Chip maker Intel has slashed its final quarter outlook, admitting it will fall short of the company's previous forecast due to a hard drive supply shortage - sparked by flooding in Thai disk factories.

The vendor said it now expects to bank Q4 revenue of about $13.7bn (£8.7bn), compared to an earlier prediction of $14.7bn for the period.

Intel said there was some give-and-take of that figure being up or down by a further £300m during the quarter.

"Sales of personal computers are expected to be up sequentially in the fourth quarter," the chip giant, which competes with AMD and ARM among others, said.

"However, the worldwide PC supply chain is reducing inventories and microprocessor purchases as a result of hard disk drive supply shortages.

"The company expects hard disk drive supply shortages to continue into the first quarter, followed by a rebuilding of microprocessor inventories as supplies of hard disk drives recover during the first half of 2012." ®