Intel Loses Market Share to AMD

diverge_s wrote to mention an article examining Intel's market share loss to AMD in the fourth quarter of 2005. From the article: "Sales of Intel-based desktop PCs fell 22.3 percent during the fourth quarter, according to Current Analysis. As a result, sales of AMD-based desktops took the lead during the pivotal fourth-quarter holiday shopping season. AMD chips were found in 52.5 percent of desktop PCs sold in U.S. retail stores during that period."

VIIV

[F_Scentura (250214)]

Their new push for quality engineering over marketing fluff will surely give them the lead again!

Re:VIIV

[Speare (84249)]

How about that move to change the motto from "Intel Inside!" to "Intel Aside!"

Re:VIIV

[canuck57 (662392)]

Their new push for quality engineering over marketing fluff will surely give them the lead again!

I am still ticked at my PERL mobo w. P4 HT 2.4GHz that died just out of warrenty.

If Intel want's back, cheaper, faster, cooler and more reliable come to mind. AMD has this over Intel at the moment and I have a 1.2GHz AMD that keeps on ticking.... so naturally one of those dual core AMD 64 X2 systems is on my list.

Godd quality and low prices work :)

[gasmonso (929871)]

AMD just proves that regardless of your advertising budget, it all comes down to good performance and good price. I don't think I have ever seen an AMD commercial, whereas Intel was all over the TV. Dell has finally taken notice and will start widespread use of AMD chips soon. Thanks for the giving Intel some competition AMD!

http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]

Re:Point of interest

[jhutch2000 (801707)]

You aren't looking at comparable chips, then. At similar performance marks, the AMD chips are cheaper than their Intel counterparts.

Re:Point of interest

[Albanach (527650)]

You don't tell us what you're comparing - it's like saying I can buy a Ford for 15k or a Merc for 30k therefore Merc are uncompetitive.

pricewatch.com [pricewatch.com] Says the slowest Sempron being produced is the 2200+ and you can have it delivered for $57. For $60 you can get a 2.2Ghz Celeron which is no match for AMD's processor. The 2.2Ghz P4 costs $79 delivered, $22 more than the AMD offering.

The reason all those AMD chips appeared before Christmas was because they are so competitive at the lower end. When you match that with their server options AMD are wiping the floor with Intel at almost every level.

Cache...

[brunes69 (86786)]

Yeah but a Sempron 2200+ will stomp all over a 2.2 Celeron. It has way more cache ( 128k/256k in the Sempron vs 8k/128K L2 in the Celeron) and also a generally better pipeline. You can't judge a CPU on MHZ alone.

Re:Cache...

[freidog (706941)]

Actualy the socket A Semrpon's are nothing special. They're stripped down versions of the old AthlonXPs with a new system that rates them against Celerons (So AMD can put bigger numbers on slower chips).
Now, the first Netburst based Celerons, the 400mhz FSB / 128KiB L2 parts, are some of the worst chips intel produced since the cacheless Celeron 300s...

A more appropriate comparison of budget chips today would be the S754 Sempron 2500+ - 3100+ against the Celeron D 2.53 - 3.06. They stack up fairly comperabely in overall performance (Sempron wins for games, Celeron wins for multimedia), and prices are almost identical 63-80 for AMD, 66-80 for Intel.

AMD still has the price advantage against many P4s, but in the budget world it's a much closer race.

Re:Point of interest

[Sebastopol (189276)]

When you match that with their server options AMD are wiping the floor with Intel at almost every level.

Retail Desktop - Intel
Server - Intel

Corporate Desktop - Intel
Mobile - Intel

AMD is making headway in retail and server (intel has squat on their roadmap).

However, AMD is making much less on the segments they are competing in. Server is high ASP, but very low volume. Retail desktop is high volume, and razor thin ASP.

AMD needs to focus on being competitive in price to dominate corporate desktop (Intel's fab capacity means they can easily underprice AMD in this arena). Everyone keeps quoting the CPU price for a boxed part, but that is the HIGHEST POSSIBLE PRICE Intel will charge for a CPU. It can be 50-60-70% cheaper per CPU for high volume corporate sales. AMD is fukked in this area because in 30 years, they have still failed to even come close to Intel's volume. AMD hasn't had enough R&D dollars to compete here, but that can change.

