Competition in the x86 processor market is gathering pace, with AMD consistently consolidating its position at Intel‘s expense. Although Intel continues to dominate, controlling around 70 per cent of the market, the latest Mercury Research analysis confirms that AMD has effectively secured close to 30 per cent share for itself.
AMD’s growth rate is not uniform across all segments, however. The company’s biggest successes have been in the desktop market, where its share grew by an impressive five per cent to 33.6 per cent in the last quarter. It is much quieter in the mobile segment – here the shares of both players remained almost unchanged, and Intel even managed to record a token increase of 0.4 per cent.
The server market also looks interesting, having compensated both manufacturers for a weaker quarter in the PC segment, probably caused by uncertainty over import duties. In data centres, AMD is also going from strength to strength, increasing its share by 3.5% and now controlling 27.8% of this strategic market.
According to Mercury Research, AMD’s gains are partly due to the fact that the company is ‘delivering faster’, while Intel’s attention has been diverted away from entry-level processors. Still, the numbers don’t lie – Intel’s dominance is still undisputed, and AMD has a very long way to go to realistically threaten its leadership position.
It seems, however, that Intel, perhaps dormant in recent years, has definitely awoken. The conglomerate, under the leadership of Pat Gelsinger, is undergoing a profound transformation, without hesitation cutting off divisions that are no longer central to the company’s strategy. The aim is to restore former operational efficiency.
Mercury Research’s analysis focuses exclusively on the x86 duo. However, it is important to bear in mind the third player, the Arm architecture, which is already estimated to control around 10% of the total processor market and is increasingly daring to enter the game in the backyard hitherto reserved for Intel and AMD.
