A recent IDC market report, coming to confirm what most were already thinking, indicates that Intel's Atom processor has helped the company achieve a steady third quarter market growth despite a low global economy. The company's overall year-over-year Q3 shipments increased at 15.8%, an impressive achievement on Intel's part. However, great part of the reported figures is mainly due to the successful run of the company's small-sized, low power Atom processor.

 

It has already been said that the netbook market has significantly boosted revenues not only for Intel, but also for all those systems manufacturers out there that have so far released an ultra-portable, low-cost, Atom-powered computer system to compete in the vast netbook market. Because Intel's CPU is at the basis of most of these netbooks available on the market, the company was bound to record a steady market growth, even in the context of a slow global economy. Basically, the Atom has allowed the Santa Clara, California-based leading chip maker to keep itself clear from the immediate negative effects of latest evolutions on the market.

 

According to the IDC, the Atom processor helped the company achieve the 15.8% Q3 growth in terms of unit shipments, which, if not for the existence of the netbook-loving Atom processor, would have otherwise been just 8.7%. The IDC also reports that the unit growth was ahead of the revenue growth, which settled at only 4.1%, to $8.3 billion. The Atom was also the main reason for Intel's increase of market share, especially in the mobile segment. According to IDC's estimations, the Santa Clara chip maker earned 87.4% share, a gain of 0.8 points, with competitors ADM and VIA finishing at 11.5% and 1.2%, respectively.

 

"Not considering the effects of Atom, the overall market still grew at a decent pace in the third quarter," said Shane Rau, an analyst with the IDC. "Intel's and AMD's shipments grew at a rate only slightly slower than typical for a third quarter, and seasonal demand appeared reasonable up until September. By segment, while the mobile processor segment grew aggressively, the server segment was soft."