14 DAY TRIAL // International Data Corporation (IDC) looked at how the CPU market behaved during 2011.
Its findings show that the level of central processing unit sales for the whole year went up 13.2% compared to 2010, leading to $41 billion (31.40 billion Euro).
On the same note, sales in the fourth quarter (4Q11) grew 1.8% compared to Q3 and 14.2% over 4Q10, leading to $10.9 billion (8.34 billion Euro).
That said, shipments went up only 3.6% on year, which means that rising average selling prices caused most of the extra revenue.
"The average selling price (ASP) that OEMs pay for PC microprocessors rose more than 9% in 2011, making 2011 the second consecutive year of notable ASP increases," said Shane Rau, director of semiconductors: personal computing research at IDC.
The analyst firm believes that this year, 2012, can enable a rise of 5.1% in unit shipments.