Graphics card sales plunge 17.5 percent

Posted on Tuesday, August 26 2014 @ 13:53 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Jon Peddie Research reports sales of discrete graphics cards fell 17.5 percent quarter-over-quarter to 11.5 million units in Q2 2014. On a year-to-year basis, sales declined by 17.6 percent, which is much more than the 1.7 percent decline in sales of desktop PCs.

The main reason for the declining volume of graphics cards is the success of integrated graphics, which have become increasingly potent in recent years. Jon Peddie estimates just 36 percent of PCs came with a discrete graphics card in Q2 2014, down from 44 percent in Q1 2014.

Market leader NVIDIA saw its graphics card shipments decline by 21 percent, the company now has a marketshare of 62.0 percent, versus 64.9 percent the quarter before. AMD on the other hand saw shipments decline by 10.7 percent, resulting in a marketshare increase from 35.0 percent in Q1 2014 to 37.9 percent in Q2 2014. Compared to the same period the year before, AMD's and NVIDIA's marketshare stayed virtually the same.
Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated graphics add-in-board (AIB) shipments and suppliers’ market share for 2014 2Q.

The quarter in general
JPR found that AIB shipments during Q2 2014 behaved according to past years with regard to seasonality, but the decrease was more than the 10-year average. The news was disappointing, quarter-to-quarter, the market dropped 17.5 % (compared to the desktop PC market, which increased 1.3%).

  • Total AIB shipments decreased this quarter to 11.5 million units from last quarter.
  • AMD’s quarter-to-quarter total desktop AIB unit shipments decreased 10.7%.
  • Nvidia’s quarter-to-quarter unit shipments decreased 21%.
  • Nvidia continues to hold a dominant market share position at 62%.
  • Figures for the other suppliers were flat to declining.

    JPR’s AIB Report tracks computer add-in graphics boards, which carry discrete graphics chips. AIBs used in desktop PCs, workstations, servers, and other devices such as scientific instruments. They are sold directly to customers as aftermarket products, or are factory installed. In all cases, AIBs represent the higher end of the graphics industry using discrete chips and private high-speed memory, as compared to the integrated GPUs in CPUs that share slower system memory.

    On a year-to-year basis, we found that total AIB shipments during the quarter fell 17.6%, which is more than desktop PCs, which declined 1.7%.

    However, in spite of the overall decline, which has been caused in part by tablets and embedded graphics, PC gaming momentum continues to build and is the bright spot in the AIB market.

    The overall PC desktop market increased quarter-to-quarter including double-attach—the adding of a second (or third) AIB to a system with integrated processor graphics—and to a lesser extent, dual AIBs in performance desktop machines using either AMD’s Crossfire or Nvidia’s SLI technology.

    The attach rate of AIBs to desktop PCs has declined from a high of 63% in Q1 2008 to 36% in 2014 2Q, down from 44% last quarter.

    The change from quarter to quarter was significantly greater less than last year, down -17.5% this quarter compared to down -5.5% a year ago. Quarter-to-quarter percentage changes for the vendors are shown in Table 1.
  • Discrete GPU sales in Q2 2014


    About the Author

    Thomas De Maesschalck

    Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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