AMD’s Market Share Drops Below 17% Due to Market Conditions

From X-bit Labs: Microprocessor unit market share of Advanced Micro Devices dropped below 17% for the first time in several years as a result of PC market shrink, strong competition from Intel Corp.’s as well as weak product lineup in the third quarter of 2012, according to Mercury Research.

Unit shipments of x86 microprocessors, which are mostly sold by Intel and AMD, dropped by around 9% year-over-year in the third quarter of this year due to uncertain economic environment, shrink of the traditional PC market due to popularization of additional computing devices like smartphones and media tablets and some other reasons. Such a significant decline was the second worst quarter for that segment of the processor market since the first quarter of 2001, market tracker Mercury Research revealed on Tuesday.

Market share of Intel increased to 83.3% in Q3 2012, up from 80.6% in the same quarter a year before. Meanwhile, for the first time in several years the share of AMD’s microprocessors on the x86 market dropped to 16.1% from 18.8% in Q3 2011, reports IDG News Service. Market share of Via Technologies was 0.6%.

It is noteworthy that notebook microprocessor shipments dropped by a mid-single digit percentage range for AMD and Intel, according to the research. At the same time, Intel’s gained on AMD mostly in desktops thanks to the roll-out of Intel Core i-series 3000-family “Ivy Bridge” microprocessors that started in April, 2012. At the time, AMD virtually had nothing to compete with against its arch-rival as it A-series “Llano” chips and FX-series “Bulldozer” central processing units were either slow or suffered from low supply of mainboards.

“AMD took more of the hit than Intel did. They both experienced declines. AMD was simply hit by what OEMs saw in the markets and hitting the brakes,” said Dean McCarron, the principal analyst at Mercury Research.

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