And AMD also needs a competitive part in mobile, where the volume is growing every year and ASPs are sky high. This is where Intel is focusing. AMD is years behind Intel in mobile power-miserly processors.

So it is shaping up to be an interesting battle. Lets see if AMD can hang on to their lead this time.

Re:Point of interest

[corngrower (738661)]

Three things here. First, yes Intel sells more server chips than AMD, but AMD is making strong inroads in this area. In fact, AMD has been limited by their lack of fabrication capacity. The margins in this arena are fairly high, and with the new Dresden Fab coning on line this year, Intel is going to take a big hit. If I'm AMD, and have limited production capacity, I'mg going to be producing chips that give me the biggest margin, and that's going to be the high end chips. Because of their superior performance, AMDs chips will command a price premium to Intels chips.

Secondly, corporate desktops. The best that AMD can do is to try to underprice Intel, which will be difficult since Intel does have better process technology. Expect prices of the midline chips to fall as Intel lowers prices to maintain market share. With margins as thin as they are in this arena, AMD needs to work to maintain its performance edge on the high end chips where it can command better margins.

In laptop processors, the Pentium-M's excellent perfomance/power ratio means that AMD is not about to overtake Intel's number one position. AMD's Sempron may have better performance, but it also 25% (AFAIK) more power hungry. This is an important market segment, and while AMD puts up some competition, Intel is still the strongest. The price margins in the market aren't as large as those of the server market, but they're still better than the margins desktop market.

It's Intel's more advanced process technology that gives them the edge in producing the low power laptop chips, not the manufacturing volume. I wouldn't say that AMD is years behind Intel, just 10 months behind, which is far enough behind to be at a definite disadvantage. AMD should be concerned with improving its process technology while also trying to improve production capacity.

Re:Point of interest

[Daath (225404)]

But TFA also says that AMD has >52% of the desktop CPU market.
I don't know where you shop, but where I shop, AMD is waaay cheaper than Intel, and always have been. You get a lot more bang for your buck with AMD, especially if you are a gamer!

Re:Point of interest

[GmAz (916505)]

I used to work at CompUSA and was in charge of the desktop department so I saw every new machine come in and personally set up the demos and the price tags. I saw numerous HP, Gateway, Compaq and Emachine models come out with AMD64 processors around 3000+ to 3700+. The basically identical Intel model always cost at least $250 more. And since we, the salesman, had pretty much free reign as long as we sold computers put whatever we wanted on the computers. I loved doing benchmarks and the AMD always came out ahead. Only a couple times did intel beat out AMD and it was usually the new Prescott cores, though not new anymore, until AMD came out with their new cores. I don't consider myself a fanboy of one particular manufacturer, I am a fanboy of cost vs. performance. For the past four years, AMD has won me over.

Re:Godd quality and low prices work :)

[paitre (32242)]

3. Intel = server CPU. This is a very high margin area that AMD continues to fail to penetrate

If you are referring strictly to the high-volume, sub-$25k/machine market, you're only kinda (barely) right.
If you are referring to any other segment of the server market that Intel and AMD both play in (ie. 4-way, and >$25k), you're wrong. Dell sold a whopping -4- machines that cost greater than $25k last quarter. -4-. Clusters are accounted for as lots of little machines, and while Intel has greater share there due to volume, AMD's presence in the cluster market is anything but insignificant. Saying that AMD is failling to penetrate the server market would have been true two years ago. It's not been true for a while, now (cf. Q32004 AMD's share in servers was 8% - for a company that effectively had -0- prior to Opteron, that's significant).

AMD's current share of the overall x86 server market is some 16% now. Calling 16% insignificant is a stretch, at best. This is particularly true in light of the near -40%- share that AMD has in the 4-way market. Of course, that's Q3's numbers. Not Q4's (which were announced yesterday - .40/share before the one-time Spansion spin-off charge).
Judging by Intel's -miss- of their market estimates, and AMD's blowing theres away, I'd say that their server numbers are up, yet again.

Re:Godd quality and low prices work :)

[lcsjk (143581)]

"Intel is a silicon fabrication machine (great yields, great process, large volume)."

