We’ll get to that, but first let’s lay out the numbers. According to the latest market share figures shared with us by Mercury Research, Intel’s share of the overall x86 CPU market grew sequentially from 73.9% to 75.4%, while AMD’s slipped in the same time frame from 26.1% to 24.6%, The gap grows if comparing to last year, when the split between Intel and AMD was 68.4% and 31.6%, respectively.
This brings us to the first of our aforementioned caveats, which is that AMD’s slippage in overall x86 market share is the result of softening game console sales. Notably, AMD supplies the semi-custom chip hardware in both Microsoft’s Xbox Series X/|S and Sony’s PlayStation 5 consoles, both of which are nearing the four-year mark since being released.
That fact also contributed to a decline in second quarter chip shipments as a whole, more so than is typical for this time of year.
“Second quarter, 2024 processor shipments were down sequentially, which is lower than normal seasonal trends which is a typically flat market. The decline was primarily due to much lower IoT/SoC shipments due to declining console demand for AMD’s SoC processors and lower IoT activity, combined with much lower shipments of entry-level mobile processors, primarily CPUs sold into Chromebooks,” said Dean McCarron, president of Mercury Research. “Only server CPU shipments increased in the quarter. Excluding the IoT/SoC declines, the overall market results were seasonally normal.”
The other important caveat working in AMD’s favor is that when discarding the sag in semi-custom chip shipments, it actually stole x86 market share from Intel in individual segments, including the lucrative server sector. That will become an even more important segment as the industry continues shifting towards artificial intelligence (AI) workloads and solutions.
Source: Mercury Research
Looking at server CPU share (excluding IoT), AMD gained 5.6% compared to last year to claim 24.1% of the market. The good news for Intel is that it still dominates with a 75.9% share of server CPUs, but that’s down from 81.4% a year ago, and from 76.4% last quarter. Arguable, if there’s one segment Intel doesn’t want to concede ground, this is it.
Mobile CPU shipments (laptops, mostly) also favored AMD, in terms of market share growth. AMD continues to chip away at Intel’s lead, gaining 3.8% year-over-year to 20.3%, which is also up a full percentage point from last quarter. Here again, Intel is still in a dominant position with a grip on 79.7% of the market, but that’s down from 83.5% a year ago.
So what does it all mean? Put simply, AMD is seeing positive movement (offset by declining console sales) at the expense of Intel, but at the same time, it’s not exactly a bloodbath—Intel still enjoys a massive lead in every category. Intel’s also in the midst of several challenges, though, including a disappointing round of earnings that prompted a big round of job cuts.
The wild card in all this is how Arm’s spirited run at the Windows ecosystem will impact the landscape. That’s a different type of market share comparison (x86 versus Arm), but it could impact how things shake out as both AMD and Intel look to stave off an external threat.