Intel cuts processor prices by 48%

Intel, the world's largest chip maker, has cut the price of some processors by as much as 48 per cent as it confronts slumping demand and new lower-cost chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Bloomberg reported.

The price of Celeron 570 processors, designed for laptops, dropped 48 per cent to $70 whereas one of the company's quad-core desktop-computer models, which have four processors on one piece of silicon, dropped 40 per cent to $316, the news agency said.

Intel kept the price of its three most expensive desktop chips unchanged, the report said on Tuesday. Intel was not immediately available for comment.

The US company had said it expects margins to bounce back to "healthy" levels by the second half of 2009, but held back on giving detailed quarterly forecasts when it issued earnings on January 15, citing economic uncertainty.