I have always thought that Intel has a high yield, quality process. However, their prices have always been higher than AMD, Cyrix, and any of the other competitors over the years. If their yield was good, then there was no reason for them to be higher priced. I always felt that they were gouging the customers, so I quit designing them into my systems. Since they are still higher priced than AMD for competing parts, I wonder if their yield has always been not so good.

Beige boxes?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I wonder whether AMD's success is an indication that PC's are well into their commodities phase and so el-cheapo models at Best Buy are (more than) sufficient for people's use? Intel's in the pricier boxes, so they stand/fall with those vendors.

Re:Beige boxes?

[HermanAB (661181)]

Well, especially, when the pricier models are worse than the cheaper ones... "Style, is the ability to distinguish quality, without looking at the price tag."

El cheapo?

[C10H14N2 (640033)]

Are you KIDDING? [cdw.com]

AMD is successful because from day one they've been in the business of making better products, not cheaper products. That they happen to be cheaper in some cases is just a sign that they have a successfully diverse product line.

Re:El cheapo?

[Twid (67847)]

I'm calling you out on the "from day one" statement. The AMD K5 was not exactly the pinnacle of performance, features, or price competitiveness. AMD is doing well now, no argument there. I'd like to see an article that compares total chip chipments worldwide, though, rather than say limited statements like "52% of all retail desktop sales, in the USA, in the 4th quarter".

In related news, my pants were the leading distribution method for iPod nanos, in the USA, in California, in my house, yesterday.

Re:El cheapo?

[jandrese (485)]

Yeah, the original AMD chips were generally thought of as "not quite as good as Cyrix". Anybody who cared one whiff about quality back then went Intel. It wasn't until the K6 line that AMD started to really position themselves as a quality chipmaker, and it wasn't really until the Athlon line that they pulled themselves out of the pit of the Computer-Show Beige Box hawked by some greasy fat guy crowd.

Re:El cheapo?

[dougmc (70836)]

from day one they've been in the business of making better products, not cheaper products.

Eh? I don't know about `day 1', but it wasn't that long ago that AMD was lagging behind Intel in terms of performance, power consumption (though that wasn't such a concern back then) and such. For example, the K5 was intended to compete against the Pentium chips, but the Pentium Pro came out almost immediately after the K5 did and it blew the K5 away. The K6's came closer to beating the Intel offerings, but even then, the Intel chips had a small performance lead, and the fact that 3Dnow never took off further hurt the K6 chips. Back then, people bought AMD because it was cheaper, not because it was better.

Going back even further, the AMD 8086, 80286, 80386 and Am486 chips generally were just clones of the Intel offerings -- with similar performance, but coming out some time later at a lower price.

But things have changed. AMD has finally caught up to and passed Intel in many respects, and I suspect that the reason that Intel is still selling so many chips is more due to interia than anything else.

Re:Beige boxes?

[GmAz (916505)]

Not really. Bestbuy, CompUSA, Circuit City all have salemen working the floor. I was once a salesman for CompUSA and did rather good at it. 90% of people buy what the salesman tell them to buy. You get people uneducated in the field of computers and look to the salesmen as the "pros". I sold quite a few $4000 systems because I could read the customer. If that person had money, I could sell him on the high end machine no problem. The line "In computers, the old saying 'you get what you pay for' auctually applies". Talk about Hook Line and Sinker. But, you also made money there based on the service plans you sold and was based primarily on a percent of gross sold vs. gross service plan. People wanted to see big numbers on the front of the computer and a low price tag. AMD machines reigned. Espically since I set them up with the AMD machine right next to its Intel counterpart. Lower priced machines made me more money as it does every salesman. I think salesmen have figured this out and that is why AMD took that large market share. And guess what, when more AMD machines were pushed out, people started realizing that they were as good as the covited Intel machines. Word spread and customers started looking into AMD and not just saying that they only thing they wanted was Intel because its the only thing they know about computers. Gotta hand it to Intel for the A+ marketing strategy.

Consumer vs Corporate?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Of course, it's always been my understanding that Intel is dominant in corporate computing, where no small number of third party corporate applications are only "certified" to work on Intel processors and the use of AMD processors endangers your ability to take advantage of your pricy support contract.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate?

[HangingChad (677530)]

Of course, it's always been my understanding that Intel is dominant in corporate computing...

