Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) stock has had a rough ride in 2024 so far, falling by over 56% year-to-date.

The reason? The world's leading chipmaker has fallen behind the curve, ceding ground to rivals like Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD), Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) and failing to even catch up to Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) on the smartphone side of things.

The world's leading chipmaker lost the plot across both establishing as well as emerging technologies – it is no longer as dominant as it was in the x86 space, and companies like Nvidia have utterly dominated the AI chips space.

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Intel's failure to innovate is reflected in its stock performance as well – at $20.92, its stock is roughly back to the same level it was at nearly 27 years ago.

To make matters worse for Team Blue, that is Intel (its rival AMD is Team Red,) the company's market capitalization has shrunk enough that there are rumors doing the rounds that rivals like Qualcomm could be interested in scooping it up. Qualcomm's interest in acquiring Intel subsequently waned, reportedly due to the "complexities" involved in the transaction.

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For context, Intel's market capitalization stands at $90.22 billion, while Qualcomm's is at $177.26 billion.

Intel's closest rival, AMD, is valued more than two times at $224.91 billion.

Nvidia, on the other hand, has a relatively stratospheric market capitalization of $3.488 trillion – worth over 38 times Intel's market capitalization.

Things have gotten so bad for Intel, that the chipmaker let go of Pat Gelsinger, an industry and Intel veteran, in a somewhat less-than-ideal fashion.

Lack Of Innovation, Manufacturing Difficulties, And Increasing Competition

While Intel's woes have been ongoing for several years now, issues with its latest desktop chips were likely the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

After several reports revealed issues with Intel's 13th and 14th generation chips, the company took notice but eventually gave up on fixing them with software updates.

The result? Gelsinger had to leave before realizing his mission to complete the 18A fabrication process – while the company says it has been set in motion, chips made using the process have not been rolled out yet.

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Gelsinger and Intel would have hoped for the success of 18A, especially to keep its struggling foundry business alive.

However, with Gelsinger now out and no suitor in sight, Intel's future seems to be hanging in the balance.

Price Action: Intel's stock closed at $20.92 on Friday, up 0.6% for the day. Year-to-date, it has fallen 56.2%.

Data from Benzinga Pro shows that analysts have a consensus rating of "Neutral" for the Intel stock. BofA Securities, Northland Capital Markets, and Mizuho are among the three most recent analyst ratings, and their average price target stands at $24, implying a 14.7% upside.

Will Intel be able to turn around its fortunes, though? Only time will tell.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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