SANTA CLARA — Intel reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings and sales Thursday as the semiconductor leader turned in strong sales from its data-center business to go along with solid gains from its traditional personal computer chip offerings.

After the stock market close, Intel said it earned 93 cents a share, on $16.1 billion in revenue, for the period ending March 31. During the same period a year ago, Intel earned 61 cents a share, on sales of $14.8 billion. Excluding one-time items, Intel earned 87 cents a share.

By that measure, Intel topped the estimates of Wall Street analysts, who had forecast the company to earn 72 cents a share, on $15.1 billion in revenue.

Intel said its results were led by what the company calls “data-centric” sales — or, sales of chipsets for data centers, the internet of things, nonvolatile memory solutions and programmable solutions — which reached a combined total of $7.54 billion. Data-center revenue, in particular, posted the biggest gain of any of Intel’s business groups, as it rose by 24 percent from a year ago, to $5.2 billion.

Sales of semiconductors for personal computers continued to be Intel’s biggest revenue source, totaling $8.2 billion, a 3-percent gain from the same period in 2017.