Tech giants post upbeat financials

Downturn? What downturn?

Intel was among the leading IT firms to report positive quarterly earnings

Three of the tech industry's leading bellwethers have reported better than expected profits for the first quarter, allaying some of the IT investment community's worst fears.

Intel reported strong demand for processors in the quarter, with a nine per cent increase in revenue to $9.67bn and profits of $1.4bn.

The chip giant raised its forecast for gross margins for the year, thanks in part to sustained technical advances in 45nm manufacturing.

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini said in a conference call that the company's geographic reach had helped it benefit from a "strong global environment" boosted by positive sales in Asia.

IBM raised its own profit forecast for the year after posting net profits of $2.32bn, an increase of 26 per cent from the 2007 period.

Mark Loughridge, chief financial officer at IBM, attributed the better than expected earnings to the use of cost-savings products in the US, as well as help from the weak dollar.

Google easily beat analyst expectations with net profits of $1.31bn, an increase of $1bn from a year earlier. Revenues for the quarter increased to $3.7bn from $3.61bn.

However, the week ended badly for AMD, which posted net losses of $358m between January and March.

Industry watchers pointed to the late arrival of the company's much anticipated quad-core Opteron processor line up as a contributing factor.