The preliminary Mercury Research CPU market share results are in for the second quarter of 2022, arriving during what is becoming a more dire situation for the PC market as sales cool after several years of stratospheric growth. According to the recent earnings report from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia, the recovery will be a long one. Still, for now, AMD appears to be weathering the storm better than others as it continued to steal market share from Intel in every segment of the CPU market.
Intel issued a dire earnings report last week — the company lost money for the first time in decades, partially driven by PC declines. Intel also announced it was delaying its critical Xeon Sapphire Rapids data center chips and killing off another failing business unit, Optane; the sixth unit retired since new CEO Pat Gelsinger took over.
In contrast, AMD’s revenue was up 70% year-over-year as the company continued to improve its already-great profitability. AMD is firing on all cylinders and will launch its Ryzen 7000 CPUs, RDNA 3 GPUs, and EPYC Genoa data center processors on schedule.
That consistent execution continues to pay off. AMD continued to take big strides in the mobile/laptop market, setting another record for unit share in that segment with 24.8%. AMD also gained in the server market for the 13th consecutive quarter, reaching 13.9% of the market. Notably, AMD’s quarterly gain in servers is the largest we’ve seen with our historical data, which dates back to 2017.
It’s safe to say that all signs point to a continued PC slump — Intel and AMD expect the desktop PC market to be down double-digits through the end of the year. Nvidia also announced that it had drastically underperformed its guide by $1.4 billion due to slumping gaming GPU sales, and its partners expect up to a 50% decline in GPU shipments this year. It’s hard to gauge how much of that volume was actually destined for gaming PCs as opposed to cryptominers, so the tea leaves are murky.
We don’t have the analysis from Mercury Research yet, though we expect that to arrive soon. We’re particularly interested to see how Arm’s attack on the x86 market is going, particularly as Apple’s new chips continue to gain popularity. Apple encountered supply disruptions during the quarter due to lockdowns in China, impacting its ability to ship units and likely impacting its share gains against x86.
We’ll update the article with Mercury Research’s commentary when it becomes available. But, for now, you can find the raw numbers below.
Edit: AMD shared the following revenue share information (this is different than the unit share listed in the tables below):
- In desktop, AMD revenue share increased 0.7 share points year over year to 18.8%.
- In notebook, AMD revenue share increased 12.1 share points year over year to 27.0% — an all-time high for AMD.
- In server, AMD revenue share increased 11.3 share points year over year to 22.9%.
- In overall x86, AMD revenue share increased 11.2 share points year over year to 28.1% — an all-time high for AMD.
| 2Q22 | 1Q22 | 4Q21 | 3Q21 | 2Q21 | 1Q21 | 4Q20 | 3Q20 | 2Q20 | 1Q20 | 4Q19 | 3Q19 | 2Q19 | 1Q2019 | 4Q18 | 3Q18 | 2Q18 | 1Q18 | 4Q17 | 3Q17 | 2Q17 | 1Q17 | 4Q16 | 3Q16 | |
| AMD Desktop Unit Share | 20.6% | 18.3% | 16.2% | 17.0% | 17.1% | 19.3% | 19.3% | 20.1% | 19.2% | 18.6% | 18.3% | 18% | 17.1% | 17.1% | 15.8% | 13% | 12.3% | 12.2% | 12.0% | 10.9% | 11.1% | 11.4% | 9.9% | 9.1% |
| Quarter over Quarter / Year over Year (pp) | +2.3% / +3.5% | +2.1 / -1.0 | -0.8 / -3.1 | -0.1 / -3.1 | -2.3 / -2.1 | +0.1 / +0.7 | -0.8 / +1.0 | +0.9 / +2.1 | +0.6 / +2.1 | +0.3 / +1.5 | +0.3 / +2.4 | +0.9 / +5 | Flat / +4.8 | +1.3 / +4.9 | +2.8 / +3.8 | +0.7 / +2.1 | +0.1 / +1.2 | +0.2 / +0.8 | +1.1 / +2.1 | -0.2 / +1.8 | -0.3 / – | +1.5 / – | +0.8 / – | – |
The decline in the PC market comes as the pandemic recedes and global economic turmoil and inflation mount. Sluggish CPU sales are exacerbated by seasonal downturns, and all of these factors have conspired to reduce demand for both Intel and AMD. However, AMD continues its streak of market share gains, reaching 20.6% of the unit share in the quarter.
