There was a time when “Intel Inside” stickers were a symbol of pride and not a dated reference. Flash forward to 2025, Intel feels more like a cautionary tale of missed chances and manufacturing flops, it is now stuck in an unwanted scenario on the sidelines. A stock that long embodied long-term stability has stumbled in almost every direction, no dividend, no buybacks, no growth. Six consecutive years of declining profits and more than 60% drop in its share price over the last 5 years have left investors raising questions and eyebrows.

The firm’s removal from the Dow Jones Industrial Average last year was a symbolic decline from glory. Below the headline figures is a more significant tale, one of lost chances, continuous competition, and leadership struggling to rise above through one of the stormiest decades in chipmaking history.

Intel Mishandled the Future

Intel’s fall was not overnight, it had been building up for decades. Initially, its refusal to adopt Arm Holdings’ technology for developing mobile chips, and then its disastrous wager on its own Atom x86 chips for mobiles, cost the company its smartphone era. Meanwhile, its early withdrawal from distinct GPUs in 1999 created an opening that Nvidia took over with its brutal success, ultimately reinventing itself into the face of the AI revolution.

When Intel returned to the GPU game by 2022, it was quite late. Nvidia had already won the AI battle, and AMD had privately emerged as a powerhouse CPU player by outsourcing manufacturing to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Intel’s market share of x86 CPU market declined from 82.5% to 58.6% during the third quarter of 2016 and the second quarter of 2025, on the other hand AMD’s share increased from 17.5% to 39.9%, as per PassMark Software. Intel struggled with delays and its Intel’s core x86 CPU business, first with its transition from 14nm to 10nm chips from 2015-2019, then again with its transition from 10nm chips to 7nm chips “Intel 4” node in 2023.

Shifting Strategies of CEOs

Adding further to Intel’s troubles, the company has had four CEOs in seven years. Each had a distinct way of running the company playbook. During Brian Krzanich’s term, who stepped down in 2018, acquisitions became the focus. Intel “di-worsified” its operations by building up way too many adjacent buys rather than revitalizing its core foundry business. His replacement, Bob Swan, focused on cutting costs and even shelved Intel’s foundries altogether before his dismissal in 2021. Pat Gelsinger made a big bet on manufacturing. He doubled down on increasing the foundries of Intel to try to catch up with Samsung and TSMC to produce denser and smaller chips, only to be pushed out in late 2024 when results didn’t emerge.

Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s new CEO, who’s aiming to turn the ship around with greater emphasis on engineering, embedded AI, and hybrid manufacturing strategy. His plan is to prioritize mass firings and possibly selling Altera in the second half of this year in order to streamline its business.

Will Intel Catch Up?

Intel has put its faith on future chips such as Panther Lake (18A process) and Granite Rapids Xeon 6 CPUs, coming later this year. These launches might bring some short-term comfort, but the larger scenario is uncertain. Intel’s foundry business continues to lag behind TSMC and Samsung, and even CFO David Zinsner has acknowledged that the demand for its offerings remains limited.

Revenue is only expected to increase by 2% annually until 2027. Profitability could be gained by then, but that’s a long time in tech years, particularly with rivals racing at such rapid speed. Intel sells for about $22 a share, which is 23 times its forecasted 2027 earnings. That’s not exactly an attractive entry price for a firm still far away from its turnaround status.

Intel is no longer the money bet it used to be and is still a key player in the worldwide chipmaking industry, but declaring it a buy now may be an ambitious and hopeful thinking. Though there is a plan on the table and a new CEO with definite intentions, Intel’s execution risk is still sky-high, and its valuation doesn’t provide quite enough margin of safety. For all the hype about foundry growth, AI integration, and future chips, shareholders may be better served to watch from the sidelines, at least until Intel demonstrates that it can step up.