AMD gained share against Intel in x86 processor market in Q4

On Feb 6, 2020

Advanced Micro Devices gained market share against Intel in the x86 microprocessor business for the quarter ended December 31, according to market researcher Mercury Research.

AMD gained share in the three major processor markets: laptops, desktops, and servers. That makes for nine consecutive quarters of growth for AMD.

Oddly, Intel claimed in its fourth-quarter earnings report on January 23 that it was gaining market share. AMD CEO Lisa Su said the same thing.

“In 2019, we gained share in an expanded addressable market that demands more performance to process, move and store data,” Intel CEO Bob Swan said in a statement.

But asked for clarification, an Intel spokesperson said, “We define our total addressable market much broader than server CPUs.” For instance, Intel said that its networking chip business grew $5 billion in 2019 revenue, and its internet of things (IoT) and Mobileye businesses were up 11% and 26% respectively.

Mercury reported that AMD’s overall share in x86 processors (not counting semi-custom chips and IoT) was 15.5%, up 3.2 percentage points from a year ago. AMD’s share hasn’t been that high since the fourth quarter of 2013.

In laptops, AMD’s share was 16.2% in the fourth quarter, up 4 percentage points. In desktops, AMD’s share was 18.3%, up 2.4 percentage points. And in servers, AMD’s share was 4.5%, up 1.4 percentage points. The client share for AMD was 17% up 3.5 percentage points.

AMD said that the reception for the Ryzen 9 3950X and the third-generation Threadripper family for gamers explained the share gains in desktop. In servers, AMD has been ramping its second-generation Epyc processors.

For the previous third quarter ended September 30, AMD had a 14.6% share of the overall x86 processor market, up 4 percentage points from a year ago, according to market researcher Mercury Research.

“I think the unit share gains show good progress and also that AMD has a ways to go, particularly in the server market, where it started near 0% share before Epyc launched,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “The server and commercial markets are much owed to change which I think is indicative of AMD’s share gains which I believe are more heavily indexed to consumer.”