14 DAY TRIAL // By now, end-users probably know that Advanced Micro Devices practically owned the DirectX 11 graphics market for about half a year. Needless to say, this significantly boosted AMD's sales, to the point where it gave NVIDIA a run for its money. Now, it seems that the consequences of this situation, and of AMD's aggressive marketing strategy, may have been more far reaching than originally anticipated. According to Mercury Research, reports CNET, the Sunnyvale, California-based GPU and CPU maker also won in terms of mobile graphics.
During the second quarter of 2009, NVIDIA held a 59 percent share of the standalone mobile graphics chip market, otherwise known as discrete cards. This left Advanced Micro Devices with 41 percent. Now, it appears that the situation has reversed. In Q2 2010, NVIDIA supposedly only managed to hold on to 49 percent, while AMD took the remaining 51 percent. Needless to say, this is not an entirely encouraging development for the Santa Clara, California-based company.
The figures aren't favorable for NVIDIA when it comes to total market results either. Last year, the company performed quite well, securing 29.6 percent, while AMD managed to reach 18.2 percent. Intel was left with the rest. This year, on the other hand, NVIDIA fell to 19.8 percent while its rival rose to 24.5 percent. The remaining 54.3 percent were taken away by Intel during Q2. All in all, NVIDIA's delay of Fermi ended up impairing its marketing performance during the second quarter of the ongoing year.
NVIDIA is now offering the GeForce GTX 460 for the mainstream market and will soon finally offer a complete lineup of cards for the lower segments. This, at least, will help in the efforts to catch up and regain lost ground. Nevertheless, it is still possible that the GPU maker will have to settle for third place in the second half of 2010.