Intel lost some marketshare to AMD in 2006

According to a market research from Mercury Research, Intel only gained market share from AMD in the dataserver market last year. In the desktop PC and server market the chip giant lost share to AMD.
In the fourth quarter of 2006 Intel had 74.4% of the total market in its hands and AMD owned 25.3% of the market. A year ago it was respectively 76% and 23.3%.

It ended the year with 77.7% share, up from 76.3%. AMD slipped to 22.3%, down from 23.7%. Since AMD became a more formidable competitor to Intel two years ago, the server market is where AMD has won the most business.

Despite losses in the server market, AMD won market share in the desktop and laptop categories over the past three months, according to Wong. In the desktop market, Intel had a 70.4% share, down from 72.4%. AMD had 29.1%, up from 26.6%. In the laptop market, Intel had an 80.6% share, down from 83.2%, while AMD had 19.4%, up from 16.8%, the analyst said.

While AMD has won more overall market share, it's doing so with lower average selling prices for its chips, especially for its server processors. This hurt the company's gross profit margin in the latest quarter. For the last three months of 2006, AMD said its margin fell to 40% of sales, down from 57% a year ago.

Analysts expect AMD's momentum will slow in 2007.