Intel Atom Pulls off Growth
for Mobile PC Processor Market
Worldwide PC processor unit
shipments grew 14.0% quarter-over-quarter and 15.8% year-over-year, says
IDC. The market revenue grew 7.6% QoQ and 4.1% YoY to $8.3 billion.
Intel's Atom processor for ultra low-cost mobile PCs contributed
significantly for market growth.
Intel’s term for ultra
low-cost mobile PCs is "Netbooks." Without Atom, unit shipments grew
8.3% QoQ and 8.7% YoY, says IDC.
"Not considering the effects
of Atom, the overall market still grew at a decent pace in 3Q08,” said
Shane Rau, director of Semiconductors: Personal Computing research at
IDC. “Intel's and AMD's shipments grew at a rate only slightly slower
than typical for a third quarter; seasonal demand appeared reasonable up
until September. By segment, while the mobile processor segment grew
aggressively, the server segment was soft."
In terms of processor vendor
shares, on an overall unit basis, Intel earned 80.8% market share, a
gain of 1.1%, AMD finished with 18.5%, a loss of 1.2%, and VIA
Technologies earned 0.6%.
By form factor, in the
mobile PC processor segment, Intel earned 87.4% share, a gain of 0.8%,
AMD finished with 11.5%, a loss of 1.1%, and VIA earned 1.2%, a gain of
0.3%.
In the PC server/workstation
processor segment, Intel finished with 85.6% market share, a loss of
0.6% and AMD earned 14.4%, a gain of 0.6%. In the desktop PC processor
segment, Intel and AMD earned 73.5% and 26.4% share respectively; share
changes were negligible.
Due to the market's strong
performance through the first three quarters of 2008 and anticipated
high volume of Atom processors, IDC has raised its PC processor market
unit forecast for this year to 18.0%.
However, the worldwide
demand environment looks weak, and both Intel and AMD indicated an
uncertain outlook for the market. As a result, IDC is conservative about
2009 and will be lowering its upcoming unit forecast for the year.
