14 DAY TRIAL // Although the world is facing an economic crisis, the worldwide PC processor shipments are reported to have reached record levels during the third quarter of this year, according to data released by IDC. Still, the forecast for the processor market in the fourth quarter 2008 as well as for 2009 is not as optimistic as expected.
During Q3, the PC processor unit shipments went up 14 percent quarterly, as well as 15.8 percent over the year. The market revenues have also raised 7.6 percent on quarter and 4.1 percent yearly, up to a total of $8.3 billion. The overall market performance has been considerably influenced by Intel's Atom processor. If Atom is removed from the equation, the unit shipments would be 8.3 percent higher sequentially, with an 8.7 percent growth on year.
“Not considering the effects of Atom, the overall market still grew at a decent pace in the third quarter this year,” said Shane Rau, director of Semiconductors: Personal Computing research at IDC. “Intel 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.”
If divided into manufacturers, on an overall unit basis, Intel gets 80.8 percent market share, which means it went up 1.1 percent. Advanced Micro Devices' share went down 1.2 percent to a final 18.5 percent, while VIA gained 0.3 percent, to a total 1.2 percent market share. On the form factor area, Intel gained 0.8 percent on the mobile PC processor segment, to a total 87.4 percent market share, AMD ended the quarter with 11.5 percent of the market, registering a 1.1 percent loss, while VIA gained 0.3 percent to a total of 1.2 percent market share.
Intel finished first in the PC server/workstation processor segment as well, with 85.6 percent market share, losing 0.6 percent, a loss gained by AMD, which ended the quarter with a 14.4 percent market share. In the desktop PC processor segment, the registered changes were negligible, and Intel accounted for 73.5 percent of the market, while AMD only for a 26.4 percent share.
IDC changed its PC processor market unit forecast for 2008 to 18 percent, since the market registered strong performance during the first three quarters of the year and Atom in expected to come in high volume. Even so, the demand seems to weaken, and the chipmakers are rather uncertain of the market's outlook. Given the terms, IDC is conservative about the next year and said it will lower its unit forecast for 2009.
Digitimes compiled the new data released by IDC in the attached charts, with the following note: “Data represent vendor unit share for processors designed for use in desktop, mobile, or server PCs and shipped for revenues by the vendor. Shipments by vendors of RISC and EPIC processors for workstations and high-end servers are not included. Shipments by vendors of processors which are used in non-PC applications (such as VIA's Eden embedded platform) are not included”.
