AMD jumps up the chip league tables

MARKET WATCHERS at iSuppli reckon little AMD nearly doubled its sales last year while bigger firm Intel saw its chip revenue drop by 11 per cent over 2005.

"Intel's bleak performance in its core PC microprocessor and flash-memory businesses, erased nearly all of the company's sales gains from its strong year in 2005," iSupplier Dale Ford reckons. "Intel's 2006 revenue of $31.5 billion was less than half a percentage point higher than its sales in 2004," he added.

But he said AMDs enjoyed a "whopping 91.6 per cent increase in revenue for the year, partly due to a major acquisition, but also because of strong gains in microprocessor market share."

The firm's performance put it up to eighth place in the 2006 semiconductor chart, up seven positions from 15th in 2005, according to iSuppli's bean counting. Intel remains in top spot despite its apparent troubles.

In all, global semiconductor industry revenue rose by 9.3 per cent to reach $260.2 billion, up from $237.98 billion in 2005, iSuppli calculates.

AMD gained PC microprocessor market share at Intel's expense according to the report. Its PC microprocessor revenue rose by 35.5 per cent, with market share up to 16.1 per cent, up five per cent on 2005. µ

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