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AMD Tops Intel in U.S. Retail Sales
jimmydins writes "According to digitimes.com, AMD Surpassed Intel in US Retail Sales for the month of September." From the article: "After facing what seemed an insurmountable decline in desktop PC sales during the first six months of 2005, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) captured a 52% share of the US retail desktop PC market in September, according to Current Analysis. AMD's performance during the back-to-school shopping season topped chip giant Intel's 46% share by six points, said the market research firm. Despite its past successes in surpassing Intel desktop sales in select retail sales weeks, September 2005 marked the first time AMD was able to outperform Intel for an entire month, the research firm stated." In order to keep this in perspective, C|Net points out that this doesn't include direct PC sales, so no Dell sales are included in these numbers. Good showing for AMD just the same, though.
Seems like an incredibly flawed survey.
Fun to play with numerical, isn't it?
What a ridiculous article. Retail sales are meaningless without integrating direct sales (Dell, etc). I run two retail stores (not in IT) and if you based anything on my sales and ignored our e-commerce competition, you'd be predictably wrong.
First, retailers will generally maximize margins buy promoting less expensive costing products. E-commerce generally runs tight margins on everything.
Example: Intel Retail PC retails for $799, cost is $619. AMD Retail PC retails for $749, cost is $549. The retailer sees a $10 better margin on the AMD but reduces gross sales. Which one will the consumer pick, generally? Whatever is cheap.
Don't believe any sales figures any more. They're ignorant of the true market, which is retail, e-commerce, eBay, and buying in pieces from your local OEM "wholesaler."
Just basing figures like these on whatever market gives you the best results is more to keep shareholders happy.
So, exactly what victory is had here? AMD beat Intel in retail sales? Is that units (cpu's) shipped? Is it gross sales? And, the article says this doesn't include direct sales from vendors like Dell. Hwah? That sounds like a pretty large chunk of total sales of processors to be glibly claiming victory. What percentage of Dell's PCs ship with Intel vs. AMD and what effect does that have on the total numbers?
As for winning in retail sales, to me this is more market spin (seemingly of which many slashdot articles are) and little real information. When I talk to people who are going to buy, or have bought a PC recently I virtually never hear them discussing the finer points of their decision to buy a particular brand or processor, mostly because 99% of PC consumers don't know and don't care what the processor is (though they really should when it comes to something like a Celeron).
So to me this just means AMD has been successful in getting their products on the eye-level shelves in the stores. Customers are buying what looks sexy, and what costs the least.
I've been happy with a couple of AMD machines I've purchased and I like that AMD continues to compete with Intel and hope AMD keeps Intel from becoming the Microsoft of the chip industry (some claim they already have), but I can't pull much real or meaningful information from this article.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Selectively choose the input data set, and I can make the numbers say anything.
Tezkah reports: Chef Tezkah holds the record this week for most meals sold! He captured 52% of the meal market for the first six months of 2005. Congratulations Chef Tezkah! Its important to note that this doesn't include any meals sold in restaurants, but good showing for Tezkah just the same.
The other end of the computer-buying public are gamers, who already know that they better go with a top-notch AMD64. Those people don't ask me anything anyway, but AMD is simply "the gamers choice".
Intels customer base only are OEM manufacturers that target the business market. They still get credit for being more stable, which I don't understand because all my AMD machines - from a K6-II 333Mhz, over 2xAMD MP 2400+ to a couple of AMD64 (2400+ to 3400+) just run perfectly fine.
The other consumers are those that don't ask their Geek friends and only know Intel from the commercials, so it "must be good". (They also think that "Centrino" is a processor, because of the sticker on their machine). That said: I never saw an AMD commercial in my whole life. Do they exist?
AMD just kicks in the performance/€ factor, and CPU performance has become less important in the last few years. So if you want to save some money, just buy a slower CPU. It's just that simple. ;-)
Oh, I just see that it doesn't include OEM machines (sorry, didn't read the story entirely). Most definately AMD will kick in the self-buidling crowd. AMD is popular with them... (performance/€ + easy overclocking possibilities. Who builds a PC himself with an Intel CPU anyway?
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
What this says is that AMD is making serious inroads on Intel. Just a few years ago, AMD beating Intel at anything, by any metric, would have been laughable.
