Reg Hardware

AMD records Q1 marketshare gain

Nothing to stress Intel out, though

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

2nd July 2008 09:48 GMT

AMD fanboys today jumped on figures from market watcher iSuppli highlighting marketshare gains made by the chip maker, but the picture's not as clear as they would like.

The researcher's latest numbers, for the worldwide microprocessor market and focusing on the year's first quarter, show AMD's share rose from 10.9 per cent in Q1 2007 to 13 per cent in Q1 2008.

Not exactly a big jump, but when Apple buffs shout about every sub-single percentage point gain made by the Mac maker, we can't be too harsh on AMD enthusiasts.

In any case, AMD's gain came primarily at the cost of other chip makers rather than its arch-rival, Intel. The chip giant's share fell just seven-tenths of a percentage point over the same two quarters, whereas other chip makers saw their combined share fall 1.4 percentage points. That left Intel Q1 2008 share as 79.7 per cent and everyone else buy AMD on 7.3 per cent.

Intel can be cheerful. AMD may be up year on year, but it was down sequentially, having gain a higher marketshare in Q4 2007 than it did in Q1 2008: 14.1 per cent. By contrast, Intel grew its share sequentially, from 78.5 per cent, a 1.2 percentage point gain.

This isn't iSuppli's first batch of Q1 chip market data. Back in April, it posted its figures for the x86 arena and they saw Intel increasing its lead over its rival to take 80 per cent of the x86 chip business, its highest marketshare since Q3 2005.

AMD's share fell from 15.7 per cent in the previous quarter to 11.1 per cent in Q1, iSuppli said at the time.

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