How Intel Spent $56 Billion in 12 Months

The Intel exhibit at the 2015 Mobile World Congress. Image credit: Intel.

Intel's deeply entrenched position atop the chipmaking industry helped it generate $53 billion in revenue over the past 12 months. What does the 47-year-old company do with all this money? The slideshow below answers this question.

Viewers will learn three interesting points, among other things, from the slideshow:

First, Intel distributes nearly all of its earnings to shareholders. After subtracting dividends and share buybacks, only 7.2% of Intel's net revenue remained.
Second, Intel enjoys wide profit margins. Its pre-tax operating margin over the past 12 months was 26% compared to a median of 17% for the S&P 500's 100 biggest companies.
Which, third, goes a long way toward explaining why Intel's shares have outperformed the S&P 500 by approximately 5,200 percentage points since 1989.

What else can investors learn about Intel from an analysis of its revenue flows? Scroll through the brief slideshow below to find out.

All slideshow data sourced from YCharts.com on Nov. 24, 2015. Slideshow image credit: Intel, istock/Thinkstock.

The article How Intel Spent $56 Billion in 12 Months originally appeared on Fool.com.

John Maxfield has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.