AMD expectedly lost more market share

Apr 2, 2009 10:17 GMT  ·  By

Global leading chip maker Intel has succeeded to gain more market share in every quarter of 2008, while its biggest competitor, AMD has lost the market share it gained in the third quarter of the same year. According to the latest financial figures released by research firm iSuppli, one of the main reasons behind Intel's successful share gain in 2008, was due to fast growth of small-sized mini-note PCs, such as netbooks. The chip maker's Atom product was right on the money and dominated the market, as almost every netbook was featured with an Atom processor.

“Intel grew its share of the processor segment in every quarter of 2008 on a sequential basis, effectively using each quarter as a building block for the next,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, computer platform research, for iSuppli. “During this the time, Intel's low-priced Atom became increasingly popular as the netbook market gained Steam.”

In the fourth quarter of 2008, Intel accounted for 81.8 percent of the global processor revenues, a 0.88% increase from the 80.96% share in the third quarter of 2008, according to the figures supplied by iSuppli. The company's processor business also grew in the fourth quarter on an on-year basis, with an increase of 3.4 percent of its share of the global revenues.

The chip maker's main rival, AMD, has the market share it gained in the third quarter of 2008 and also lost share for the full-year of 2008. The Sunnyvale, California-based chip maker accounted for 10.6 percent of the worldwide processor revenues, a decrease of 3.5 percent from the 14.1% it scored back in the fourth quarter of 2007. In the fourth quarter, AMD lost 1.6 share points, down from the 12.2 percent it held in the third quarter.

“While 2008 has been a challenging year for AMD, the company has undergone a number of strategic initiatives, such as its moves to reduce its production assets,” Wilkins said. “And with its 45nm products now shipping, AMD is better positioned in 2009 than it was in 2008.”