Intel is one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers. Intel is also one of the earliest pioneers in this technology sector. Intel paved the road to the modern personal computers we know today. Historically, Intel has been the most dominant company in the tech sector. However, that leading position has been under dire threat from AMD, Apple, Google, Samsung, and TSMC. We could describe Intel's current reality as one of a declining great power. Despite that, if I could give an industry award for 'Most Improved in 2022,' Intel would be the recipient. Recently, Intel has been reacting swiftly, addressing its weaknesses, and moving precisely to counter its competitors' successes. Even if Intel does not succeed at maintaining its leadership position, its swift and dynamic response is commendable. Intel is reacting how a beleaguered company should react when all its competitors are rising to take its spot. Intel is striking back.
Intel's first strike was to improve its chips. By 2020, AMD and Apple's products outperformed Intel's 2020 11th Generation chips. Apple, a former client of Intel, became a new competitor when it released the first M1 chip in November 2020. In the fall of 2020, Apple's first M1 chip was an astonishing feat because it was a massive leap in computer performance at its release, leaving the entire industry to play catch-up. The following year in the fall of 2021, Apple's new processors, the M1 Pro and M1 Max were 70% faster than Intel's 2020 11th Generation chips. These Apple chips were also far more power-efficient since they consumed only 30% of the power Intel's 11th Generation chips consumed. Intel, once a leading chip manufacturer, was overtaken. Intel urgently needed to close this gap
Apple's product exposed the weaknesses in processing speeds and power efficiency found in Intel's 11th Generation chips. In response to this, Intel's primary goal with the release of the 12th Generation chips was to close the gap and improve its lagging efforts in the chip-making space. Intel's latest 12th Generation CPUs for PCs and laptops showed a significant performance upgrade over the older 11th Generation chips and narrowed the gap between competing chips by AMD and Apple. Intel's 12th Generation chips are a leap ahead of their 11th Generation counterparts showing up to a 90% increase in performance. Despite the performance increase, power consumption remains a sore spot for Intel chips, however. Perhaps the future 13th Generation chips will tackle Intel's power efficiency woes.
Intel's second strike was to surprise the market with the release of its own graphics cards, built to compete with AMD and NVIDIA. Not only was Intel's goal to compete with market leaders in the GPU space, but Intel also plans to undercut them and offer new graphics processing units at lower price levels. The price-cutting move reflects the inflated graphics card market, where pricing frustrates consumers. Intel is aggressive with its low MSRPs since a new, top-of-the-line Intel Arc A770 graphics card will launch at $349 MSRP. Its performance is similar to NVIDIA's RTX 3060, which is $440 on average.
Intel has its struggles, such as a loss of its leadership position and an ever-declining stock price valuation, but it is fighting hard to change its fortunes. It may no longer be in the lead in terms of PC hardware products, but it is addressing those points where it can use improvement. It is creating more competitive CPUs which feature higher performance. It's closing the gap that Apple has developed since the 2020 release of the M1 chip. It's entering new market segments where it can exploit the weaknesses of the segment leaders. Intel is employing a two-prong market strategy, playing both defense and offense. Intel is regaining lost ground and simultaneously expanding into new frontiers. It's a commendable strategy. If this strategy is successful, Intel will avoid the fate of past tech giants like Nokia, which faded into obscurity. On the other hand, if things do not go favorably for Intel, at the very least, it will be obvious that Intel was fighting hard for its own success until the end. Defying pressure from the competition, Intel is a troubled company valiantly fighting back.
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