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."

Godd quality and low prices work :)

[gasmonso]

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]

Beige boxes?

[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.

Marketing misstep?

[PornMaster]

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

meh...

[DigDuality]

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.

Does anyone even know what chip they have?

[ZachPruckowski]

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:Beige boxes?

[HermanAB]

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."

Re:So

[th1ckasabr1ck]

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

Naming

[gamerluke]

I miss the days when a processor name included the speed of the processor. It is possible that intel is losing market share because AMD (and Intel to a certain extent) don't show their speeds in the names and so it harder to compare systems. I know that AMD gives you more for less Ghz, but not everyone knows that and Intel has a preceived advantage in speed they can't fully exploit.

Intel goes outside

[digitaldc]

"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]

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?

Re:VIIV

[canuck57]

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.

El cheapo?

[C10H14N2]

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]

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:meh...

[Kjella]

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. If we assumed that people actually cared (they don't), then he'd probably be outcompeted by the last generation of DRM-free machines sold on eBay, and file for chapter 11 soon after.

Elephant in the room is Dell

[DrSbaitso]

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.

Re:Naming

[vux984]

I do to. But only because in those days the speed told you something useful. That hasn't been true for several years now. 2 GHz out of one model is the same as 3GHz out of another which implies that 2.5GHz out of the 2nd model is slower than 2GHz out of the first.

At this stage it would be like asking car makers to put horsepower ratings in the name of each model. Consider a Lotus Elise 190 vs a Honda Prelude 190 vs a Ford Mustang 300 vs a Dodge Ram 235 vs a Porsche 911S 355 -- did the engine rating really add anything useful?

I mean the Elise is like half the the 911S, and the lowest rated, yet its easily the 2nd, possibly even the fastest off the mark - meanwhile the 911 at 355 is just not built to haul your yacht home but the much weaker RAM will do it handily.

I mean yeah the number has meaning, and 'more is better'...but without the context of the whole package it doesn't tell you anything useful. There's no overridingly practical use that should make it part of the name of the product. It should be an available spec sure... but not the product name.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate?

[HangingChad]

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.

Re:How's the laptop market doing?

[MarkVVV]

For God's sake, stop calling it a "centrino"...it's a fscking Pentium M!!!

Centrino is the chipset used in those notebooks.

Re:El cheapo?

[dougmc]

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:Marketing misstep?

[Guysmiley777]

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:Godd quality and low prices work :)

[PlanetX 00]

I agree that AMD ships a great product, but let us not forget the following:
1. Intel still has a commanding lead on overall desktop processor sales
2. Intel is a silicon fabrication machine (great yields, great process, large volume). What they lack in cutting edge CPU features they make up in fabrication
3. Intel = server CPU. This is a very high margin area that AMD continues to fail to penetrate
4. Intel has more money than the know what to do with. This allows them to keep on redesigning their chips to keep up with AMD (see Pentium M)

This cat and mouse game will continue as follows:
AMD innovates, Intel falls behind spends a boatload of money to catch up. Intel's great fabrication team steps up to the plate shrinks the process size, increases yield, increases margin, and they make another boat load of money.

Until AMD can match Intel on fabrication and chip set development they will remain the little fish in the pond :-( As for me I'll still try to cut through the marketing fluff and buy my CPUs based on the best price/performance.

Once again...

[minginqunt]

*cough*excludingdell*cough*

I love statistics.

Re:Shift in importance from hardware to software

[Anonymous Coward]

The shift from hardware to software happened when the IBM PC clone market came to be. We already shifted from hardware to software. I think what is happening now is that we are starting a shift from software to ?? {services? back to hardware?}. Linux, is starting to make that happen. Just look at what Sun is trying to do? Are they a hardware company (AMD, Sparc hardware)? software (free Solaris)? What value do they bring to the table? What about Google? Software is becoming the new commodity -- at least the OS layer is. OS vendors are packing in as much features into their OS as they can to keep them afloat so that they can continue to have an advantage over their market.

Apple just happens to be in a really good position now as they already know this. The Mac OS is already free; it's call Darwin. What's not free is Apple's windows manager and their application API. Remember, Next STEP? Now the foundation of Mac OS X. Well, NeXT came out with a product called OPEN STEP which allowed your to compile your NEXT STEP applications on other OS like Solaris, Windows, etc. Well, Apple still has that option.

Everyone loves an underdog

[mrrock]

If Intel was the underdog this group would be singing thier praises. Just like at one time everyone loved Microsoft when they were the underdog. Soon we will have Google joining Microsoft and Intel. (probably rightfully so) I am sitting here surrounded by Intel boxes and none of them have their cases open due to heat nor have the poor performance and lack of linux support like the one sitting next to me.

Re:Point of interest

[corngrower]

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.