Intel’s ongoing chip scarcity has been excellent news for rival AMD.
Though PC shipments fell year-over-year on this 12 months’s first quarter by three p.c, the decline wasn’t as unhealthy as initially projected, even with Intel’s restricted processor provides, based on analysis agency IDC—partly as a result of extra PC distributors sourced chips from AMD to energy their newest merchandise.
IDC remains to be tabulating the ultimate numbers, however AMD gained some share over Intel in gentle of its chip scarcity, which has been occurring since final 12 months’s third quarter, IDC researcher Jitesh Ubrani instructed PCMag.
“Intel has been prioritizing chips for the premium finish of the market, and to a sure extent Chromebooks as effectively,” he stated. “However on the decrease finish, there’s been a scarcity, so AMD has been capable of present chips in lots of circumstances to producers who have not been capable of supply them from Intel.”
As end result, PC distributors have been currently releasing extra AMD-powered Home windows laptops and Chromebooks — a pattern that might proceed all year long, at the same time as Intel’s chip scarcity is anticipated to finish by the 2019 third quarter. “It takes quite a bit for a PC vendor to construct an SKU (product mannequin) round an AMD processor, so I do not see them switching again to an Intel processor simply because it is accessible, at the least not within the close to time period,” Ubrani added.
The opposite cause why PC shipments outperformed IDC’s projection within the first quarter was resulting from companies migrating to Home windows 10. The older Home windows 7 OS will lose official assist from Microsoft in January 2020, which has prompted enterprises to improve their PC hardware. Throughout the first quarter, IDC seen a shocking enhance in industrial desktop shipments.
However total, progress within the PC market continues to stagnate at a time when smartphones have change into the favored product amongst customers. The highest 4 distributors—together with HP, Lenovo, Dell, and Apple—all registered about 2 to -Zero.eight p.c year-over-year cargo progress.
Nonetheless, fifth-ranked Acer noticed a 13.three p.c lower in PC shipments, largely resulting from Intel’s chip scarcity, based on IDC.
Rival analysis agency Gartner additionally reported PC shipments falling within the first quarter, by four.6 p.c 12 months over 12 months. It too seen that main PC distributors had been sourcing extra chips from AMD because of the Intel processor provide constraints.
“Sure, Intel’s CPU provide scarcity is a superb alternative for AMD to extend their cargo quantity,” Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa stated in an e-mail. “Particularly [since] the scarcity is within the entry stage CPUs which primarily goes to shopper phase. AMD can fulfill this phase very effectively versus the enterprise PC segments the place finish customers, largely IT groups, favor Intel CPUs.”
Regardless of the stagnant PC demand, one vivid spot available in the market are Chromebooks, the place shipments elevated by double digits in comparison with final 12 months’s first quarter, Gartner stated.
Editor’s Word: This story has been up to date with remark from a Gartner analyst.
