GPU market down 5.6 percent in Q1 2008

Jon Peddie Research estimates the GPU market witnessed a growth of 4 percent in the first quarter of this year. Usually the GPU market stays flat or shrinks in the first quarter as OEMs and retailers sell what is left from the holiday season but this year the market was pretty strong, the research firm says this is the biggest on-quarter jump in six years.

GPU shipments totalled 104.5 million units in Q1 2008, up 3.9 percent over Q4 2007 and up 32 percent year-over-year. The desktop market saw growth of 8.5 percent to 71.9 million units while notebook GPUs dipped 5 percent to 32.6 million units.

In the overall graphics market Intel is the leader with a 48 percent marketshare, followed by NVIDIA at 30 percent and AMD at 17 percent.

On the desktop, Intel took back its first place position with a 46% share against Nvidia's 31%, while AMD slipped to 17%.

In the notebook market Intel held its dominant position but slipped one percentage point to 53% while Nvidia gained a point to 27% and AMD slid a point to 17%.

The first quarter of 2008 was seasonally above normal. With the complex economic pressures building in the US, JPR thinks the second quarter of 2008 may drop significantly.

"The first quarter of 2008 was uncommonly good, and exhibited significantly greater growth from the fourth quarter of last year – which is interesting in of itself since the fourth quarter of 2007 was so good," said Dr Jon Peddie, president of JPR.

"The major growth in the desktop market was for value and enthusiast class add-in boards (AIBs) which are a typical holiday result, so it looks like there was some carry over in the channel."

UPDATE: Jon Peddie Research messed up. Total GPU shipments in Q1 2008 were 95 million units, down 5.6% over last quarter and up 20% year-over-year.