AMD gains big in desktop CPUs versus Intel in first quarter 2024

AMD continued gaining market share against Intel in the first quarter of 2024, although the overall ratio remains close to the 80-20 split that favors Intel.

Mercury Research issued its report after the market closed on Thursday, noting that this was the first “normal” quarter since the pandemic.

All segments in the market (client, server, mobile) saw decreased shipments for the first quarter, which is normal after what are usually seasonal highs during the fourth quarter. System-on-chip shipments decreased, primarily due to a slowdown in AMD SoC chips — which was itself caused by a slowdown in this generation of game consoles.

Intel did have a victory: It gained a percentage point of market share in mobile, as its Core Ultra shipments began ramping, Mercury said. (Shipments were hampered, though, by assembly problems in Intel’s fabs.) Intel is also succeeding in selling the “Intel Processor” N100 and N200 entry-level CPUs, outpacing AMD. AMD’s share dropped by the same amount in what is essentially a two-horse race, though it was still up by 3.1 percentage points compared to a year ago, at 19.3 percent. Intel owns 80.7 percent of the mobile PC processor market.

In desktop, however, AMD gained by losing less. Normally, first-quarter desktop sales dip, and Intel’s did even more than normal. AMD, however, was just short of a flat quarter, and gained 4.2 percentage points of market share for the quarter and 4.7 points compared to a year ago. Overall, Intel’s market share is 76.1 percent in the desktop space, ceding 23.9 percent to AMD.

Mercury Research attributed the gains to strong sales of the Ryzen 5000 and 8000 processor lines.

Overall, AMD gained 0.4 percentage points in the overall “client” market, with AMD owning 20.6 percent. Intel owns 79.4 percent.

Don’t forget about Arm, though. Mercury says that Arm’s share (Qualcomm PCs plus Apple Macs) climbed from 10.3 percent in the fourth quarter to about 11.1 percent. The dark horse in the CPU race (Zhaoxin, an X86 partnership with Via) is likely growing, but Mercury couldn’t put a number on it.