Intel Merging Mobile & PC Chip Division

Intel is not happy with the performance of its mobile division, sinking $1 billion into Intel’s profits this year. To fix the issue, Intel will be merging its more profitable PC division with the mobile division. Named “client computing group” the new division will work on most of Intel’s chip design. In the near future, this could mean one chip that would run on a PC and mobile, although this kind of innovation is still a few years off.

Intel’s PC division brought in over $4 billion in profit this year, showing the PC is still a strong arm of business. Intel has a much larger percentage of the market in PC, compared to almost zero sales on the mobile side.

On PC, Intel works for most of the Windows partners and is Apple’s favored chip maker. This gives them a good line of partners, whereas on mobile, Apple, Samsung and others do not seem to care about Intel’s mobile chips, intent on creating their own chips or using Qualcomm. Qualcomm, Nvidia and MediaTek have proved to be hard opponents on mobile. Qualcomm is the number one manufacturer and has invested a lot into mobile processors – at a faster and earlier rate – compared to Intel.

Intel’s Atom line has started receiving some attention, the Nokia N1 will be running the processor and several other tablets have decided against Nvidia’s Tegra K1 and in favor of Intel.

However, it is not enough to have a whole division set up, that continues to lose money. Intel is also investing heavily in wearables and the “Internet of Things” in order to make sure they don’t miss out on another huge market.