If Intel is holding on to dominance in any market segment it's more likely to be the result of their business relationship with a company like Dell, which has been propping Intel up for the last two years while AMD ate away the rest of their market.

AMD makes a great product at a competitive price. What happened to Intel will happen to every other company that starts thinking they have a right to exist. Intel sometimes acts like they're a government agency.

Marketing misstep?

[PornMaster (749461)]

Anyone looked into the possible marketing misstep by Intel stopping marketing their processors by clock speed?

Re:Marketing misstep?

[Sique (173459)]

It was a 'misstep' they had to take with going away from the Netburst architecture anyway. The Pentium M and successors all have much lower clock rates with still retaining comparable performance. For low power devices the high clock rates were hell.

Re:Marketing misstep?

[Guysmiley777 (880063)]

The "megahertz race" was a monster of their own creation. The Pentium 4 was a misstep, changing the design to allow higher clock rates with less processing per cycle.

Would you rather have an engine that puts out redlines at 6,000 or 12,000 RPM? I forgot to mention, the 6,000 RPM motor is a 5 liter V8, the 12,000 RPM motor is a 60 CC weedwacker motor.

Re:Marketing misstep?

[HarvardAce (771954)]

Would you rather have an engine that puts out redlines at 6,000 or 12,000 RPM? I forgot to mention, the 6,000 RPM motor is a 5 liter V8, the 12,000 RPM motor is a 60 CC weedwacker motor.

I'd rather have the 12,000RPM motor in my weedwacker. I just imagine the 5 liter V8 would be a little cumbersome trying to get the areas around my fence.

meh...

[DigDuality (918867)]

I'm not really a fanboy on either side of this Chevy/Ford arguement. They both support Trusted Computing which makes me wish there was another option out there.

Re:meh...

[syphax (189065)]

They both support Trusted Computing which makes me wish there was another option out there.

I don't see MOS Technology [wikipedia.org] on the list [trustedcom...ggroup.org]...

Here's the CPU for you! [cpu-world.com]

Re:meh...

[Kjella (173770)]

I'm not really a fanboy on either side of this Chevy/Ford arguement. They both support Trusted Computing which makes me wish there was another option out there.

Microsoft basicly went out and said you'd need TCPA to run Vista. Given the OS market, The only one who could have refused that without being cast into obscurity would be Intel. And Intel/AMD both want the "Media Center" concept which sells their CPUs, I don't blame them. Your third-party candidate would have about as much power as in US elections. I

And to think...

[Concern (819622)]

This stock was at $5 not so long ago... :D

Just wait 'til the Intel-based Macs come out

[Jim in Buffalo (939861)]

When the Intel-based Macs hit the market, Intel processors will be found in 52.6 percent of desktop PCs, so there!

Re:Just wait 'til the Intel-based Macs come out

[P3NIS_CLEAVER (860022)]

And once the transition is complete, expect to see Apple move to AMD. They are playing Intel like a fiddle.

Does anyone even know what chip they have?

[ZachPruckowski (918562)]

I don't mean this in a negative way, but what percentage of the computer buying public even knows about AMD? I mean, it seems to me that the average person couldn't tell you what chip is in his computer. I mean, the answer I usually get to that question is "Dell" or "HP". So basically, what I'm saying is that it may not be AMD chips that are doing well, but the particular brands they're in?

Re:Does anyone even know what chip they have?

[Arthur B. (806360)]

This is actually a Good Thing. The less people care about the chip in their computer - as long as it works - the better for competition. The people who care are either -very informed, a small minority -sensitive to marketting (I wanna this pentium thing, it will speed my internet connection, they say it in this commercial)

Is AMD profitable?

[keester (646050)]

That's the biggest question in my mind. Market share is important, but will AMD be able to sustain whatever growth they have accomplished? So, within the last few years, they've opened up new fabrication plants, and probably they have more room for growth. Still, it will be interesting to see their earnings (revenue and profit).

Re:Is AMD profitable?

[beavis88 (25983)]

Barely, but yes -

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=amd [yahoo.com]

Re:Is AMD profitable?

[Stalyn (662)]

"For the three months ended Dec. 25, AMD earned $95.6 million, or 21 cents per share, on sales of $1.84 billion. In the fourth quarter of 2004, it lost $30 million, or 8 cents per share, on sales of $1.26 billion."