| 2Q22 | 1Q22 | 4Q21 | 3Q21 | 2Q21 | 1Q21 | 4Q20 | 3Q20 | 2Q20 | 1Q20 | Q419 | 3Q19 | 2Q19 | 1Q2019 | 4Q18 | 3Q18 | 2Q18 | |
| AMD Mobile Unit Share | 24.8% | 22.5% | 21.6% | 22.0% | 20.0% | 18.0% | 19% | 20.2% | 19.9% | 17.1% | 16.2% | 14.7% | 14.1% | 13.1% | 12.2% | 10.9% | 8.8% |
| Quarter over Quarter / Year over Year (pp) | +2.3% / +4.8% | +0.9 / +4.4 | -0.4 / +2.6 | +2.0 / +1.8 | +1.9 / +0.01 | -1.0 / +1.1 | -1.2 / +2.8 | +0.3 / +5.5 | +2.9 / +5.8 | +0.9 / +3.2 | +1.5 / +4.0 | +0.7 / +3.8 | +1.0 / +5.3 | +0.9 / ? |
AMD set yet another market share record in the notebook market, an impressive feat given that it doesn’t sell as many chips into the low-end segment as Intel. This marks yet another market share record for AMD in the mobile space.
| 2Q22 | 1Q22 | 4Q21 | 3Q21 | 2Q21 | 1Q21 | 4Q20 | 3Q20 | 2Q20 | 1Q20 | 4Q19 | 3Q19 | 2Q19 | 1Q2019 | 4Q18 | 3Q18 | 2Q18 | 4Q17 | |
| AMD Server Unit Share | 13.9% | 11.6% | 10.7% | 10.2% | 9.5% | 8.9% | 7.1% | 6.6% | 5.8% | 5.1% | 4.5% | 4.3% | 3.4% | 2.9% | 3.2% | 1.6% | 1.4% | 0.8% |
| Quarter over Quarter / Year over Year (pp) | +2.3% / +4.4% | +0.9 / +2.7 | +0.5% / +3.6 | +0.7 / +3.6 | +0.6 / +3.7 | +1.8 / +3.8 | +0.5 / +2.6 | +0.8 / +2.3 | +0.7 / +2.4 | +0.6 / 2.2 | +0.2 / +1.4 | +0.9 / +2.7 | +0.5 / +2.0 | -0.3 / – | +1.6 / 2.4 | +0.2 / – |
AMD bases its server share projections on IDC’s forecasts but only accounts for the single- and dual-socket market, which eliminates four-socket (and beyond) servers, networking infrastructure, and Xeon D’s (edge). As such, Mercury’s numbers differ from the numbers cited by AMD, which predicts a higher market share. Here is AMD’s comment on the matter: “Mercury Research captures all x86 server-class processors in their server unit estimate, regardless of device (server, network or storage), whereas the estimated 1P [single-socket] and 2P [two-socket] TAM [Total Addressable Market] provided by IDC only includes traditional servers.”
AMD continued its three-year streak of quarterly share gains and made the largest single quarterly gain as far back as our records go (2017). AMD gained in the server market for the 13th consecutive quarter, reaching 13.9% of the market.
Intel continues to suffer in this segment, and it also announced its Sapphire Rapids will be delayed yet again. The company hasn’t set a discernable date for the full launch, but we expect that to come in Q1 next year.
| Arm vs x86 Market Share | 2Q22 | 1Q22 | 4Q21 | 3Q21 | 2Q21 | 1Q21 | 4Q20 | 2Q20 |
| Arm Unit Share | ? | 11.3% | 10.3% | 8.3% | ~7.0% | 5.9% | 3.4% | Less than 2% |
We’re still waiting on updated data for this segment.
| 2Q22 | 1Q22 | 4Q21 | 3Q21 | 2Q21 | 1Q21 | 4Q20 | 3Q20 | 2Q20 | 1Q20 | 4Q19 | 3Q19 | 2Q19 | 4Q18 | 3Q18 | |
| AMD Overall x86 | ? | 27.7% | 25.6% | 24.6% | 22.5% | 20.7% | 21.7% | 22.4% | 18.3% | 14.8% | 15.1% | 14.6% | 13.9% | 12.3% | 10.6% |
| Overall PP Change QoQ / YoY | ? | +2.1 / +7.0 | +1.0 / +3.9 | +2.1 / +2.2 | +1.8 / +4.2 | -1.0 / +6.0 | -0.7 / +6.2 | +4.1 / +6.6 | +3.5 / +1.2 (+3.7?) | -0.7 / ? | +0.9 / +3.2 | +0.7 / +4 | ? | ? | – |
Whereas other segments exclude IoT and semi-custom (like AMD’s game console business), this accounting of the overall x86 market also includes those products and is focused primarily on the broader AMD vs Intel competition.
Unfortunately, we won’t have information for this segment until a bit later. We’ll update the article as soon as the commentary and final numbers come in from Mercury Research. Stay tuned.