Date: 10/11/2009

Record shipment of processor chips in 3rd quarter 2009

Market researcher IDC has reported global unit shipments of processors chips used in desktop and laptop computers have increased by 23% in 3rd quarter 2009 over previous quarter. This growth is approximately double the normal growth in unit shipments for the same period. By revenue count, the PC processor market grew more than 14% quarter over quarter to $7.4 billion.

The two versions of laptop computers both notebook and netbooks are continue to drive growth. Netbook and low-cost computer specific processors such as Intel's Atom processors have increased 35.7% in 3rd quarter 09 compared to 2nd quarter 2009. Desktop PC processors grew 11.4% quarter over quarter and x86 server processors grew 12.2% quarter over quarter.

"The story about 3Q09 leads with Atom processors being sold in mini-notebooks (a.k.a. netbooks) manufactured and sold in China," said Shane Rau, director of Semiconductors: Personal Computing research at IDC. "While Atom processors led the PC processor market to reach record unit shipments, on the revenue side, their low average selling price led to notable price erosion, more than 7%. As a result, while market shipments rose 23.0% compared to 2Q09, market revenue grew less, 14.1% compared to 2nd quarter 2009. Most meaningful about 3Q09 is that, since PC processor shipments overall just slightly exceeded shipments in 2Q08-which was itself a record quarter at the time-we know that the processor market is recovering."

Other stats of IDC report:

In 3rd quarter 2009, Intel earned 81.1% share of the worldwide PC processor market's unit shipments, a share gain of 2.2%, while AMD earned 18.7%, a loss of 2.0%, and VIA Technologies earned .2%.

In 3rd quarter 2009 by form factor, Intel earned 88% share in the mobile PC processor segment, a gain of 1.1%, AMD finished with 11.9%, a loss of 0.7%, and VIA earned 0.2%. In the PC server/workstation processor segment, Intel finished with 90.4% market share, a gain of 0.5% and AMD earned 9.6%, a loss of 0.5%. In the desktop PC processor segment, Intel earned 72.2%, a gain of 2.0% and AMD earned 27.4% a loss of 1.9%. VIA earned 0.3% share.

The overall semiconductor market had positive impact due to rise in sales of PC processors. The other non-processor semiconductor chips like memory, PC chipsets and communication interface devices have reaped benefits from the PC market growth.


IDC website is www.idc.com