Intel's 80% Desktop Marketshare, 92% Server Marketshare

[Dave2150]

@Journey Linked to an excellent article by the BBC in another thread, I thought this data deserved it's own thread.

Original article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56401847

Image in question:

I expected AMD to have claimed a far greater market share % in both desktop and server by now, considering how competitive Ryzen is. The server market especially, considering the huge margins on those tier products.

I wonder how the above data from Mercury Research will change over the next 12 months. Either way, I find it a very exciting time in the CPU world

 

[Journey]

Indeed it is sad to see that Intel are losing market share so quickly, they need to get Alder Lake out and the Ice Lake SP or something in the Xeon market, or that number is going to dwindle even more quickly.

Those of us who work directly in the PC hardware industry have watched the change over the last few years, and it has been shocking how quickly the demand for Intel dropped away with the release on AMD's newer revisions of Zen. Don't get me wrong, Intel still offer great parts for certain scenarios and I designed in so many T-series parts based systems over the past few years, but now it's moving to AMD at a rate of knots. TCO, performance, heat+power these are all in AMD's favour right now and shall be until 2022 at the earliest. I sense a big battel on the horizon.

Just to clarify the headline in case you missed it.

"Intel buys time with 'retrofit' Rocket Lake desktop PC chips"

 

[tamzzy]

the king is dead. long live the king.
consumers going to get screwed regardless. (just see how AMD increased their MSRP for ryzen 3)
AMD is no good guy and we need 2 competitive companies else we gonna get screwed like haswell days

 

[Dave2150]

the king is dead. long live the king.
consumers going to get screwed regardless. (just see how AMD increased their MSRP for ryzen 3)
AMD is no good guy and we need 2 competitive companies else we gonna get screwed like haswell days

A third vendor would be great. Perhaps Zhaoxin will be able to compete in the x86 landscape in the future, then again as they're Chinese it'd probably be banned by the UK/US government even if it were a competitor

 

[4K8KW10]

ARM should be competition. But Microsoft-Intel duopoly doesn't allow for it to happen.

x86 should die off and be replaced.

 

[Radox-0]

Intel actually gained market share in that table shown by BBC for Oct-Dec period vs Prior period. They increased there market share in that period by 1.2% in mobile, 0.8% in desktop but lost 0.5% in server vs Jul-Sep, so overall increased there share. This is partly thanks to the overall market increasing in size significantly and while it meant increased sales for both sides, Intel was able to capitalise more on the increase.

No doubt AMD has mostly the better architectures, however they have much less capacity to deploy given they need to juggle CPU's, GPUs and console SOC's with TSMC. No doubt they would see a larger jump in market share if they were able to get more CPU's out there. From what I can see things are calming so I expect the above quarter increase for Intel will be a blip. Good to have competition either way and hope Intel come back with something more competitive. Zen right now does deserve the name bulldozer as that is what its doing to the competition

 

[Dave2150]

Intel actually gained market share in that table shown by BBC for Oct-Dec period vs Prior period. They increased there market share in that period by 1.2% in mobile, 0.8% in desktop but lost 0.5% in server vs Jul-Sep, so overall increased there share. This is partly thanks to the overall market increasing in size significantly and while it meant increased sales for both sides, Intel was able to capitalise more on the increase.

No doubt AMD has mostly the better architectures, however they have much less capacity to deploy given they need to juggle CPU's, GPUs and console SOC's with TSMC. No doubt they would see a larger jump in market share if they were able to get more CPU's out there. From what I can see things are calming so I expect the above quarter increase for Intel will be a blip. Good to have competition either way and hope Intel come back with something more competitive. Zen right now does deserve the name bulldozer as that is what its doing to the competition

Personally, I think AMD will struggle long term to take further market share, simply as they don't have their own fabs. I just can't see them being a threat, unless they A). Own their own fabs again (extremely expensive, so unlikely) or B). Enter a more concrete partnership with TSMC to reserve more capacity. I don't think AMD can afford option A with current revenues, and for B, I think Apple will always be able to outbid for wafer capacity from TSMC.

At the end of the day, you can have the best CPU design for any given task, but without manufacturing capacity, it amounts to nothing.

