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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."
Their new push for quality engineering over marketing fluff will surely give them the lead again!
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/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.
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.
Anyone looked into the possible marketing misstep by Intel stopping marketing their processors by clock speed?
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
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.
When the Intel-based Macs hit the market, Intel processors will be found in 52.6 percent of desktop PCs, so there!
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
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?
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).
Take it easy? I'll take it anyway I can get it . . .
What are you talking about? AMD chips are very resonably priced - Certainly moreso than the alternative.
You aren't looking at comparable chips, then. At similar performance marks, the AMD chips are cheaper than their Intel counterparts.
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.
"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 discussion and article.)
Now I am beginning to understand why Intel has made the decision to start focusing elsewhere.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
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?
Are you KIDDING?
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.
1) Most people that buy PCs have no idea what processor it has inside. They are generally motivated by price. If two PCs with the same performance and options are sitting next to each other at Best Buy, and one costs $150 less than the one next to it, which one will people buy? No brainer!
2) The speed of most newer computers is so ridiculously fast compared to just a couple of years ago that the processor just doesn't matter to the average PC buyer. Most people want to read their email, surf the web and store their digital photos. They are not running CAD or compiling code or editing full feature films. Even the lower end PCs available in stores these days can perform the average tasks just as well as the high end system. Therefore, again, the purchase experience will be motivated by price!
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.
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).
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
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
C - the footgun of programming languages
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.
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.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
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.
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.
beware the jabberwock, my son! the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
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.
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.
*cough*excludingdell*cough*
I love statistics.
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."?
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Two issues related to Java on Macs (may change with the Intel version):
You have to get your Java from Apple. I was stuck all through OSX 10.3.x with an old Java. Sun doesn't offer a build. Apple did bundle an update with OSX 10.4.
Gosling mentioned in an interview that he builds the latest Java on his Linux box, and copies the JARs over to his PowerBook. Somehow I haven't found enough spare time to try to do that myself. However I think Gosling slowly tried this over a long period of time that he spent using X tunneling to use his native Linux build of Java on the Linux box, and experimenting with the individual JARs one at a time. Theoretically I would think using a slightly older JVM with a newer environment would not be a problem, except for the Cocoa hooks. Maybe you can use X for the gui stuff? As I said, don't know, haven't tried. Lots of people have failed to make this work, though I don't know how much effort they put into it. Netbeans works fine on OSX BTW, there is a release on their site.
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.
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AMD has been kicking Intel's butt for a long time, mostly because of their price for performance ratio. Intel's pricing has always been higher per performance unit (however you wish to measure it) than AMD. AMD has always been finding ways to boost performance and efficiency in order to stay ahead of Intel: Back when Athlon's first came out, their numbers were to signify that their processor were equivalent to an Intel of a certain speed (The Athlon 1800+ could keep up with an Intel 1.8GHz, but only ran at 1.53GHz) because of their architecture redesign.
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.
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.
This article from MAY OF 2005, shows why this is just spin - anyone who has been paying attention to AMD in the retail outlet sector should know that AMD has done well in this area for quite some time! The exact figure from last May was... You guessed it... 52%!
Overclockers
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.
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