For those who did not know, the semiconductor industry has been hit hard with shortages stemming from supply chain bottlenecks caused by the global pandemic and recent lockdowns in China.
The lack of supply has been widely felt in sectors such as automotive and computer manufacturing.
While many have thought that the worst of those dark days have gone, Gelsinger warned that it was only halfway through and probably a good time to go out, go to the loo, and buy extra popcorn to see yourself through the rest of the long and tedious movie metaphor
Gelsinger told Yahoo Finance Live at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And my expectation now is that it persists through 2024.”
One major issue faced by chipmakers over the last six to nine months is the lack of the much needed equipment that goes into the fabs or the manufacturing plants.
“And those equipment lead times have pushed out pretty substantially over the last six months,” he said.
An increase in manufacturing in the U.S. could alleviate some of the problems in the future. Intel has “created capacity that allows us to have on the order of 10 new factories over the next five years,” Gelsinger said.
The chipmaker is prepared to produce even more capacity and is “setting up that we can do even more as we go into the second half of the decade as well,” he said. “And the Ohio and Magdeburg, Germany sites, you know, hey, you know, those are big sites that we can be 8 or 10 fabs on those locations.”
If President Joe Biden removes tariffs from China, the decision will not create a “huge difference” and is a “reasonable positive,” Gelsinger said.
“We think it's been a bit punitive. So we think it's an incremental positive, but not a huge difference one way or the other.”
Intel said it is less concerned about inflation, but noted that a softening in demand from consumers could be a positive for the company. The demand from the business and commercial sides have been “very strong, very robust,” Gelsinger said.
“I think there's going to be a period-- you know, people are fighting inflation so there's going to be a tightening of monetary policy as well,” he said. “I think these are all natural. I think there's a general softening and a general tightening of policy. You know, and we think that's probably a couple of quarters in front of us.”
Gelsinger estimates that Intel’s earnings will double.
“I'm going to double the earnings of the company and we're going to double the multiple of the company,” he said. “This is a great opportunity to be part of the greatest tech turnaround story in history.”
