The company also will boost its quarterly cash dividend 25% to 10 cents a share, starting in the first quarter of 2006.
The high dollar value stock repurchase follows the company missing earnings guidance in its most recent quarter. Intel also is facing continued chipset shortages.
The new measures are viewed as part of Intel’s effort to boost its share price, which has fallen 8% during the past three months.
Since the company’s stock buyback program began in 1990, Intel has repurchased about 2.5 billion shares for about $49bn.
We are returning record amounts of cash to our stockholders with one of the highest dividend yields in the technology industry and one of the largest share buyback programs of any company, said chief executive Paul Otellini, in a statement.
