Intel 4th-quarter revenue misses outlook

Intel says its fourth-quarter revenue fell 23 percent from the same period a year earlier, missing its previous outlook because of ongoing weak demand and inventory reductions by its PC maker customers.

The Santa Clara-based chip maker also announced a fourth-quarter impairment charge of about $950 million related to its investment in Clearwire Corp.

Intel estimated quarterly revenue of $8.2 billion, below the $8.74 billion forecast by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

Intel Corp., which ships about 80 percent of the world's microprocessors - the brains of personal computers - also says its gross margin was at the bottom of its earlier expectation of 55 percent plus or minus a few percentage points.

In November, the company slashed its sales expectations by more than $1 billion, to $9 billion, plus or minus $300 million.

The company now expects to record a loss from equity investments of $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion due to the charge from Clearwire. Previously the company forecast a loss of $50 million from equity investments.

Intel shares fell 80 cents, or 5.2 percent, to $14.57 in premarket electronic trading Wednesday.