14 DAY TRIAL // The launch of the Deneb-based Phenom II line of processors appears to have been rather advantageous for the Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices, which, in the first quarter of this year, reportedly gained market share from its main rival, Intel. The chip maker saw strong revenues across its microprocessor lineup, according to a recent study released by research firm iSuppli, which shows that AMD increased its market share, while Intel lost some of it, putting an end to a string of four quarters of sequential growth for the latter.
“After losing share to Intel on a sequential basis during three out of four quarters in 2008, AMD managed to reverse the trend in the first quarter of 2009,” said Matthew Wilkins, iSuppli’s principal analyst for computer platform research. “AMD increased its allocation of global microprocessor revenue due to strong performances in each area of its microprocessor portfolio, particularly in its Notebook products. This was an impressive feat given the economic downturn and the weakness in the PC and server markets, which caused global microprocessor revenue in the first quarter to decline by 20.6 percent to $6.9 billion, down from $8.6 billion during the same period in 2008.”
According to the numbers, the overall microprocessor market revenue went to US$6.9 billion, down by 20.6% from the US$8.6 billion in the first quarter of 2008. Intel's share went down by 2.5 points to 79.1%, while AMD's revenue rose 2.3 points to 12.8%. Despite the increase in market share for AMD, both chip makers saw their revenue decline, mainly due to the worldwide economic downturn, which will continue to affect the market through the rest of 2009.
Intel managed to keep and expand its leading edge over AMD thanks to the success of its line of Atom processors, adopted by the majority of netbooks an nettops in the market.