What Haswell Might Do for Intel Corporation (NTC)

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ARM Holdings is outrageously overvalued, as I wrote about here. The market seems to be pricing in a best-case-scenario which ignores Intel entirely. Ignoring Intel has never been wise. ARM will likely see its growth slow, maybe not immediately but within a few years, as Intel makes headway into the mobile market. ARM’s crazy P/E ratio will fall, and investors will be left with big losses.

What Haswell means for NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Haswell may actually be good for NVIDIA. Because gamers still require a discrete graphics card and the fact that NVIDIA has a higher market share on Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) platforms, a successful Haswell should lead to a successful NVIDIA. Like I’ve said, Haswell does not compete with NVIDIA in the gaming graphics department.

NVIDIA’s mobile processor, Tegra, already faces intense competition. Tegra is focused on graphics and thus should find its way into mainly higher-end devices. Intel brings even more competition, and this could be a big negative for NVIDIA. Right now essentially all of NVIDIA’s profits come from its GPU business, but Tegra is the long-term growth driver and more competition hurts that vision. It will be mainly Intel’s Atom processors which compete with NVIDIA, not Haswell, but the progress Intel is making puts some pressure on NVIDIA.

If Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) ends up eventually dominating the mobile market as did the PC market, it will be bad news for NVIDIA. Here’s an interesting thought though: Intel could acquire NVIDIA and integrate its powerful graphics into Intel chips. AMD bought graphics company ATI, so it wouldn’t be an unprecedented move. This could accelerate Intel’s progress in the mobile space and give ARM-based processors a run for their money.

The bottom line

Intel’s Haswell line of processors offer a leap forward in battery life and graphics, and should give a boost to ultrabook sales. It also makes high-end full-featured tablets with decent battery life possible, running on either Windows or Android. Intel’s progress with Haswell as well as its Atom line puts pressure on ARM’s outrageous valuation.

NVIDIA’s GPU business should benefit, but its Tegra business will face even more intense competition in the future. Intel is slowly but surely forcing its way into the mobile market, and with the resources and advanced manufacturing technology which Intel possesses, I don’t doubt that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) will succeed.

Timothy Green owns shares of NVIDIA. The Motley Fool recommends Intel and NVIDIA. The Motley Fool owns shares of Intel.

The article The Meaning of Haswell and What It Might Do for Intel originally appeared on Fool.com.

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