NVIDIA slowly driving AMD out of the GPU market as its marketshare hits 76 percent

Posted on Monday, February 23 2015 @ 22:34 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Reports about add-in board (AIB) makers getting worried about AMD's position in the graphics card market didn't appear to be a lie as Jon Peddie's new GPU marketshare report shows NVIDIA once again captured significant marketshare from AMD in the final quarter of 2014.

The volume of discrete graphics card fell 17.5 percent year-over-year to 12.4 million units, signalling an increased push towards integrated graphics as sales of PCs fell just 0.72 percent year-over-year. Jon Peddie mentions only 36 percent of new desktop PCs had a discrete graphics card in Q4 2014, down from a high of 63 percent in Q1 2008.

NVIDIA is keeping up well in the shrinking market as the company is gaining significant marketshare at the expense of AMD. A couple of years ago the marketshare ratio of the two firms was split around 60/40 but last quarter AMD's GPU marketshare fell to a low of 24.0 percent. Despite lower pricing and free gaming bundles AMD's Radeon cards are failing to attract consumer demand, one year ago AMD's graphics cards still commanded a marketshare of 35.0 percent. In the same timeframe, NVIDIA managed to increase its marketshare from 64.9 percent to 76.0 percent.
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 4Q.

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.

The news was encouraging and seasonally understandable, quarter-to-quarter, the market decreased -0.68% (compared to the desktop PC market, which decreased 3.53% ).

On a year-to-year basis, we found that total AIB shipments during the quarter fell -17.52% , which is more than desktop PCs, which fell -0.72%.

However, in spite of the overall decline, somewhat due to tablets and embedded graphics, the 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% this quarter.

The quarter in general
JPR found that AIB shipments during the quarter behaved according to past years with regard to seasonality, but the increase was less than the 10-year average. AIB shipments decreased -0.68% from the last quarter (the 10-year average is -3.22%).

  • Total AIB shipments decreased this quarter to 12.4 million units from last quarter.
  • AMD’s quarter-to-quarter total desktop AIB unit shipments decreased -16.0% .
  • Nvidia’s quarter-to-quarter unit shipments increased 5.5% · Nvidia continues to hold a dominant market share position at 76.0% .
  • Figures for the other suppliers were flat to declining.

    The change from year to year decreased -17.5% compared to last year.

    This quarter compared to Quarter-to-quarter percentage changes for the vendors are shown in Table 1.

    The AIB market now has just four chip (GPU) suppliers, who also build and sell AIBs. The primary suppliers of GPUs are AMD and Nvidia. There are 48 AIB suppliers, the AIB OEM customers of the GPU suppliers, which they call “partners.”

    In addition to privately branded AIBs offered worldwide, about a dozen PC suppliers offer AIBs as part of a system, and/or as an option, and some that offer AIBs as separate aftermarket products. We have been tracking AIB shipments quarterly since 1987—the volume of those boards peaked in 1999, reaching 114 million units, in 2013 65 million shipped.

    In addition to privately branded AIBs offered worldwide, about a dozen PC suppliers offer AIBs as part of a system, and/or as an option, and some that offer AIBs as separate aftermarket products. We have been tracking AIB shipments quarterly since 1987—the volume of those boards peaked in 1999, reaching 114 million units, in 2013 65 million shipped.
  • JPR GPU marketshare Q4 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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