 

[Jimmy Weirdarms]

Given the difference in size and budget of the two companies, it looks to me like intel is slipping.

They're not the tech leaders in x86 any more, their fabs are now several generations out of date, and x86 is no longer the uncontested king anyway.

It'll take a while, but unless they change radically the seeds of their downfall are already sown, as industry analysts are reporting.

 

[Hedge]

Companies stick to what they know. They want stability and as insane as it sounds some people would probably double up on Intel to compensate for any performance difference.

They fear the unknown basically. Having a server go down could cost a company millions so they are risk averse.

 

[Curlyriff]

Personally, I think AMD will struggle long term to take further market share, simply as they don't have their own fabs. I just can't see them being a threat, unless they A). Own their own fabs again (extremely expensive, so unlikely) or B). Enter a more concrete partnership with TSMC to reserve more capacity. I don't think AMD can afford option A with current revenues, and for B, I think Apple will always be able to outbid for wafer capacity from TSMC.

At the end of the day, you can have the best CPU design for any given task, but without manufacturing capacity, it amounts to nothing.

Or C) TSMC build new fabs to come online to support the growth of their business so they can supply more chips like they are doing and thus naturally there is more supply to be bid on by companies which also means the wafer drops in price as there are not shortages in manufacturing. This also all simultaneously means that AMD grows and can compete better and push further. Thus meaning there will be proper battles back and forth each generation compared to now where it wildly swings depending on generation. Stability in competition is needed to drive things, and not artificially by someone sandbagging but by both pushing to get the best product out.

And can you stop banging on about own fabs considering both for Intel has had shortages over the last 5 years and hasn't produced anything that is on a new node for like a decade now as they struggle with that side of the business as well as having discussed with investors about selling of that part because it hasn't been working well for them. I get you dislike AMD and want Intel to be king but to bury head in sand over what data has shown and ignore any way for companies to grow.

 

[4K8KW10]

Personally, I think AMD will struggle long term to take further market share, simply as they don't have their own fabs.

Why does Intel consider spinning the manufacturing off?
Do you know how serious technical challenges and problems appear with lower nodes and that Intel can't even produce the required chips on anything below the ancient 14nm node?

 

[Nexus18]

Sadly AMD always have and always will have a tarnish to their name/brand when it comes to anything desktop related and no matter what they do, I don't think they'll ever "beat" intel or nvidia and given that they are supplying 80% of their hardware they're making currently to the consoles, I think AMD know this themselves too, even more so with their market share in the desktop space decreasing even further....

You just have to look at the type of posts that go around like "go intel/nvidia because they have less issues/more stable, drivers etc. are less crap". Heck, just look at the posts from people who say they wish AMD would be competitive again just so that they can get intel/nvidia stuff for cheaper..... Shows they have no intention of ever going amd.

People are still living in the past or/and have a loyalty to these companies, which really is sad.

Unless they start to turn around their supply issues and remove this tarnish they have, I wouldn't be surprised if they leave the desktop space completely.

 

[Radox-0]

Personally, I think AMD will struggle long term to take further market share, simply as they don't have their own fabs. I just can't see them being a threat, unless they A). Own their own fabs again (extremely expensive, so unlikely) or B). Enter a more concrete partnership with TSMC to reserve more capacity. I don't think AMD can afford option A with current revenues, and for B, I think Apple will always be able to outbid for wafer capacity from TSMC.

At the end of the day, you can have the best CPU design for any given task, but without manufacturing capacity, it amounts to nothing.

I think the opposite, in the long term AMD will take market share, as TSMC gets up more fabs and AMD has financial resources to purchase more capacity. Similarly, the other thing impacting AMD's ability to get CPUs to market hence Intel seeing market share increase last quarter is AMD is AMD tied up with delivering a decent amount of wafers to SOC's for consoles. I think in the short term this will impact market share. Intel will not see a significant dip in share, or even may maintain parity / increase simply due to being able to deliver. So short term the market share situation will not change drastically. Longer term AMD will claw into Intel's market share if Intel cannot get competitive and as delivery demands for console SOCs tapers off.

That said, Intel does have a lot of resources affording it some breathing room, even if its performance is meh. When they have more then double the profit in 2020 as AMD made in revenue for 2020, puts things in perspective, AMD is growing, but so is the overall pie and Intel is still a juggernaut, even with the poor nodes.

