Even though PC demand remains limp, AMD has something to celebrate: The chip maker’s market share for the x86 processor market has reached a new historic high against Intel—if you count video game console shipments.
According to Mercury Research, which tracks CPU shipments from suppliers, AMD reached a record 34.6% share of the total x86 market during Q1 2023.
AMD continues to grow its presence in the x86 chip shipments after achieving 25.6% share of the market—or what was then a record high—back in Q4 2021. In contrast, Intel has seen its market share repeatedly fall to what is now 65.4%.
But according to Mercury Research President Dean McCarron, the latest Q1 numbers are more about Intel holding back chip production to clear out existing chip inventory at retailers. “The increase in AMD's share was primarily due to Intel shipping far fewer units, not due to growth on AMD's part,” he told PCMag in an email.
“In round numbers Intel's shipments declined by more than 6 million units [quarter over quarter] and AMD's increased by less than half a million,” he added. “So you can see the share gain didn't have much to do with AMD's growth and more to do with Intel intentionally lowering shipments to increase the draw-down of inventory, which AMD also did in the client and server CPU segments.”
The other reason why AMD’s numbers are up is due to video game consoles. Team Red ships custom silicon in both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, which Mercury Research also counts to the total x86 CPU market. For AMD, “growth in that segment outpaced their declines in PC client and server CPUs, so they grew a little in the total,” McCarron said.
But if you remove AMD’s custom-made silicon and IoT-based chips, the company’s market share in the x86 PC market drastically shrinks to around 17%, compared to Intel’s 83%. Mercury Research reports Intel saw its share in the x86 laptop market grow slightly in Q1, thanks to increased shipments of entry-level mobile processor shipments likely tied to new Chromebooks. So Team Red faces an uphill battle to beat Intel in the laptop, desktop, and server space.
Both AMD and Intel also face the threat from Arm-based chips, which are starting to power more laptops, including all of Apple’s new Mac products. “Our estimate for Arm PC client share (including Chromebooks and Apple's M-series based Macs with X86 desktop and mobile CPUs in the total client size estimate) is 14.8%, a record high for Arm client processor share,” Mercury Research added.
