Intel's Outlook Is Looking Up

Chipmaker Intel thinks its second quarter will be better than originally thought thanks to rising sales of PCs and other computing hardware. On Thursday, the company raised its guidance for the second quarter, saying it expects to report sales of about $13.7 billion.

That’s quite a bit better than the $13 billion Intel forecast when it last reported earnings on April 15. The company’s shares rose five percent in after-hours trading.

A welcome change for Intel, which now expects sales for the full year to grow, rather than remain flat. It finished 2013 with $52.7 billion in sales, and had been expected to close out 2014 with about $53 billion. Now, the company seems likely to surpass that.

The main reason is that PC sales are stabilizing. Last year, research firms IDC and Gartner said the PC market was in the worst state they’d ever seen. But now both firms are noting signs of improvement. IDC, for example, said it expects a worldwide decline in PC shipments of about six percent — which would amount to an improvement, after a much bigger 10 percent decline in 2013.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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