Sales of Intel’s Atom processor, designed for consumer electronics gadgets and super-slim personal computers, are topping company targets as the largest chipmaker in the world seeks to expand beyond a slowing PC market.

“Atom is off to a very, very rapid start, far exceeding our expectations when we started the year,” the company’s chief financial officer, Stacy Smith, said in an interview on Tuesday. “It’s the perfect recession product to have in the marketplace.”

Atom is designed to go into notebook computers and low-cost gizmos that Intel calls mobile World Wide Web devices, as well as other devices that may appeal to consumers tightening their belts in the face of a slackening economy.

“It plays very well in the mobile marketplace; it plays in emerging markets; it plays into people’s desire to have a second PC, or one for the kids that’s low-cost yet still capable,” Smith said of Atom. “It’s off to the races.”

The market for

Atom is still nascent, and it is unclear just how large the segments Atom is targeted at will become. Intel faces slowing growth in its mainstay PC business and needs to find new areas of sales growth.

“We’ll know kind of in six months how much of that demand is real and how much is customers thinking they’re going to win in the marketplace and double-ordering,” Smith added. “It seems to be growing the market rather than cannibalizing existing PC sales.”

He additionally stuck to his forecast for overall revenue in the current third quarter of $10.0 billion to $10.6 billion. “Of course I’m still comfortable with it. It’s still my forecast.”

Analysts currently expect the company to have third-quarter revenue of $10.3 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

“It’s a very uncertain macro environment,” Smith said. “It’s not true just in the United States; it’s true in Europe in terms of slowing…

Original post by dhiram