14 DAY TRIAL // The computer graphics industry is expected to bounce back next year, after it will see the worst ever year-over-year drop in shipments at the end of 2009, according to a recently released report from Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia. According to the report, 2010 will be the year of recovery for the graphics market. In addition, it also indicates that AMD, Intel and NVIDIA have gained market share in the second quarter, compared to Q1, which leads the research firm to believe that the worst is over and sales are bound to pick up.
As the entire industry, the graphics market has been hit by the low global demand, with companies and users holding back on their graphics upgrades in the face of the global recession. However, both Q1 and Q2 showed improvements in sales, with the latest Q2 numbers showing a more than expected increase in this regard, above the seasonal expectations. According to the research, this is an indication of things to come, with the back-to-school and Holy Holidays seasons expected to enable a boost in sales in the graphics department.
According to the numbers, AMD managed to grab an 18.4% of the total market share, up from 17.1% the last quarter and 17.11% a year ago. Things were equally good for the other two leading chip makers, Intel and NVIDIA, which have seen a market share of 51.2% and 29.2% this quarter, respectively. The sales are expected to pick up in Q3 and Q4, especially after taking into consideration the upcoming back-to-school season.
The report also points out that the upcoming 40nm GPUs, offering increased performance and new features, as well as the release of the new operating systems, Windows 7 and Apple's Snow Leopard, are expected to be the main catalysts of the sales increase.