This is getting a teensy bit repetitive now, however there’s but extra unhealthy information for Intel. Its arch rival AMD has clawed again a hefty 10% market share within the desktop x86 CPU phase over the past yr. And that has us questioning, may these crashing thirteenth and 14th Gen CPUs be hurting Intel’s gross sales?
The market share figures are in keeping with the long-time PC {hardware} soothsayers and information analysts at Mercury Research (by way of Tom’s Hardware). AMD now owns 28.7% of the desktop CPU market, up from 19.2% a yr in the past, although its cellular CPU share is a good bit decrease at 22.3%.
This time final yr, AMD owned 19.5% of the cellular CPU market. So, its share of that phase is rising, too, simply not as quick.
To put all that into context, for those who return to the second half of 2016, about six months earlier than AMD started to show issues round with the primary Ryzen-branded CPUs, AMD’s desktop CPU market share was simply 9.1%.
Of course, with Intel nonetheless proudly owning over 70% of the market, stories of its complete demise are clearly overstated. But bar one or two fleeting blips, AMD has since been chipping away at Intel, quarter by relentless quarter.
This most up-to-date quarter noticed AMD snag an extra 5% desktop market share from Intel, the most important quarterly bounce in a minimum of a decade. If this carries on a lot lengthy, these doom-laden narratives round Intel shall be a lot nearer to actuality.
The explanations for which can be considerably speculative. But it actually looks like it isn’t a coincidence that the primary quarterly figures which may have been impacted by the PR fallout from these crashing thirteenth and 14th Gen CPUs has certainly registered a giant fall for Intel.
One caveat to all that is that Intel advised Mercury Research that a few of its market share loss was as a result of an “stock correction” at one in every of its clients. it isn’t completely clear what meaning, however the implication is that we may see a little bit of a bounce again for Intel subsequent quarter.
If that does certainly occur, then the entire “crashing CPU craters Intel market share” narrative shall be a bit of more durable to push. Still, nevertheless you slice it, the information has solely been shifting in a single path. AMD is taking market share from Intel with relentless consistency for the higher a part of a decade.
Inventory corrections or no, it is onerous to see that pattern altering, what with Intel’s new Arrow Lake CPUs proving fairly disappointing. As issues stand and given Intel has solely simply launched an all-new desktop chip, we’re not anticipating a serious replace from Intel when it comes to desktop processors till Nova Lake in 2026. So, it is onerous to see something however additional market share losses till a minimum of then.
That stated, the cellular market is more and more essential and Intel’s Lunar Lake CPUs are far more aggressive there. Arguably, they’re extra interesting than AMD’s chips because of glorious effectivity, a minimum of for thin-and-light laptops.
The slight downside with Lunar Lake is that, in keeping with Intel itself, Lunar Lake is not as worthwhile as the corporate would really like. That’s thanks to 2 elements. First is the truth that it’s largely manufactured by Taiwanese foundry TSMC, reasonably than in Intel’s personal fabs.
The different issue rising prices and hitting margins is the usage of built-in DDR5 reminiscence, which is why Intel has stated it will not do this once more. As it occurs, Intel’s next-gen Panther Lake cellular CPU addresses each issues through the use of extra in-house Intel silicon and ditching the built-in reminiscence.
Panther Lake is due subsequent yr, possible forward of AMD’s subsequent main cellular CPU replace. So, 2025 may very well be a greater general image for Intel, even when it seems like it will likely be preventing a dropping battle on the desktop for a while to come back.
