Outlook for Intel’s near future brightened Monday when its executives said demand for its chips was growing in the fourth quarter.

The cheery news, delivered by Intel’s general manager for Asia, John Antone, during Intel’s developer conference in Taipei, came a day before the chip giant is scheduled to announce its third-quarter earnings. Mr. Antone said business is better than what the company had expected earlier this year.

Financial analysts said they don’t expect great third-quarter earnings but are happy to hear Intel’s hint of a good fourth quarter. If Intel indeed finishes the year on a strong note, then it’s expected to recover from its past mistakes in 2007.

The company is undergoing a massive restructuring that will slash the workforce by 10 percent and cut billions in spending in the next few years (see Intel to Cut 10% of Workforce).

“Intel’s new products and restructuring activities should further help improve margins and yield strong year-over-year (earnings per share) growth,” according to a research note by Deutsche Bank posted Monday.

Intel shares rose $0.04 to $21.64 per share in recent trading.

Recovering from Stumbles

The company, based in Santa Clara, California, has stumbled in recent years when it didn’t introduce chips that impressed customers. At the same time, its rival, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), was able to wow server makers with its low-power Opteron processor. The result: Intel lost market share and investors’ confidence to stop the slide.

Intel’s come-back strategy was to introduce a new line of server, desktop, and notebook chips based on a new microarchitecture that promises to create better-performing and energy-saving processors.

The company introduced the new processors over the summer, although it wouldn’t give a bullish sales outlook for the third and fourth quarters (see Intel Sales Outlook Dims).

By sounding a more optimistic outlook, Intel executives hinted at a company that was picking itself up after being knocked down by a smaller foe in the playground.

Demand for notebook chips is strong, Intel executives said. The notebook segment has been Intel’s strong suit and a faster-growing business than the desktop market.

Notebook shipments from Taiwanese manufacturers Quanta and Compal grew 22 percent in September from a year ago, according to a research note from A.G. Edwards.

Intel’s own third-quarter earnings outlook calls for generating revenue between $8.3 billion and $8.9 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial are expecting an average of $8.62 billion in sales and $0.18 earnings per share on $1.01 billion in net income.

Intel is scheduled to announce its earnings after trading on the United States stock markets closes Tuesday. AMD is scheduled to deliver its numbers on Wednesday.

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