How to read an earnings release: GAAP vs non-GAAP, margins and guidance, with Intel's Q3 2026 as the example

In short

An earnings release reports the same quarter in two ways. GAAP numbers follow the accounting rules every US-listed company must use. Non-GAAP numbers are the company's own adjusted version, which leaves out items management considers one-off or non-core, and the US SEC requires that each non-GAAP figure be shown next to its closest GAAP figure with a reconciliation. To read a release, start with revenue and the segment table, compare GAAP with non-GAAP, then spend the most time on the guidance, because markets trade on what comes next more than on the quarter just finished. Intel's Q3 2026 release is a good worked example, and we use it below.

Why this matters

Last week's biggest chip story was not a bad quarter. Intel reported revenue of $16.5 billion, up 21%, and still lost about 28% of its market value the next day, because its forecast for the following quarter was lower than expected (see our report on Intel's Q3 2026 results). If you work in tech, you will meet these documents constantly: they explain why a cloud price rises, why a team is cut, or why a chip is hard to buy. Reading one takes about ten minutes once you know where to look.

Step 1: Know what you are looking at

A US public company usually publishes an earnings press release, often filed with the SEC as an exhibit to a Form 8-K (Intel's was Exhibit 99.1), plus a slide deck and a live call. The full quarterly report on Form 10-Q comes later and has more detail. The press release is the company's own framing; the filing is the legal record. When the two differ in tone, treat the filing as the more careful document.

Step 2: Read the headline, then the segment table

The headline gives revenue, profit and earnings per share (EPS), usually with a comparison to the same quarter a year earlier. Year-over-year (YoY) is more meaningful than quarter-over-quarter for businesses with seasons or product cycles. Then go straight to the segment table, because the total hides what is happening.

Intel's release is a clear case. Total revenue rose 21%, but the segments diverged:

Segment	Q3 2026 revenue	Change vs Q3 2025
Data Center and AI	$7.3 billion	up 78%
Intel Foundry	$6.7 billion	up 58%
Client Computing and Physical AI	$8.1 billion	down 5%
All Other	$0.7 billion	down 30%

Data centre revenue was up 78% to $7.3 billion, client computing down 5% to $8.1 billion. A reader who only saw "up 21%" would miss that the PC business was shrinking. Two footnotes matter here too. Intel says segment revenues include sales between segments, which is why the segments do not add up to the total (intersegment eliminations were $6.3 billion), and it notes that Altera was deconsolidated after the September 2025 sale of a majority stake, which changes the comparison.

Step 3: GAAP versus non-GAAP

GAAP stands for generally accepted accounting principles. A non-GAAP measure, under SEC Regulation G, is a numerical measure of financial performance that excludes amounts included in the most directly comparable GAAP measure, or includes amounts excluded from it. Companies publish them because they think they show the underlying business more clearly.

The rules attach conditions. Regulation G (17 CFR 244.100) says that whenever a company publicly discloses material information that includes a non-GAAP measure, it must accompany it with the most directly comparable GAAP measure and a reconciliation of the differences. It also says the measure must not contain an untrue statement of a material fact or leave out a fact that makes it misleading. For spoken disclosure, such as a webcast, the same information can be provided on the company's website if the location is stated in the presentation.

What do companies typically adjust? Intel's release defines its own adjustments in a table: amortisation of intangible assets acquired in acquisitions, share-based compensation, and restructuring and other charges, with an explanation of why management excludes each. That is a common pattern, and the explanations are worth reading, because share-based compensation is a real cost to shareholders even if management does not count it as "core".

Adjustments do not always push the number up. In Q3 2026 Intel's GAAP EPS was $0.60 and non-GAAP EPS was $0.52, so the adjusted figure was lower. GAAP net income attributable to Intel was $3.3 billion, down 18% from $4.1 billion, while non-GAAP net income was $2.8 billion, up 169% from $1.0 billion. The two measures told opposite stories about the direction of profit year over year. The GAAP income statement also includes gains on equity investments of $330 million and "interest and other, net" of $1,130 million for the quarter, which is the kind of non-operating item worth checking against the reconciliation tables in the release.

