Chip shipments up in the short term

PC MICROPROCESSOR shipments are still doing well, despite the economic storm, with record levels being attained in Q3.

Market research outfit IDC said that Intel’s diminutive Atom processor really gave the market a boost, with global unit shipments growing 14 per cent quarter over quarter and 15.8 per cent year over year including the Atom, but only 8.3 per cent Q on Q and 8.7 per cent Y on Y without it. Market revenue was also up by 7.6 per cent Q on Q and 4.1 per cent Y on Y to reach $8.3 billion.

According to the IDC numbers, Intel and Via were the firms which, overall, put in a strong showing in Q3, whilst AMD faltered slightly. Chipzilla gained 1.1 per cent market share to snatch 80.8 per cent of the processor market, Via took another 0.6 per cent and AMD lost 1.2 per cent to finish with just 18.5 per cent of the pie.

When it came to little chips, Intel again made a little 0.8 per cent market share gain in the mobile PC processor segment, taking 87.4 per cent. Via boosted its market share by 0.3 per cent to take 1.2 per cent of the overall market whilst AMD again lost out a bit, down 1.1 per cent to 11.5 percent overall.

AMD did gain slightly in one segment of the market where chipzilla dropped half a per cent, and that was when it came to PC servers and workstations. AMD picked up 0.6 per cent to reach 14.4 per cent of that market, which Intel still overwhelmingly dominates with an 85.6 per cent share.

Shane Rau, head boffin on Semiconductor PC research at IDC, noted that, despite the uncertain economic climate, "Intel's and AMD's shipments grew at a rate only slightly slower than typical for a third quarter, and seasonal demand appeared reasonable up until September". He added that, while the mobile processor segment grew aggressively, the server segment was soft.

IDC is hedging its bets about the coming quarter and the next year, though. Despite being encouraged by the relatively good results from Q’s one through three and the predicted continued high shipments of Atom processors, IDC still reckons global demand could see some weakening.

To remain optimistic, however, the market research group has upped its PC processor market unit forecast for this year to 18.0 per cent. µ