AMD gaining marketshare in declining discrete GPU market

Posted on Tuesday, August 28 2012 @ 21:49 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Market research firm Jon Peddie Research (JPR) reports shipments of discrete graphics cards totaled 14.8 million units in Q2 2012, a decline of 1.1 million units (seven percent) versus the same period the year before. Compared to last quarter, shipments declined by 6.5 percent.

In this shrinking market, AMD managed to increase its marketshare from 37.8 percent in Q1 2012 to 40.3 percent in Q2 2012, while NVIDIA fell from 61.9 percent to 59.3 percent in the same period. The rest of the market is made up by Matrox and S3, both firms are estimated to account for 0.4 percent of the market.

JPR says economic distress is to blame for poor GPU shipments, as well as the cannibalization of the entry-level add-in board market by AMD's Trinity APUs.
Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated graphics Add-in Board (AIB) shipments and sales market share for Q2 12. The JPR AIB Report tracks computer graphics boards, which carry discrete graphics chips. They are used in desktop PCs, workstations, servers, and other devices such as scientific instruments. They may be sold as after-market products directly to customers or they may be factory installed. In all cases, they represent the higher-end of the graphics industry as discrete chips rather than integrated processors.

We found that AIB shipments during Q2 2012 did behave according to past years with regard to seasonality, but in unit shipments was lower on a year-to-year comparison and on a quarter-to-quarter comparison for the quarter. Overall, for the AIB, and PC market in general, 2012 has been, and is forecasted to have a decline in shipments due to the popularity of notebooks and worldwide economic depression.

The quarter in general
- Total AIB shipments decreased this quarter, from the previous quarter, by 6.5% to 14.8 million units. (see Table 1)
- AMD increased its market share to 40.3%, Nvidia's market share slipped but still retains a large majority at 59.3%. (see Table 1)
- Year-to-year this quarter AIB shipments were down 7%.

Normally, this quarter of the year is down, and this year's quarter was no different, but the decline is less than the 10-year average. However, this is just one quarter in a very turbulent year so we can't use this quarter a prediction of the future, the world-wide economic conditions are just too uncertain.

The change from quarter to quarter is more than last year. Quarter-to-quarter percentage changes are shown in Figure 1. The ten-year average change for AIBs in the 2nd quarter is -11.3%; this year it was lower at 6.5%.

AMD introduced the new Radeon HD7000 series early in the quarter and as a result picked up market share.

Nvidia got off to a slow start in Q2 and cited supply constraint as the main reasons for the decline.

Embedded graphics processors at first were simply replacing integrated chipsets, and they did not have a major impact on AIBs. However, the new embedded graphics processor from AMD, the A10 (Trinity) has shown pretty good performance and has replaced entry-level AIBs.

The market has decreased year over year. Shipments decreased to 14.8 million units, down 1.1 million units from this quarter last year.

The market for AIBs was down this quarter partially due to seasonality and largely due to economic distress.
GPU marketshare Q2 2012 by Jon Peddie Research


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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