Intel Q1 2026 Earnings Crush Estimates — Foundry Revenue Up 16% and Stock Logs Best Day Since 1987

Intel Corporation reported first-quarter 2026 results on April 23 that crushed Wall Street estimates, sending the stock to its largest single-day gain since 1987 the following session. Revenue came in at $13.6 billion versus a $12.42 billion consensus, while EPS of $0.29 blew past the $0.01 estimate, according to CNBC's earnings coverage. Intel Foundry revenue rose 16% year-over-year to $5.4 billion, though management acknowledged that the bulk of that figure still represents Intel making chips for itself rather than external customers.

Shares closed up roughly 24% at $82.57 on April 24, in a move so large it triggered comparisons to the dot-com era. The print validated several pieces of the turnaround thesis simultaneously: Xeon server CPUs are benefiting from AI inference workloads, the 18A node is finally in high-volume manufacturing, and the foundry P&L is no longer the bottomless pit it was in 2024. Intel's results also lifted the broader semiconductor complex — NVIDIA jumped 4.3% to a record close — by confirming that AI chip demand is not narrowly concentrated in a single supplier.

TrendForce reported separately that Intel Foundry has boosted equipment orders by more than 50% year-over-year and that the company's 14A node may attract major external customers by the end of 2026 as PDK 1.0 nears completion, with Google, Apple, AMD, and NVIDIA all named as potential committers. Combined with the recently announced Terafab partnership — where Intel contributes its most advanced node, packaging, and manufacturing scale to Elon Musk's $25B chip megaproject — the Q1 print marks the strongest evidence yet that Intel's foundry strategy under CEO Lip-Bu Tan is starting to land with the customers that matter.