and Devices. Things and devices encompass all smart devices, including PCs, sensors, consoles, and other edge devices that are connected to the cloud. When a "thing" is connected to the cloud, the data it captures can be measured in real time and accessed virtually from anywhere. We will continue to deliver leadership, performance, and innovation in PCs. In our Internet of Things business, we focus our investments on areas where we see growth potential, such as the autonomous vehicle, industrial, and retail market segments.

• Memory and Programmable Solutions. Advancements in memory technology and programmable solutions, such as FPGAs, make possible entirely new classes of products for the data center and Internet of Things. The need for faster storage and greater memory capacity unlocks value in the cloud as the demand to automate and analyze exponential quantities of data increases. FPGAs can efficiently manage the changing workload demands of next-generation data centers and offer the flexibility for users to change their workloads real-time. FPGAs are also used in a wide range of other applications, such as machine learning and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems.

• Connectivity. As the connectivity technologies continue to evolve, more things and devices are able to connect with each other and the cloud. The ability to connect, and to derive actionable insights from massive amounts of data brings new experiences to our daily lives and transforms businesses.

• Moore's Law. Our co-founder Gordon Moore predicted, in what is known as Moore's Law, that transistor density on integrated circuits would double about every two years. Intel’s advancement of Moore’s Law has driven significant computing power growth and increasingly better economics and pricing. We will continue to harness the value of Moore's Law by enabling new devices with higher functionality and complexity while controlling power, cost, and size.

Leveraging our core assets enhances our strategy and provides us with the scale, capacity, and global reach to establish new technologies and respond to customers’ needs quickly. Our core assets include the following:

• Silicon and Manufacturing Technology Leadership. We have long been the leader in silicon manufacturing process technology and we aim to continue our lead through investment and innovation in this critical area. Unlike many other semiconductor companies, we primarily manufacture our products in our own manufacturing facilities, which enables us to optimize performance, shorten our time-to-market, and scale new products more rapidly. We believe this competitive advantage will be extended in the future as the costs to build leading-edge fabrication facilities increase over time.

• Architecture and Platforms. We are able to share intellectual property across our platforms and operating segments, which reduces our costs and provides a higher return on capital in our growth market segments. The combination of our shared intellectual property portfolio and our interchangeable manufacturing assets allows us to seamlessly shift our production capabilities to respond to market demand. We continue to invest in improving Intel architecture and product platforms to deliver increased value to our customers and expand the capabilities of the architecture in adjacent market segments.

• Software and Services. We offer software and services that provide solutions through a combination of hardware and software for consumer and corporate environments and that assist software developers in creating software applications that take advantage of our platforms.

• Customer Orientation. We focus on providing compelling user experiences by developing our next generation of products based on customer needs and expectations. In turn, our products help enable the design and development of new user experiences, form factors, and usage models. We offer platforms that incorporate various components and capabilities designed and configured to work together to provide an optimized solution that customers can easily integrate into their products.

• Acquisitions and Strategic Investments. We invest in companies around the world that we believe will further our strategic objectives, stimulate growth in the digital economy, create new business opportunities for Intel, and generate financial returns. Our investments take different forms, including acquisition of companies to further advance our strategic objectives, which is exemplified by our acquisition of Altera Corporation (Altera) in Q1 2016. Through the Altera acquisition, we are able to combine programmable solutions with our leading-edge products and manufacturing process to enable new classes of products for the data center and Internet of Things market segments.

• Corporate Responsibility. Throughout our history, Intel has expanded the reach, influence, and power of computing to improve people’s everyday lives. We set ambitious goals and make strategic investments to drive improvements in environmental sustainability, supply chain responsibility, diversity and inclusion, and social impact that benefit the environment and society. We believe that our focus on corporate responsibility—built on a strong foundation of transparency, governance, and ethics—creates value for Intel and our stockholders by helping us mitigate risks, reduce costs, build brand value, and identify new market opportunities. To understand our performance and the progress we are making toward our corporate responsibility goals, refer to "Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability" below and our Corporate Responsibility Report on our website.