I think it is not so surprising that AMD sells more Retail CPUs than Intel, considering their cheap prices, their great performance and the cheapness of their motherboards/chipsets. They are the perfect home system. However, when you consider than the vast majority of PCs sold in America and troughout the world are trought direct sales (say Dell) as the Ed implied, and through wholesale (Businesses), AMD is marginalized.
Why? Because they can't promise the same level of production as Intel does. They do not produce their own motherboards, and while some third-party manufacturers produce some great silicon, most are abobinable pieces of flaky crap. For most mom'n'pop users at home, stability and performance don't matter too much, and those $40-60 MoBos are a bargain.
Anyway, props to AMD for their successes!
There's no doubt that this is only a portion of the battle between the two manufacturers, but the point is that 5 years ago, AMD was getting slaughtered by every measure. They weren't even a factor.
Now, they've caught up to Intel by atleast a couple metrics. That's not insignificant, especially considering that retail sales have a strong correlation to "mindshare" amongst consumers, as pointed out by a sibling poster.
I agree that this survey do not give the whole picture. AMD is growing you all got to see their third quarter profit
..... Does this make AMD money? After all, the comsumer computer business tends to have VERY low margins. AFAIK, AMD doesn't have much mindshare in the moneymaking enterprise market (although to be fair they are trying to push that at the moment) So if AMD is discounting the hell out of these chips to gain mindshare, are they making money? If not, how long can they continue to do so?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Laptops are now outselling desktops, and AMD has lagged behing Intel in its portable chips designs. Now, a breakdown based on the numbers of CPUs shipped would be interesting.
Make love, not reality television.
While I think a full out celebration would be premature, this same set of numbers showing an increase from a previous data set is still a positive sign...isn't it?
Greatness. It comes in many forms, sometimes it comes in the form of sacrifice - that's the loneliest form.
Why? Because they can't promise the same level of production as Intel does.
... just about anything that goes into a Dell PC. Why do you hold AMD to standards that are not required for other electronics manufacturers? As long as AMD has an open relationship with other motherboard manufacturers where technical specs are available to make appropriate motherboards, then so what if AMD doesn't make their own? If certain mobo manufacturers don't make quality products, then don't buy from them. Buy from competitors. Don't blame AMD for bad products from other companies.
AMD just opened a new manufacturing facility in Germany that, if I recall correctly, will be able to product 100 million more chips per year. Whether that's CPUs or IC chips I don't know, but it's clear that AMD is growing. That's still not going to overtake Intel any time soon, but it's encouraging.
And so what if AMD doesn't produce their own motherboards? Okay, Intel has the facilities to do both. So what? Why does that matter? Dell doesn't manufacture their own hard drives or memory chips or
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
People still buy from Dell, but more and more people are building their own systems, or having someone build one for them.
Now for people to argue with me about how much "bang" you get for a "buck" ....
Note: Take into account the amount of money saved through popular amd chipsets (IE: nforce). It's not a lot, but it is something. Plus you're cool because you have something your neighbors don't which is nearly priceless.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Commercial Idea (c) myself 2005, i hereby grant exclusive, permanent, non-revokable license for use to AMD.
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The typical hare and turtle cartoon race. But they're in racing cars. The Hare starts first in its "Famous inside" car. The turtle starts next, and its car reads: "AMD powered."
The race starts, and we see the hare pushing the gas to the bottom. But when it looks back, there's no turtle! Where is it? Oh, the turtle just crossed the finish line! The hare's jaw drops as the turtle is already being cheered by the fans and given the gold medal.
The hare opens the race car, and sees (instead of the engine), an AMD CPU.
The tagline: "AMD. Faster." (When the phrase is said, the background switches to a bar chart comparing "AMD" and "Other", showing AMD is faster)
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Seriously, if AMD wants to win the market, they should start making TV and radio commercials. Remember what happened to the Amiga. It was a superior product, but lack of marketing lead to bankruptcy.
Only when customers start asking for "AMD processors", vendors will start using them.
It doesn't matter what set of data was picked.
Comparing Apple's to Apple's in the same data set, AMD won. Period.
And no, I don't think it's indicitive of the actual market, but it is a noteworthy sign. (pun anyone?)
