14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that AMD's acquisition of graphics card maker ATI has finally returned positive results for the Sunnyvale, California-based chip maker. Since the company recently introduced its new Radeon HD 4000-series, its graphics business segment has been doing really well, so much so that it has allowed the company to claim market leadership in the high-end segment. However, on the other side, AMD's processor business hasn't really managed to overtake the company's long-time competitor and current leader, Intel.
According to recent details, AMD has succeeded in claiming back some of the market share its graphics segment lost to NVIDIA, but the same can't be said about its processor segment, where Intel is still in the lead. The Sunnyvale-based company is reported to have recorded a market share of 17.7% in Q3 2008, down from 18.8% in Q2 and 23% in Q3 2007.
According to Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research, in an interview for PC Magazine, “AMD's share decline was essentially due to their comparatively weaker mobile mix – the market moved strongly to mobile, and Intel having a larger share and mix benefited more, diluting AMD's position.”
Following expectations, Intel has managed to keep the growth tendency, with the company boosting its market share to 81.2 percent, up from 80 percent in Q2 and 76.2 percent in 2007. VIA Technologies has also reported loses, as it recorded only a 1.1 percent share, down from 1.3 percent in Q2, but up from 0.8 percent in 2007.
Fortunately for AMD, its graphics subsidiary, ATI, has managed to gain a more competitive edge in the market with the release of the Radeon 4000-series of graphics cards, which are known for delivering a significant performance boost over NVIDIA's GeForce solution, at a more affordable pricing. In addition, thanks to the dual-GPU HD 4870X2 graphics card, the company has managed to claim its position in the high-end market segment back from NVIDIA.