GAAP0.60

Non-GAAP0.52

Intel Q3 2026 earnings per share, GAAP vs non-GAAP (US$ per share)

	US$ per share
GAAP	0.60
Non-GAAP	0.52

Source: Intel Q3 2026 earnings release (SEC Form 8-K, 29 Oct 2026)

A useful habit: read the reconciliation, and ask whether the excluded items recur. If a company has excluded "restructuring" in every quarter for years, it is a cost of doing business.

Step 4: Margins and cash

Revenue growth means little without margin. Gross margin is revenue minus the direct cost of making the product, as a share of revenue. Intel's Q3 gross margin was 43.0% GAAP (44.1% non-GAAP), up from 38.2% (40.0%) a year earlier. Operating margin, after research and administrative costs, was 15.3% GAAP and 19.6% non-GAAP. Then check cash flow from operations: Intel reported $5.1 billion for the quarter. Profit is an accounting result; cash is what pays for factories.

Step 5: Spend the most time on guidance

Guidance is the company's own forecast for the next quarter or year, normally a range. Markets price the future, so a gap between guidance and what analysts expected moves a share price more than a beat on the past quarter. Intel guided Q4 revenue of $15.0 billion to $16.0 billion, GAAP gross margin of 37.1% and non-GAAP gross margin of 38.0%, and non-GAAP EPS of $0.25; the release says the margin and EPS outlooks assume the midpoint of the revenue range. TechCrunch reported analysts had expected about $17 billion of revenue.

Q3 202540.0%

Q3 202644.1%

Q4 2026 guide38.0%

Intel non-GAAP gross margin: Q3 2025, Q3 2026, Q4 2026 guidance (%)

	%
Q3 2025	40.0%
Q3 2026	44.1%
Q4 2026 guide	38.0%

Source: Intel Q3 2026 earnings release (SEC Form 8-K, 29 Oct 2026)

Notice what guidance is and is not. It is a statement of expectation with legal caveats (the "forward-looking statements" section at the end of the release says actual results may differ materially). It is not a promise. Also read the text around it: Intel's CFO said the company expects the PC slowdown to continue at least through the first half of next year, and its CEO said the immediate priority is to unlock additional supply for Xeon server chips.

Step 6: Listen for the constraint

Every business has one thing that limits it: supply, demand, price, cost or regulation. The earnings call is where executives name it. For Intel, ServeTheHome reports that the limit on data centre output is substrate availability, while for PCs it is memory prices pushing system costs up. Finding the constraint tells you how long a trend will last and who else it affects.

A note on EPS and share counts

Earnings per share is net income divided by the weighted average number of shares, and companies report a basic and a diluted figure. Intel's Q3 2026 release shows basic GAAP EPS of $0.63 and diluted GAAP EPS of $0.60. Diluted EPS counts shares that could be created by options and other equity awards, so it is the more conservative number and the one the headline uses. When a company issues a lot of new shares, as Intel did with its $23 billion public equity offering that the release mentions, EPS can fall even if total profit holds up, so check the share count as well as the profit line.

A one-page checklist

1. Revenue and YoY growth, and what changed in the comparison (acquisitions, disposals).
2. Segment table: which parts grew and which shrank.
3. GAAP and non-GAAP side by side; read the reconciliation and ask whether adjustments recur.
4. Gross and operating margin versus last year.
5. Cash flow from operations.
6. Guidance range versus what analysts expected.
7. The constraint named on the call.
8. Footnotes: segment definitions, one-time items, accounting changes.

Common mistakes

• Treating "beat expectations" as good news without checking the guide.
• Comparing GAAP this year with non-GAAP last year.
• Ignoring segment mix.
• Taking share-price moves as a verdict on the business; they reflect expectations, as the Intel example shows.

This explainer is general information about how to read public company documents and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Intel Reports Third-Quarter 2026 Financial Results (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1)
• SEC Regulation G, 17 CFR 244.100: General rules regarding disclosure of non-GAAP financial measures (eCFR)
• SEC Regulation G, 17 CFR 244.101: Definitions (eCFR)
• TechCrunch: Intel's stock crashes, knocking $12B from government's stake
• ServeTheHome: Intel Q3 2026 Earnings, Data Center Soars While PC Faces Memory Pressure