Um what? Rental profits?
As far as its importance, Im a silicon design engineer. I care a lot about that. There are US fabs that aren't too far behind for now, and TSMC is building its next fab in Arizona, notTaiwan.
Like I said this is all about investors. Don't be fooled.
Intel is not going to fab leading edge chips anymore. They dont have the ability. From an economic standpoint, it appears they just tried to wring everything they could out of their old tech, but the technical reason is they didn't have another option. There are no new technologies that they could have moved to. TSMC and Samsung are the only people making valuable advancements. They are only able to do so with the cooperation of all of their fab customers' input. Intel doesn't manufacture customers' chips, only their own. They will have to spin off their failing fab and hopefully recover with their design side.
I didn't say they're going bankrupt. But their stock price is suffering. Go look at it over the last 5 yrs. Cronies want their money, so they're gonna pump and dump.