Overall marketshare
All GPU makers suffered from the economic slowdown, but Jon Peddie mentions the third quarter was unexpectedly strong. In the fourth quarter, Intel remained on top with a marketshare of 47.8 percent, down from 49.4 percent in the third quarter but still up from 43.5 percent a year earlier. NVIDIA saw its marketshare increase from 27.8 percent to 30.7 percent, but still has less than the 33.6 percent of the market it held a year earlier. AMD is the third largest GPU shipper, but the firm saw its marketshare decline from 20.6 percent in the third quarter to 19.3 percent in the fourth quarter.
The research firm also notes over one third of all PCs being shipped today now have more than one GPU, although the majority of this are desktop PCs and notebooks with both a discrete graphics card and an IGP.
“The fourth quarter is usually a positive quarter for the computer industry. There has obviously been some inventory problems in the quarter as sales failed to live up to the optimistic expectations of the third quarter, 2008.,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research in Tiburon California. “Vendors were bracing for a slower than usual quarter due to economic factors, but performance this quarter was surprisingly low. Put simply, the market stalled in the fourth quarter. Due to the worldwide financial market meltdown, the U.S. housing market meltdown, layoffs, and media reports, the consumer has hunkered down to wait out the storm.Desktop and notebook market
“We’re forecasting a strong Q3 and Q4 for 2009 and bracing for what will probably be the worst Q1 and Q2 decline we’ve seen since the Internet bubble burst of 2000.”
In the fourth quarter of 2008, 37.45 million GPUs shipped for the desktop, a 39.5 percent quarterly drop. In comparison, 34.89 million units shipped for the notebook market. Shipments for desktop PCs are higher because these systems are more likely to have more than one GPU.
In the desktop market NVIDIA had a marketshare of 37.9 percent, while AMD managed to increase its marketshare from 20.3 percent in the third quarter to 21.4 percent in the fourth quarter. Intel and others make up the other 40.7 percent of the market.
In the notebook market Intel leads with a marketshare of 59.2 percent, up from 56.2 percent in the third quarter. NVIDIA takes the second spot with 22.9 percent, up from 21.8 percent, while AMD's marketshare dropped from 20.9 percent to 17.1 percent.