Print

Mail

wiki links

Intel reasserts dominance over AMD

In the closely watched battle over microprocessor sales, Intel Corp won back substantial market share in the first quarter and reasserted its dominance over much-smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) with a lineup of new chips that have stunted AMD's rapid growth.

Santa Clara-based Intel gained about 6 percentage points of share in the first three months of the year, finishing the quarter with a commanding 80.5 percent of the worldwide market for desktop, laptop and server processors based on the popular x86 design, according to new data from Mercury Research.

Sunnyvale-based AMD had pried loose a valuable slice of the market from Intel last year, but its share fell from a high of nearly 26 percent in the fourth quarter to just under 19 percent.

Dean McCarron, president and principal analyst of Mercury Research in Cave Creek, Arizona, said on Wednesday that AMD's decline would have been less severe if the company had not miscalculated demand in the fourth quarter and oversold its products to manufacturers, which dragged down sales in the following period.

Spreading out those sales over both quarters, AMD would have lost about 2 percentage points of share, McCarron said.

AMD is banking on the launch later this year of its new server chip, code-named Barcelona, to help lift its fortunes.

"One quarter doesn't make a trend," AMD spokesman Drew Prairie said. "It doesn't make it any less painful, what we experienced, but we're definitely on a long-term line that's positive."
This story has been viewed 1112 times.