I'm pretty sure these statistics were prepared on a PC with one of those faulty Pentiums.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
"Their more general components have been found in early and current (Mac mini) Apple computers and numerous other electronic devices." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD I don't think they're saying that AMD PROCESSORS are in the Mac Mini, but rather other components made by AMD.
On behalf of the less-bigoted, may I say I am ecstatic that there are two (three?) cpu companies to choose from. This means I can buy whoever's cpus are currently the best and that there is competition to make them all try harder. For those of you who [hate Intel | love AMD | hate AMD | love Intel] I only hope you actually benefit from this chauvinism. Perhaps you have shares in one or the other. Perhaps you work for one or the other. Whatever. The rest of us should be buying on the merits of whatever is currently available. I am buying AMD64 cpus at the moment. Prior to that I was buying AMD Athlons. Prior to that I was buying Pentium IIIs. I have also had good success with Cyrix in the past. Lave the bigots to scream and shout. Please buy on technical merits. May the best cpu manufacturer of the moment win.
Intel's strong suit right now is its laptop processors, and who buys those at retail? AMD's strong suit are desktop processors, which are what people put into home built computers.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
It's not like they hide the fact that it's only retail sales. It tells you different things than a "whole computer market" survey. What a "complete" survey would include isn't exactly clear either, would big iron fit in? Anyway, retail is a good number for seeing what home users are doing in the marketplace. Yes, some home users go to Dell, but by in large, they buy retail. So, in the past when AMD's share was smaller and shrinking, we could guess that Intel's "Intel Inside" or "Centrino" or big Mhz or something else was working. Now, with AMD share growing, either the home consumer is thinking more highly of AMD, or maybe they just don't know either way and buy whatever is on the shelves.
Anyway, my point is that this survey is as valid as any other as long as you think of it in the proper perspective.
Ah, to be the Dell CEO and snorting lines off a hooker's ass ...
Let us look at these numbers. They exclude most of the market (I know very few people that buy retail computers). I am not suprized that AMD beat intel in the retail market. Most people that are buying preconfigured boxes from a retail store are usually looking for a cheap computer. AMD will win in this case.
I think this is a sign that AMD is getting a shelf presence. That is it. 5 years ago, you couldn't find a computer with AMD inside it without doing some serious looking. Now you can find 4 out of 9 on walmarts computer page. I personally build only with AMD for now, but I have no issue with Intel processors (other than the loss of my left arm to pay for it). It is a good sign that AMD is becoming mainstream to the public, not just the enthusiast.
It should only be a couple of years more before Dell ships an AMD system. HP, shuttle, alienware, velocity micro, and monarch already do. I dont know about Gateway 2000.
all in all, Good for AMD!
FYI, 1 Athlon XP, 1 Duron, 1 G4, 2 Xenon, and 1 P4M at home.
Stop signs are only Suggestions
I have personally done benchmarking of some compilers on AMD64s. I can't reveal the results but the bottomline, AMD's performance was far better than Intels. It Rocks!
I think it was a pain even at Microsoft to port their software to Intels Itanium. They have said that support for it will be limited in Longhorn. Regarding Media Center, I think Dave first ported to AMD64 and Acer was marketing the combination.
Their are some serious issues with Intel and not many liked it including Linus Trovalds and he blasted INTEL in one of his e-mails for not giving credit to AMD.(Dig through Kernel archive)
I like free market and competition. It was the WinTel lobby but these suckers somehow managed to escape from slashdoters, I am glad they are now losing.
Personally I don't care what AMD or Intel's exact market shares are, I do however take this as a sign that the market is in a very good place. We have two companies in relatively comparable strong positions and several smaller companies filling out the niche markets (Via, Transmeta ...) and they all run the same code. It's also finally gotten to the point where the market dictates the course of the standard instead of just one company (Intel borrowing the x64 extentions from AMD). The companies are proffitable and the customer has choice. I can only wish the OS market looked like this.
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
Today, AMD opened Fab 36. It is a 300mm Fab that will top out at twice the capacity of their current 200mm Fab 30. It will ramp over the next two years. That means they'll be able to serve half of the market. Up from 18% or so, now. In addition, they have arrangements for outsourcing production to Chartered Semi, if there is even more demand to cope with.
Add to that superior CPU products in the desktop, mobile, and server space as well as OEM's that seem to have lost their fear of Intel retalition, and what we have here is a revolution that will unseat Intel from its monopoly position.