Intel Corp. posted second-quarter sales and profit that topped analyst projections and gave an upbeat third-quarter forecast, signaling the chipmaker is weathering disruptions to the electronics industry caused by the China-U.S. trade dispute.

Separately, the company said it agreed to sell the majority of its smartphone-chip business to Apple Inc. in a deal valued at  US$1 billion, completing the wind-down of a multibillion-dollar, decades-long effort to break into the mobile industry. Intel shares jumped as much as 8 per cent.

Revenue is getting a boost from rising personal-computer demand, which is still outrunning supply, Chief Financial Officer George Davis said. Purchases of higher-priced server chips and demand from new markets outside of computing are also bolstering sales. Some of the added PC-chip demand is coming from customers anticipating future tariffs related to the China-U.S. trade dispute, and that demand can’t be expected to continue at the same level, he said.

It was an “extremely positive quarter,” Davis said in a phone interview. “Some of the beat in the second quarter was trade- and tariff-related as customers pulled in demand from the second half of the year.”

Intel shares rose as high as  US$56.33 in extended trading following the report. The stock had earlier slipped 1.4 per cent to  US$52.16 at the close in New York. Shares have gained 11 per cent this year, lagging behind the 38 per cent jump in the benchmark Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index.

The stock’s gains came at least in part from investor relief that Intel has finally jettisoned its money-losing mobile-chip division via the sale to Apple, according to Logan Purk, an analyst at Edward D. Jones & Co.

“It’s been an awful business and now it’s off the books,” he said. Purk estimates the unit was losing about  US$1 billion a year. “Hopefully they can deploy that money elsewhere.”

Davis, the CFO, estimates the company will save as much as  US$500 million in costs from giving up the effort to sell smartphone components. Some of the money saved will be redirected into speeding up improvements in manufacturing, he said.

Second-quarter sales were  US$16.5 billion, the Santa Clara, California-based company said Thursday in a statement. Analysts on average had predicted  US$15.7 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Net income was  US$4.2 billion, or 92 cents a share, compared with estimates for 85 cents. Gross margin, or the percentage of sales remaining after deducting the cost of production, was 59.8 per cent in the quarter. Intel’s target range for the metric, a key indicator of efficiency for a manufacturing company, is above 60 per cent.

Intel’s Xeon processors account for more than 95 per cent of the market for chips that run servers, the machines that provide the backbone of the internet and corporate networks. In the second quarter, the data-center division posted revenue of  US$5 billion, a decline of 10 per cent. Sales in the PC chip business climbed 1 per cent to  US$8.8 billion.

The crucial data-center unit is suffering as demand droops from corporations and government buyers, particularly in China. Chief Executive Officer Bob Swan called that area “brutal,” and said he doesn’t expect it to improve in the second half. Orders from makers of networking equipment and cloud-data center owners will pick up, he said on a conference call with analysts.

Swan said there’s still uncertainty surrounding trade relations between China and the U.S., including restrictions on supplying companies there and whether further tariffs are coming. That’s causing some anxiety, he said. The company’s current forecasts are based on the situation as it exists now and don’t factor in any changes.

Revenue in the current period will be about  US$18 billion, and net income will be about  US$1.16 a share, Intel said. That compares with average analysts’ estimates of  US$17.9 billion and  US$1.13 a share. For the year, Intel is now predicting revenue of about  US$69.5 billion and earnings per share of  US$4.10.

The company said newer businesses -- chips for connected cars and machinery -- helped fuel the better-than-predicted performance in the recent period. The company’s Mobileye self-driving car technology unit had sales of  US$201 million, up 16 per cent from a year earlier. Internet of things revenue rose 12 per cent to  US$986 million.

Though the number topped estimates, second-quarter revenue was down 2.7 per cent from a year earlier, representing the first quarterly drop in four years. In last year’s second quarter, Intel posted sales of  US$17 billion and earnings of  US$5 billion, or  US$1.05 a share.