AMD makes small gains in notebook CPU market

Market research group IDC has put out a new round of quarterly numbers for the x86 processor market, which Intel continued to rule all across -- no surprise there. Worldwide shipments and revenues in general showed uncharacteristic growth during the second quarter of 2010, according to IDC, with mobile units rising while desktop parts fell. AMD did particularly well in the first segment due largely to the arrival of its Nile and Danube mobile platforms.

Specifically, AMD's share of laptop processor shipments increased to 13.7% in the second quarter, from 12.1% in the first quarter and 12.6% a year earlier, while Intel's share dropped 1.7% sequentially and 0.8% year-on-year to a still dominant 86.1%. It was a different story in the desktop and server segments, where despite aggressive pricing and good price vs. performance ratio AMD continued to lose ground while Intel further cemented its No. 1 position.

Taken as a whole, AMD actually gained slightly to an overall x86 market share of 19%, thanks to its strong performance in the notebook segment. Intel saw a similarly small drop to 80.7% and Via accounted for a small 0.3%. IDC forecasts a major yearly growth of 19.8% for the CPU industry in 2010 after a recession hit 2009. It'll be interesting to see how -- or if -- these numbers are affected a few months from now with the release of Intel's Sandy Bridge and AMD's Fusion chips.

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