CPU Market Share of AMD and VIA Rises, Intel Still Prominent

Since the year is steadily drawing to a close, analysts have begun to publish their findings concerning the current state of the market, and it seems that the PC microprocessor front saw some changes during the third quarter of 2010.

It appears that, in terms of vendor performance, Q3 of 2010 saw some small modifications compared to the second quarter.

For one, Advanced Micro Devices managed to secure a share of 19.2%, slightly more than the 19% of the previous three month period. VIA also rose from 0.3% to 0.4 %.

Of course, this means that Intel still managed to dominate this segment, securing a vary large chunk of it for itself.

At the end of Q3, the Santa Clara, California-based company held 80.4% of the total, which is just 0.3% less than the 80.7% in Q2.

Still, overall, the performance of the PC CPU segment was less impressive than analysts had foreseen.

"Market demand for processors was weak in July and in August," said Shane Rau, director of Semiconductors: Personal Computing research at IDC.

“OEMs have become very reactive to any hint of slackening end demand. And, when they cut their PC build orders, like they did in late 2Q10 and the first half of 3Q10, not only did they cut their processor orders, they caused their contract manufacturers to cut orders for commodity components. The whole supply chain is skittish."

Nevertheless, while weaker than expected, the CPU market still showed growth, in terms of units and revenues, by 2.1% and 2.5%, respectively.

As for the ongoing fourth quarter, IDC has a more or less positive outlook, although year-over-year growth for the second half of the whole year is expected to be weaker than that showed by the first half.

"We believe that the fourth quarter of 2010 will be a decent quarter," said Rau,

"And we reiterate that the second half of the year will be seasonal given the early build for Intel's Sandy Bridge and AMD's Fusion architecture launches. However, year-over-year growth in the second half will be lower than that seen in the first half of the year,” stated the analyst.

“For 2011, we believe that, even though the consumer segment will remain stalled in developed regions, IT executives will see PC upgrades as a priority over the next 12 months which should result in double digit growth in PC systems and PC processors units next year," Rau explained.