Intel slashes chip revenue forecast

World's largest chipmaker Intel has slashed revenue forecasts for Q4 - an indicator that the company is not immune to the economic slowdown.

Intel dropped predicted revenue down to the $8.7 billion to $9.3 billion range for Q4, a cut of about 14% compared to previous estimates of $10.1 billion to $10.9 billion. The company blamed falling demand across all regions (server, desktop and notebook) and market segments, as well as a reduction of components in the PC supply chain.

At the same time Intel warned that profit margins would fall from 59% to 55%.

Intel's a good economic barometer and this shows that the economy is in pretty bad shape.