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on Peddie Research (JPR) found that graphics chip shipments during the fourth quarter of 2011 behaved according to past years with regard to seasonality, which has developed since the economic crash of 2008. Prior to that shift, Q4 was a seasonally up quarter, and this year it was down the most since 2008. A lot of it was blamed on the floods in Thailand, but general economic malaise still permeates the industry.
The company' s forecast for the coming years has been modified since its last
report, and is less aggressive on both desktops and notebooks—tablets
have changed the nature of the PC market. JPR's findings below include Desktops,
Notebooks (and Netbooks), and PC-based commercial (i.e., POS) and
industrial/scientific and embedded; and do not include handhelds (i.e.,
mobile phones), x86 Servers or ARM-based Tablets (i.e. iPad and
Android-based Tablets), Smartbooks, or ARM-based Servers.
The quarter in general
- This quarter, Intel celebrated its eighth quarter of shipping
its Embedded Processor Graphics CPU—EPG, a multi-function design
that combines a graphics processor and CPU in the same package.
Intel’s desktop EPG shipments had a very strong double digit growth
in while Notebooks dropped double digits. Combined with a decrease
in overall IGP chipsets, Intel came in for the quarter with a
-12.3% drop from Q3.
- AMD had huge 44.8% desktop double digit growth in its HPU
shipments, and even good growth in their desktop IGPs. However, like
Intel, its overall quarter results were down due to declining notebook
sales. AMD’s overall quarter to quarter results showed a -3.4%
drop.
- Year to year this quarter Intel gained about 7% market share,
AMD gained 2.6%, and Nvidia slipped -7% in the overall market
partially due to the company withdrawing from the integrated
segments.
- The quarter’s change in total graphics chip shipments from
last quarter decreased 10.4%, above the ten-year average of 0.83%. A
little over 124 graphics chips shipped, down from 138.5 million
units last quarter, and up from 114 million units this quarter a
year ago.
- Discrete GPUs declined almost 12% from the last quarter and were down almost 3.5% from last year for the same quarter.
- Almost 93.5 million PCs shipped worldwide this quarter, an
increase of 1.8% compared to last quarter (based on an average of
reports from Dataquest, IDC, and HSI).
Graphics chips (GPUs) and chips with graphics (IGPs, HPUs, and EPGs)
are a leading indicator for the PC market. At least one and often two
GPUs are present in every PC shipped. It can take the form of a discrete
chip, a GPU integrated in the chipset or embedded in the CPU. The
average has grown from 115% in 2001 to almost 150% GPUs per PC.
Since the crash of 2008, combined with the introduction and influence
of ARM-based tablets, the PC market has deviated from historical
trends. Until the segment for tablets is clearly defined the
fluctuations in the market data is likely to continue. The disruptions
probably won’t settle down for a while as tablets find their place in
the market and agreement can be reached on whether to include them in
the PC market analysis, or to not.
Market shares shifted for the big three, and put pressure on the
smaller three, and most showed a decrease in market share as indicated
in Table 1
AMD’s overall graphics market share increased 1,8% from last quarter due mostly to HPU shipments.
Intel continues to be the overall market share leader, elevated by
Core i5 EPG CPUs, Sandy Bridge, and Pineview Atom sales for Netbooks.
AMD gained market share quarter-to quarter Intel and Nvidia lost share.
Nvidia is exiting the integrated graphics segments and shifting focus
to discrete GPUs. The company showed good desktop discrete market share
gain (3.7% qtr-qtr), and 0.1% in notebooks. Nvidia credits strong
connect with new Intel Sandybridge notebooks. Ironically Nvidia enjoyed
some serendipitous sales of IGPs in Q4 due to some older AMD CPU sales
in Asia.
Table1 : Total Graphics Chip Market shares (Jon Peddie Research)
|
Market share this quarter |
Market share last Qtr |
Unit Change Qtr-Qtr |
Share Change Qtr-Qtr |
Market Share last yr |
AMD |
24.8% |
23.0% |
-3.4% |
7.8% |
24.2% |
Intel |
59.1% |
60.4% |
-12.3% |
-2.1% |
52.5% |
Nvidia |
15.7% |
16.1% |
-13.2% |
-3.1% |
22.5% |
Matrox |
0.03% |
0.0% |
-31.4% |
-23.4% |
0.1% |
SiS |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
0.0% |
VIA/S3 |
0.4% |
0.5% |
-16.5% |
-6.8% |
0.8% |
Total |
100.0% |
100.0% |
-10.4% |
|
100.0% |
Year to year for the quarter the market increased. Shipments
increased to 124 million units, up 10.6 million units from this quarter
last year.
The
quarter’s change in total shipments from last quarter increased 16.7%,
above the ten-year average of 13.9% (Jon Peddie Research) |