AMD's Ryzen processors are slowly gaining market share in the CPU world, according to some new figures.
Wccftech reported on the latest desktop processor shipment estimates from analytics firm Mercury Research, in which AMD gained ground on Intel, albeit to a modest extent.
Mercury statistics show that in the final quarter of 2023 (Q4), AMD increased its share of desktop CPUs to 19.8% compared to 19.2% in Q3. That's an increase of 0.6%, and it has increased even more over the past year, with a gain of 1.2% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. So, there has been a considerable increase in the share of market over the past year for Ryzen chips.
Mind you, most of that movement occurred in the first and fourth quarters of 2023, and things remained fairly stable in the two middle quarters.
AMD's laptop processors also gained share, rising to 20.3% in Q4 2023 compared to 19.5% in the previous quarter, making it an even bigger change of more than 0.8%. for mobile silicon.
Wccftech also highlighted new figures on the CPU market from Jon Peddie Research. These didn't give us any relative breakdown between AMD and Intel, but they did show that total CPU shipments were up 7% in Q4 2023 compared to the previous quarter, and a whopping 22% year over year. (Although this includes mobile chips, it is not a metric exclusive to the desktop processor.)
Still, it's a healthy sign for the broader CPU market, of course, which seems to be recovering nicely.
Analysis: Undermining Intel's territory
Clearly, this is good news for AMD, although as mentioned, it's more about steady upward progress than big leaps. But we must remember that Team Red has not made any major launches in the second half of 2023 (we got new chips in the first half of the year, notably the X3D models for the Ryzen 7000 family and a few others). vanilla chips not X for the range).
Which means AMD hasn't gained this momentum from any major releases, it's simply been undercutting Intel sales with its existing lineup (mostly).
We saw some compelling price cuts towards the end of last year with Ryzen CPUs, including discounts on the gamer-friendly Ryzen 7800X3D and Black Friday price cuts on even premium chips like the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, and that's probably part of the reason for the improvement in traction with AMD sales.
Perhaps the arrival of Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh and some disappointment at the fact that much of that lineup is pretty tacky (with one notable exception) might also have led some buyers to head towards AMD as well.
Whatever the case, AMD will clearly be looking to build on this momentum in the desktop sphere in 2024, and with Zen 5 CPUs (Ryzen 8000 or 9000 models) arriving later this year, Intel must take this threat seriously. .
We can't be sure when Intel's next-generation rival Arrow Lake desktop chips will arrive, but Team Blue really needs to make sure they're not too far behind Zen 5. Currently, rumors believe AMD will be first to market. – The danger for Intel is that if Arrow Lake arrives too late in 2024, this will give AMD a clear window of opportunity to continue pushing that silicon. Both next-generation ranges are highly anticipated and are likely to take up positions in our ranking of the best processors.
If Intel can't release Arrow Lake on time compared to the Zen 5 launch timeline, Team Blue may have to look for price cuts for existing CPUs to be able to compete better and not lose more desktop territory.
