Intel (INTC) is reportedly in talks with Apple (AAPL) to have the iPhone maker invest in the company and for the two companies to work more closely together. But Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said it’s unlikely a collaboration (beyond an investment) would materialize anytime soon.
He noted that Apple moved from Intel’s chips years ago to make its own Arm-based (ARM) chips for personal computers (PCs) that are manufactured by Intel’s contract manufacturing rival, Taiwan-based TSMC (TSM).
Intel also famously passed on an offer to make chips for Apple’s first iPhones in the early 2000s.
Rasgon said it’s “unlikely” Apple would collaborate with Intel to co-design a chip for PCs or shift to producing its in-house PC chips in Intel’s factories rather than TSMC’s, writing “a foundry agreement with Intel seems very premature.”
Intel designs computing chips and leads the market for CPUs (central processing units) for data centers and PCs, but its market share has eroded in recent years as AMD (AMD) and Arm have gained ground.
Intel has always produced chips for itself, but its internal manufacturing business began to fall behind technologically over the past decade. In 2021, the company opened that business to outside customers, launching Intel Foundry Services, in a bid to breathe new life into its factories.
That hasn’t worked so far: Intel Foundry Services’ losses ballooned to $13 billion in its 2024 fiscal year from $7 billion in 2023, and those losses helped send Intel’s stock plunging 60% last year.
Last week, Nvidia (NVDA) announced it would take a $5 billion stake in Intel, following the US government’s $9 billion investment in the struggling company in August.
“Hence what Intel really needs is CAPABILITY, which would allow them to attract customers that would allow them to fill the capacity that the money might help them build,” Rasgon wrote. “But their capability issue have nothing to do with money; they will have to figure that out on their own.