6 June 2005: Apple announces a switch to Intel chips
At its developer conference on June 6, 2005 Steve Jobs announced that Macs would move from IBM PowerPC chips to Intel processors. The first Intel Macs shipped in early 2006. It was a big win for Intel and helped Apple build faster, cheaper laptops. Fifteen years later, Apple announced it was leaving Intel again for its own chips, showing how quickly supplier relationships can turn.
The lesson: Big customers bring big revenue, but also the risk that they eventually decide to make it themselves.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Intel at the start of 2005 → $1,739 today, vs $5,763 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2005, the year it happened. That is 1.7 times the money, but $4,024 less than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Intel teaches: Market leadership is not permanent; Intel's manufacturing edge looked unassailable for decades and eroded through a handful of missed bets and execution slips.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | $23.00 | $1,739 | $5,763 |
| 2007 | $20.00 | $2,000 | $4,789 |
| 2008 | $25.00 | $1,600 | $4,626 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Intel? Every starting year and the full story →
More Intel history
- 22 March 1993: Intel introduces the Pentium
- 18 July 1968: Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore found Intel
- 1 November 1999: Microsoft and Intel join the Dow
- 15 November 1971: Intel advertises the first microprocessor
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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