Intel and AMD both gained in Q3 2007

Research firm iSuppli announced Intel and AMD both gained marketshare in the third quarter of this year. Intel now accounts for 78.7% of the CPU market, up 0.3% from Q2 2007.

At 13.9% AMD is a lot smaller than the year before when it had 16.8% of the market but it's 0.6% more than in Q2 2007. The biggest losers are other CPU makers like VIA and Transmeta who now only have 7.4% of the market.

In the third quarter, Intel accounted for 78.7% of global processor revenues, up 0.3 of a percentage point from 78.4% in the second quarter. AMD fared even better with its share rising by more than the twice the level of Intel's to reach 13.9%, up 0.6 of a percentage point from 13.3% in the second quarter. The two CPU suppliers gained at the expense of smaller rivals, whose collective share of global revenues declined to 7.4% in the third quarter, down from 8.2% in the second quarter, noted iSuppli.

Yet again in the third quarter, the two processor giants accounted for an increasing share of total market revenues, noted iSuppli. Combined, Intel and AMD claimed almost 93% of global processor revenues in the third quarter of 2007 – an increase of two percentage points compared to the third quarter of 2006.

Intel and AMD benefited from strong sales of computers in the third quarter. Global PC shipments, including desktops, notebooks and entry-level servers, amounted to 68.1 million units, up 13.8% from 59.9 million during the same period in 2006, and up 11.1% from 61.3 million in the second quarter of 2007.

The companies in their third-quarter financial calls said they had seen a reduction in the aggressive pricing that has ruled throughout most of 2007. This signifies the beginning of the end for the x86 microprocessor price war, iSuppli believes.

"Strong PC and server demand combined with stable processor prices led to a prosperous quarter for both Intel and AMD," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst at iSuppli. "Pricing trends were influenced by many variables, including the consistent strength in computing markets, Intel's rapid migration to its new Core 2 architecture CPUs, and the increasing penetration of multi-core products in the market," Wilkins said.

Source: DigiTimes.