Chipmaker AMD continues to nibble away at Intel’s market share, although Intel still dominates in all chip segments.
AMD has managed to snatch some more market share from Intel in the past quarter. This is evident from analyses by Mercury Research, which closely monitors the PC component market. According to Mercury Research, AMD holds about thirty percent of the x86 processor market, compared to seventy percent for Intel.
AMD is making the fastest gains in desktop processors. Here, AMD saw its market share increase by five percent to 33.6 percent. In the mobile CPU segment for laptops, the ratios have remained more or less unchanged, with Intel even adding a modest 0.4 percent.
Mercury Research saw a rather weak quarter for PC processors for both chip makers, which could be a result of the ongoing uncertainty about U.S. import tariffs. The weaker quarter for PC processors was more than compensated by an increase in the server market. In this quarter, AMD gained 3.5 percent to reach a market share of 27.8 percent.
Intel Wakes Up
AMD is sawing away at the legs of Intel’s throne quarter after quarter because it delivers faster and Intel is shifting focus away from entry-level processors, according to Mercury Research. At the same time, the figures show that Intel is still very dominant in the market. Intel may have been lulled into complacency in recent years, but AMD has a very long way to go if it ever wants to match its competitor.
Intel also seems to have woken up. Lip-Bu Tan was appointed as CEO earlier this year to clean house and get Intel back on track. All departments that are no longer interesting are being divested without hesitation. Whether Intel can continue to defend its market dominance in the long term with this strategy remains to be seen.
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Intel and Nvidia Join Forces with one Goal: to Hurt AMD
Mercury Research’s analysis only looks at the two-way battle between Intel and AMD in x86 processors. Third player Arm is trying to join the fray. According to estimates, Arm currently represents about ten percent of the processor market.