Intel has announced that its revenue for the fourth quarter had fallen 23 percent below the one registered during the same time-frame last year, thus failing to meet forecasts, which the company has blamed on decreasing demand and inventory reductions by its PC maker customers.

Moreover, Intel has also revealed a fourth-quarter impairment charge amounting to approximately $950 million, which has resulted from the company’s investment in Clearwire Corporation. The latter is a wireless broadband Internet service provider (ISP) that operates in the United States, Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Denmark and Mexico.

Intel estimated quarterly revenue of $8.2 billion, which falls below the $8.74 billion that analysts have forecast via a poll conducted by Thomson Reuters.

The company, shipping approximately 80 percent of the world’s microprocessors, revealed that its gross margin had also failed to meet expectations of 55 percent-give or take a few percentage points-coming to be registered at the bottom of the forecasts.

Back in November, Intel abated its sales expectations by over $1 billion, estimating they would bring in revenue of $9 billion, plus or minus $300 million. The original forecast ranged between $10.1 billion and $10.9 billion.

If the company had previously reckoned that the loss from stock investments would only amount to $50 million, now Intel says they would total a whopping $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion, mainly due to the aforementioned investment in Clearwire.

On Wednesday, Intel shares decreased 80 cents to $14.57 in premarket electronic trading, which translates as a 5.2 percent fall.