AMD gains ground in sluggish market

Taking a shot at earlier reports to the contrary, Advanced Micro Devices says it's holding its own in the chip sales fray - and has new research to back up its claims.

The chipmaker cites a new report from research firm Gartner that shows AMD improved its market share in the second quarter of 2002, despite a lacklustre PC market and delays in delivering some of its processors. The report said AMD gained one point of market share in desktop and notebook PCs that quarter, compared with the same period last year. That contrasts with other studies, which showed AMD losing two points of market share.

According to AMD, the report on the chipmaker's second-quarter sales shows that it increased its overall market share in PCs from 18 per cent to 19 per cent year over year. It also said AMD maintained its 21 per cent share in all major desktop markets and added six points in notebooks, rising to a 12 per cent share in the second quarter of this year. Those figures were extrapolated from Gartner's data regarding PC shipments.

AMD executives said they were pleased with the company's performance in the face of a sluggish PC market, which was hit particularly hard by a slowdown in consumer PC sales in April and May.

"As we step back and look at it, we've generally maintained our market share across all the segments... even in the face of what I'd consider one of the most challenging environments the PC market has faced in years," said Mark Bode, AMD's brand manager for Athlon products.

AMD posted small gains in several other Windows desktop PC segments, according to Gartner. It jumped two points in the consumer desktop PC arena, moving from 25 per cent to 27 per cent. Its saw the same jump in sales to government, where its share increased from to 18 per cent. AMD also saw one-point gains among small and medium-size businesses, climbing to 16 per cent of the market, and among large businesses, where it ticked upward to eight per cent, AMD said, citing the Gartner report.

Another, earlier study by Mercury Research, though, showed that AMD's market share slipped from 21.6 per cent of the worldwide market in the second quarter of 2001 to 15.6 per cent during the second quarter of this year. Mercury uses a different methodology and relies in part on statistics culled from processor manufacturers.

John G Spooner writes for News.com