Press release; Joseph Tsai

 

Worldwide PC microprocessor revenues in the third calendar quarter of 2011 rose to US$10.7 billion, up 12.2% compared to the second quarter and up 16.1% compared to the third quarter of 2010, according to the latest PC microprocessor market share study from IDC. On a shipment basis, the PC microprocessor market rose 6.7% compared to the second quarter and rose 5.2% compared to the third quarter of 2010.

"The average selling price (ASP) that brand vendors pay for PC microprocessors rose more than 5% in the third quarter of 2011," said Shane Rau, director of Semiconductors: Personal Computing research at IDC. "And it was the eighth quarter in a row that ASPs rose. Clearly, Intel's Sandy Bridge and AMD's Fusion microprocessors with integrated graphic processors are rising in each company's product stack and driving the price increase. At the same time, low-end processors, notably Intel's Atom processors, are declining as a percentage of the unit mix."

Intel's Sandy Bridge and AMD's Fusion microprocessors contain integrated graphics processors (IGP). IDC's tracking of these processors indicates that processors with IGP rose to 73% of total PC processor shipment volume in the third quarter of 2011.

Vendor highlights in the third quarter of 2011

In the third quarter of 2011, Intel earned 80.2% overall worldwide shipment market share, a gain of 0.9 percentage points compared to the second quarter. Meanwhile, AMD earned 19.7%, a loss of 0.7 percentage points compared to the second quarter. VIA Technologies earned 0.1%, a loss of 0.2 percentage points.

In the third quarter by form factor, Intel earned 82.3% share in the mobile PC processor segment, a loss of 2.1 percentage points, AMD finished with 17.6%, a gain of 2.4%, and VIA earned 0.1%. In the PC server/workstation processor segment, Intel finished with 95.1% market share, a gain of 0.6 percentage points, and AMD earned 4.9%, a loss of 0.6 percentage points. In the desktop PC processor segment, Intel earned 75.8%, a gain of 4.8 percentage points, and AMD earned 24.1%, a loss of 4.8 percentage points.

2011 and long-term market outlook

Since June, client PC processor demand growth has slowed down modestly. Combined with a weak macroeconomic outlook - due to sovereign debt issues in Europe and poor job growth in the US - IDC is reducing its client PC processor (desktop, mobile, x86 server) shipment growth forecast for 2011 from 9.3% to 7.3%.