In a challenging second quarter, AMD managed to narrow the gap with Intel in the server sector and other areas, though there is still a considerable difference in market share.
Mercury Research reports that processor shipments in the second quarter declined sequentially and were below typical seasonal patterns. For the quarter, Intel’s share of the total x86 CPU market increased sequentially from 73.9% to 75.4%, whereas AMD’s market share decreased from 26.1% to 24.6%.
However, it’s important to note that these figures include AMD’s semi-custom SoC units used in Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation 5 consoles, which have been in the market for four years and are experiencing expected sales declines.
Looking specifically at market segments, AMD is seeing growth. In the server sector, AMD’s market share has risen to 24.1% from 23.6% in the first quarter of 2024, marking a substantial increase from the 18.9% share it held in the second quarter of 2023.
Intel currently holds a 75.9% share of the server CPU market, slightly down from 76.4% last quarter and significantly less from 81.4% the previous year.
However, analyzing these figures requires caution. Comparable periods are affected by prior inventory adjustments, explains Dean McCarron, president of Mercury. He points out that these corrections had largely stabilized by the third quarter of 2023, suggesting that recent shares more accurately depict sales figures. By the third quarter of 2024, he predicts comparisons will be more valid—but notes the current yearly results might still be distorted.
“After a year where inventory was steadily utilized, the figures we see now likely mirror true consumer demand and market position, with less leftover stock to influence Intel’s sales negatively. This indicates that customers are purchasing fewer Intel units than before while increasing purchases from AMD,” he further elaborated via email.
And there is some interesting nuance in the Intel decline. As the market has shifted to higher core count chips – up to 64 cores in one CPU – fewer chips are being sold. A two-socket server with 32-core chips can do the work of four 16-core chips, which translates into fewer servers. It seems enterprises would rather have fewer physical servers with high core counts than many physical servers with low core counts.
“Intel, which has the majority share and thus the highest volume of lower-core-count units, had more to lose from a unit shipment perspective as the market converts than AMD does – AMD is essentially growing with the high core count movement, and while Intel’s new products are as well, it’s losing older products and it’s not a 1:1 replacement so the migration to high core count is more unit and market share negative to Intel than it is to AMD,” he said.
Just another bit of bad news for Intel, which has had a lot lately.
