AMD gained share in key processor categories in the first quarter | Mercury research

Advanced Micro Devices gained market share in the x86 processor market in the client and server categories, according to market researcher Mercury Research.

Competition is always fierce in the x86 processor market, which today means the rivalry between AMD and Intel. Intel gained some share in the Internet of Things (IoT) market.

Excluding IoT and semi-custom products (including game console chips, which AMD makes), the market continued to favor AMD, once again posting quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year gains in both the client and server segments.

In the first quarter ended March 31, Mercury Research analyst Dean McCarron said x86 processor shipments were in line with typical seasonal trends for both client and server processors, with all segments declining moderately in the quarter. quarter, as is normal in a first trimester.

Last quarter was the first time since early 2020, when the COVID pandemic began, that market results have been completely normal across the desktop, mobile and server segments.

IoT/SoC processor shipments decreased much more than usual, as lower console demand affected AMD’s SoC shipments. AMD mentioned in its analyst call that gaming revenue in particular fell 48% in the first quarter compared to a year ago. As older consoles sell in smaller quantities, AMD expects the year-over-year comparison to be lower in the second quarter and the second half of 2024.

Because the prior-year quarter continued to be affected by inventory correction efforts, the statistics and share movements reported here in recent quarters are more reflective of differences among suppliers in the depth and timing of their inventory corrections, rather than indicating sales share outside the PC market, McCarron said.

The fixes were largely resolved in Q3 2023, so the current quarter’s share results are likely in line with actual CPU sales, and by Q3 2024 most comparisons should hold. , but the year-on-year results certainly are not. ‘t.

In terms of overall share, which includes not only PC client CPUs and servers but also IoT and semi-custom products used in items such as game consoles, Intel gained 2.4 percentage points in the quarter. The driver of gains here was AMD’s shrinking SoC business: While AMD gained overall client and server share, the move was much smaller than what was needed to overcome dramatically lower SoC shipments. Intel also gained share year-over-year, again due to lower SoC shipments from AMD.

Overall share, excluding IoT and semi-custom products, continued to favor AMD, once again achieving quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year gains in both the client and server segments. Both Intel and AMD saw lower shipments
However, on a quarter-over-quarter basis, AMD’s declines in total client and server CPUs were relatively smaller than Intel’s, so AMD gained overall share.

Intel gained mobile client share in the first quarter as it continued to increase Raptor Lake cores (although Meteor Lake also increased, it was off a small base in the previous quarter and the ramp was slower than expected. Intel noted In their earnings they note that packaging capacity was a limiting factor in Meteor Lake’s business.
shipments), McCarron said.

In addition to continuing the Raptor Lake ramp, Intel shipped an increasing number of entry-level processors, both the “Intel Processor” N100 and N200 CPUs and legacy Celeron processors; Entry-level processor shipments actually increased by a quarter, partially. compensating for seasonal drops in conventional CPUs. AMD’s mobile device shipments declined more than Intel’s, leading to a loss in share, with the declines occurring in AMD’s older mobile CPU cores.

Market share changes in desktop computers were the opposite of those in mobile devices: AMD had nearly unchanged desktop CPU shipments in the quarter, which is much better than typical seasonal trends, and Intel experienced falls slightly lower than typical seasonal ones.

AMD’s strong desktop performance in a typically down quarter resulted in a relatively large quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year share increase for the first quarter. For AMD, the strength in desktops was due to surprisingly strong shipments of Vermeer cores and the ramp-up of the new desktop version of the Phoenix Point APU. McCarron said that while Intel’s Raptor Lake 14xxx series CPUs rose strongly in the quarter, they were replacing the previous generation 13xxx series (also based on Raptor Lake), so there was no net increase in performance. ramp.

Both providers saw their stronger customer segment largely offset by the weaker segment, so net customer share only moved slightly.

As noted above, the server CPU market experienced typical seasonal declines in the quarter; Last quarter’s retirement was the only positive quarterly growth server processors have seen in 2023; However, any increase in base demand in the last quarter was more than overwhelmed by seasonal dynamics. reducing shipments in the first quarter. Both vendors experienced declines very close to the seasonal norm, but AMD’s were slightly smaller than Intel’s and AMD’s share increased quarterly (remember that Intel gained quarterly share in servers for the first time in almost five years in Q4 of 2023, so this was a one-time event for now).

AMD’s share increased significantly from the previous year, and AMD’s server CPU unit shipments also increased from the previous year. The falls of Intel. The vendors did not provide much information about the dynamics of server CPU in their earnings.
discussions, but for AMD it was evident that Genoa is the main driver of year-on-year growth.

AMD also shipped its MI300A product in the first quarter and it is not counted as a CPU; The MI300A is a hybrid CPU/GPU accelerator product. If these units had been counted as CPUs, AMD’s quarterly share would have been higher.

Estimates showed that Arm PC CPU shipments remained nearly flat in the quarter, and the decline in processor shipments for Apple’s Macs was almost offset by a modest increase in Chromebook CPU shipments.

Mercury Research’s estimate for the share of ARM PC customers (including Apple M-series based Chromebooks and Macs with X86 desktop and mobile CPUs in the total customer size estimate) in the first quarter is 11 .1%, compared to a revised fourth quarter estimate of 10.3%.

Mercury Researched noted that Via’s Zhaoxin joint venture stake is very likely growing, but we have extremely limited visibility into this small segment of the CPU business.