According to market researcher Mercury Research, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has gained market share in the x86 processor market across both client and server categories.
The competition between AMD and Intel remains intense in the x86 processor landscape. While Intel has seen some share growth in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector, the overall market dynamics are shifting in AMD’s favor. Excluding IoT and semi-custom products, which encompass AMD’s game console chips, AMD reported quarterly and annual gains in both the client and server markets.
In Q1 2023, which ended on March 31, analyst Dean McCarron of Mercury Research noted that x86 processor shipments followed typical seasonal trends. Both client and server processor shipments experienced moderate declines, consistent with first-quarter patterns. Notably, this quarter marked the first period since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that market results in desktop, mobile, and server segments appeared entirely normal.
Shipments of IoT and system-on-chip (SoC) processors fell significantly, primarily due to decreased demand for gaming consoles, leading to a 48% drop in AMD's gaming revenue compared to the previous year. With aging consoles selling in lower volumes, AMD anticipates declines in comparison to Q2 2022 and in the second half of 2024.
It's important to understand that the previous quarter's statistics were heavily influenced by variations in inventory correction efforts among suppliers, rather than reflecting actual sales share of the PC market, McCarron explained.
Mercury Research's estimates indicate that by Q3 2023, inventory corrections were largely resolved, suggesting that current share results should accurately reflect CPU sell-in. However, year-on-year comparisons may still be misleading.
In total market share—including PC CPUs, server processors, IoT, and semi-custom products—Intel gained 2.4 percentage points quarter-over-quarter, primarily driven by AMD’s declining SoC business. Despite AMD's overall client and server share increases, its shrinking SoC shipments limited its gains.
Excluding IoT and semi-custom products, AMD maintained a competitive edge, with quarterly and annual share increases in both client and server segments. While both Intel and AMD experienced lower shipments quarter-over-quarter, AMD's declines were less pronounced, resulting in an overall share gain.
Intel did see an increase in its mobile client market share in Q1, bolstered by the ongoing ramp-up of Raptor Lake cores—although Meteor Lake’s rollout was slower than expected due to packaging capacity constraints.
In contrast, while Intel's entry-level processors showed increased shipments, AMD's mobile CPU shipments declined significantly, contributing to a loss in market share. Conversely, AMD's desktop CPU shipments remained stable, contrasting with Intel’s more substantial declines in the same segment, leading to a net gain for AMD during a typically slow quarter.
AMD’s performance in the desktop market was buoyed by robust Vermeer core shipments and the launch of the new Phoenix Point APU. Comparatively, although Intel’s Raptor Lake 14xxx series CPUs were growing, they simply replaced the previous Raptor Lake 13xxx series, yielding no net gain.
While both suppliers faced challenges in their client segments, they experienced slight fluctuations in market share overall. The server CPU market also experienced its usual seasonal declines, following a rare quarter of growth. Both AMD and Intel saw declines that aligned with historical trends, but AMD's decreases were slightly less severe, resulting in an overall quarterly gain for AMD. Notably, AMD's server CPU unit shipments were higher year-over-year, driven predominantly by the Genoa architecture.
In Q1, AMD also released the MI300A hybrid CPU/GPU accelerator, which is not categorized as a traditional CPU; including this product would have further elevated AMD's quarterly share.
Estimates indicate that ARM PC CPU shipments remained relatively stable, as declines in Apple Mac processors were balanced by modest increases in Chromebook CPU shipments. Mercury Research estimates ARM PC client share, which encompasses Chromebooks and Apple’s M-series Macs, grew to 11.1% in Q1 2023, up from a revised 10.3% in Q4 2022. Additionally, Mercury Research suggests that Via’s Zhaoxin joint venture may be gaining share, although data on this segment remains limited.
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