Intel MPU market share slips, AMD stages comeback

Intel saw its Q1 MPU market share decline by 2.5% sequentially, while AMD gained 2.3%, iSuppli reports, describing AMD's share increase as an "impressive feat given the economic downturn."

By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 6/10/2009

Intel Corp's streak of sequential MPU market share gains ended in Q1 when the company lost share while its rival AMD Inc gained share and "staged a comeback," according to data from iSuppli Corp.

Intel saw its market share decline by 2.5%, with its portion of global revenue declining to 79.1%, down from 81.6% in Q4 2008. Meanwhile, AMD gained 2.3% for 12.8% total MPU market share, up from 10.5% in Q4.

“After losing share to Intel on a sequential basis during three out of four quarters in 2008, AMD managed to reverse the trend in the first quarter of 2009,” said Matthew Wilkins, iSuppli’s principal analyst for compute platforms research, in a statement. “AMD increased its allocation of global microprocessor revenue due to strong performances in each area of its microprocessor portfolio, particularly in its notebook products. This was an impressive feat given the economic downturn and the weakness in the PC and server markets, which caused global microprocessor revenue in the first quarter to decline by 20.6% to $6.9 billion, down from $8.6 billion during the same period in 2008.”

iSuppli: Global total MPU revenue market share

MPU Supplier	Q1 share	Q4 share	Q1 2008 share
Intel	79.1%	81.6%	79%
AMD	12.8%	10.5%	12.9%
Others	8.1%	7.9%	8.1%

ISuppli reported that after declining slightly in Q4 2007 to 78%, Intel gained share throughout 2008, with its portion of global revenue rising to 79% in Q1 2008, to 79.2% in the year's Q2, to 80.3% in Q3, and to 81.6% in Q4.

“Intel widened its lead in 2008 partly due to its Atom microprocessor, which has achieved major success in the fast-growing netbook PC market,” Wilkins said. “However, the strength of Intel’s broad product line in microprocessors for desktops, servers and notebooks was the major factor driving its success.”

ISuppli attributed Intel’s Q1 decline to the contraction in the PC and server markets, where end-application demand is suffering from the credit crisis.

The market research company concluded that despite AMD’s share gain, both it and Intel were hurt by revenue declines forced by economic and market conditions. ISuppli said that those factors are expected to continue to hamper the global microprocessor business in 2009, with full-year revenue expected to reach $28.6 billion, down 15.8% from $34 billion in 2008.