[adventured]

Revenue fell because they're paying for market share.

"Krzanich set a goal for Intel's chips to be used in 40 million tablets in 2014, up from 10 million the previous year."

They're pretty clear in the article that by "paid off" they're referring to the market share they're buying. Intel is attempting to force its way into the market, leveraging its wildly profitable traditional processor division and $17 billion in cash. With $10.2b in net income the last four quarters, it makes perfect sense to vaporize a few billion dollars if necessary to grab a piece of the mobile market and build forward.