Intel 2026 and 2027 EPS: Can INTC Get Back to $2?

Three quarters of Intel Corporation’s (NASDAQ: INTC) 2026 are already reported, so full-year earnings per share are close to settled. The real debate is 2027. Intel does not guide a year ahead, so the numbers below are Blue Team’s scenarios, built from what management has said and what the filings show. They are a framework, not a forecast from the company.

Intel’s 2026 EPS: the arithmetic

Intel earned $0.29 of non-GAAP EPS in the first quarter, $0.42 in the second and $0.52 in the third, a total of $1.23. For the fourth quarter the company guides $0.25. That gives $1.48 for the year.

Blue Team’s scenario uses $0.30 for the fourth quarter instead. The reasoning is simple: Intel has beaten its own guidance for eight consecutive quarters, and the third-quarter beat was large, about $0.12 above consensus. A $0.05 beat on a conservative guide would put 2026 at $1.53. Analysts were at about $1.51 before the report. Either way, 2026 lands close to $1.50.

What $2 a share requires

From the fourth quarter Intel will have about 5.44 billion diluted shares, after the $23 billion equity offering in August. At that count, $2.00 of EPS requires roughly $10.9 billion of non-GAAP net income attributable to Intel for the year, or about $2.7 billion a quarter.

Third-quarter non-GAAP net income attributable to Intel was $2.8 billion. So the honest way to put it: $2 in 2027 means repeating the third quarter four times, on a slightly larger share count. Not beating it, just holding it. That is achievable, but the fourth-quarter guide shows how far below that level Intel can fall when client demand and supply both turn against it.

Three INTC scenarios for 2027

• Low case, about $1.20. Earnings stay near the fourth-quarter run rate of $0.25–$0.35 all year. The PC correction lasts longer than management expects, substrate shortages keep server output capped, and rising depreciation from heavy capex eats into margins.
• Central case, about $1.60. A constrained first half at roughly $0.30–$0.35 a quarter, then a recovery to $0.45–$0.50 in the second half as new substrate capacity arrives and Fab 28 is behind Intel. For example: $0.30 + $0.35 + $0.45 + $0.50.
• High case, $2.00–$2.10. Intel is back at the third-quarter level of about $0.52 by the second quarter and holds it. That needs data center growth to resume quickly and the client business to stabilise early in the year.

What pushes Intel up, and what holds it back

Tailwinds. The CFO called 2027 a growth year for Intel and said data center momentum would have continued into the fourth quarter without Israel. Granite Rapids is now accretive to gross margin. Intel 3 should be profitable next year, according to management, and 18A yields are improving at a double-digit rate. Intel has also added about 40% more substrate capacity, though most of it arrives in the second half.

Headwinds. The first half of 2027 will still be supply-constrained, by management’s own account. The client business is resetting lower. Depreciation is already rising, at $8.9 billion for the first nine months of 2026 against $8.0 billion a year earlier, and 2027 capex will be “up strongly” from $20 billion. Non-controlling interest, the share of profit that belongs to partners in Intel’s joint fab projects, is expected at about $1.1 billion in 2027. And Fab 28 should still cost about $300 million of revenue in the first quarter.

The Blue Team view on Intel EPS

$2 a share in 2027 is not a stretch target in the sense of requiring something Intel has never done. It requires Intel to do, every quarter, what it did once in the third quarter of 2026. The case for it rests on server demand that management says still exceeds supply. The case against it rests on a first half that management itself expects to be constrained. Our central case sits between the two, at around $1.60, with the second half doing most of the work.

The first real test comes with the fourth-quarter report in late January, when Intel will give its first-quarter 2027 guidance. A first-quarter guide near $0.35 or better would put the central case on track. Anything near $0.25 would point to the low case.

Sources: Intel Q3 2026 earnings release and Form 10-Q; Intel Q1, Q2 and Q3 2026 earnings calls. 2027 figures are Blue Team scenarios, not company guidance.