"For all of 2005, AMD earned $165.5 million, or 40 cents per share, on sales of $5.85 billion. That compares with a 2004 profit of $91.2 million, 25 cents per share, on sales of $5 billion."

So AMD earned more money in the recent 4th quarter than all of 2004. And a 125.6 million increase for 4th qu

Intel goes outside

[digitaldc (879047)]

"The new slogan is supposed to signify Intel's shift away from focusing "inside" and starting to look at platforms and solutions for the end users."

(From an earlier [slashdot.org] discussion and article. [anandtech.com])

Now I am beginning to understand why Intel has made the decision to start focusing elsewhere.

How's the laptop market doing?

[Fearan (600696)]

With the decreasing market share of desktops in the consumer computer market, I'm interested in knowing how AMD is doing in the laptop sector and total overall processors sold in comparison with Intel. Most people I know wouldn't consider anything other than Centrino for some reason that I don't understand (marketing?) Furthermore, how will Apple's new MacBook and other Intel offerings affect AMD's apparent marketshare takeover?

intel rise

[the_tsi (19767)]

And they won it all back when every reader of slashdot bought a macbook pro and/or intel imac after being brainwashed with Apple stories for four consecutive days.

Shift in importance from hardware to software

[Caspian (99221)]

It may be that a part of the reason for this change is the shift in importance from hardware to software.

It seems to me like more and more, people simply do not care what the hardware is so much as they care about what the software is. A few years ago, clueless consumers were demanding the "Pentium" brand (not even knowing what that word really meant); now, they simply ask "Does it have 'Microsoft XP'?" The answer, of course, is always "yes", so they ask no further.

Now that Mac OS X runs on both PPC and x86 machines and Windows XP on both x86 and x86-64, I think we are moving towards an era where the software matters more than the hardware (at least, from the perspective of Joe User).

RETAIL sales..

[sadr (88903)]

Note that this only applies to retail sales.

It does not include total sales, where AMDs market share is significantly lower. e.g. this report excludes Dell entirely. Overall, they're somewhere around 25% of total shipments.

AMD is taking marketshare away from Intel, but they are still a much smaller player.

Elephant in the room is Dell

[DrSbaitso (93553)]

AMD chips were found in 52.5 percent of desktop PCs sold in U.S. retail stores during that period."

Of course, Dell doesn't sell many of its computers in retail stores, it is the largest manufacturer in the US, and it doesn't use AMD chips (yet). So the quoted statistic is misleading at best. Still, more competition is always a good thing.

Once again...

[minginqunt (225413)]

*cough*excludingdell*cough*

I love statistics.

Re:So

[th1ckasabr1ck (752151)]

What are you talking about? AMD chips are very resonably priced - Certainly moreso than the alternative.

AMD to the rescue ;-)

[Lonewolf666 (259450)]

Now that Apple goes x86, the step from Intel to AMD might be easier than from IBMs Power chips to something else.
So if Intel gets too aggressive on Apple, we might see Apple computers with AMD CPUs :-)

Re:Way To Jobs!

[Sique (173459)]

No. This is the perfect time for Apple to go with Intel. Intel needs to do something to save its ass in the desktop market (even with sliding market share, it's still the big revenue and profit), so they will try to keep Apple happy as long as possible. And if it doesn't work out for Apple with Intel, they can switch to the binary compatible AMD chips at any point.

Apple Inc. sells Apple computers with Apple Mac OS X. Apple doesn't sell Intel Inside computers.

Re:Intel plays it smart.

[Guysmiley777 (880063)]

Umm, where did you get your numbers? Intel's market cap is $136.56B and AMD's is $15.06B. Intel is a mammoth company, but the issue here is their current product line is measurably weaker than AMD's.

With regards to competition - I want to build a PC. I can build an Intel based box or an AMD based box. How is that not competition? Do you think consumers think "Wellll, the AMD CPU is faster, cooler and cheaper, but boy their market cap just isn't impressive enough."?

Because of the mobile chips

[nacs (658138)]

I think one of the biggest reasons is because AMD's laptop processor lineup sucks hard and Apple really needed to deliver with their new Powerbooks / "Macbook".

I'm sure Intel's DRM technology and production capability also played a factor.