Why does Intel consider spinning the manufacturing off?
Do you know how serious technical challenges and problems appear with lower nodes and that Intel can't even produce the required chips on anything below the ancient 14nm node?

AFAIK, the pressure to sell of Fabs is external, mostly those wanting to see a nice jump in share price and profit off the back of it. There new CEO said back in January that there fabs are still crucial and quote to that effect in BBC article in OP. Personally so long as demand is so pent up as we see now that a majority of what they produce is sold off even with an antiquated node, then owning the fabs outright is not a noose on Intels neck. It will become a noose if demand starts to taper off significantly and AMD is better able to meet market demands meaning fabs are not running at running fully.

 

[labbby]

Sadly AMD always have and always will have a tarnish to their name/brand when it comes to anything desktop related and no matter what they do, I don't think they'll ever "beat" intel or nvidia and given that they are supplying 80% of their hardware they're making currently to the consoles, I think AMD know this themselves too, even more so with their market share in the desktop space decreasing even further....

You just have to look at the type of posts that go around like "go intel/nvidia because they have less issues/more stable, drivers etc. are less crap". Heck, just look at the posts from people who say they wish AMD would be competitive again just so that they can get intel/nvidia stuff for cheaper..... Shows they have no intention of ever going amd.

People are still living in the past or/and have a loyalty to these companies, which really is sad.

Unless they start to turn around their supply issues and remove this tarnish they have, I wouldn't be surprised if they leave the desktop space completely.

have you not seen the posts on the intel gaming twitter page in regards to rocket lake release ? they are getting hammered

 

[Nexus18]

have you not seen the posts on the intel gaming twitter page in regards to rocket lake release ? they are getting hammered

Yup but sadly that is only a small minority of people.

And you'll probably find that these are the people that will bitch about intel/nvidia screwing consumers over yet they will still buy them over amd....

 

[4K8KW10]

Sadly AMD always have and always will have a tarnish to their name/brand when it comes to anything desktop related and no matter what they do, I don't think they'll ever "beat" intel or nvidia and given that they are supplying 80% of their hardware they're making currently to the consoles, I think AMD know this themselves too, even more so with their market share in the desktop space decreasing even further....

You just have to look at the type of posts that go around like "go intel/nvidia because they have less issues/more stable, drivers etc. are less crap". Heck, just look at the posts from people who say they wish AMD would be competitive again just so that they can get intel/nvidia stuff for cheaper..... Shows they have no intention of ever going amd.

People are still living in the past or/and have a loyalty to these companies, which really is sad.

Unless they start to turn around their supply issues and remove this tarnish they have, I wouldn't be surprised if they leave the desktop space completely.

The tarnish is on Intel and Nvidia for their dirty, anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices.

Intel is not safe from the threat of going under. Actually, this is a real possibility, once we hit the end of road for conventional semiconductors - more or less 5 years.

 

[labbby]

Yup but sadly that is only a small minority of people.

And you'll probably find that these are the people that will bitch about intel/nvidia screwing consumers over yet they will still buy them over amd....

i get what you're saying but it seems a very extreme view, there is no way AMD would pull out of the desktop market now. Just look at custom PC building sites, you wouldn't see a Ryzen option when ZEN1 dropped but now it's almost like the go to CPU in their builds.

bad time for me to say that because they're all trying to push rocket lake lol.

 

[mmj_uk]

Well AMD were going a long way to building market share in the desktop space when Ryzen first launched but they have proceeded to release marginal updates and at the same time drastically increasing prices which has only served to make them look less attractive and like opportunist money grabbers. If they choose to put short term profits ahead of long term market share it's not Intel's fault.

 

[4K8KW10]

Well AMD were going a long way to building market share in the desktop space when Ryzen first launched but they have proceeded to release marginal updates and at the same time drastically increasing prices which has only served to make them look less attractive.

The OP is misleading - that includes OEMs with anti-competitive old contracts.

 

[Curlyriff]

Well AMD were going a long way to building market share in the desktop space when Ryzen first launched but they have proceeded to release marginal updates and at the same time drastically increasing prices which has only served to make them look less attractive and like opportunist money grabbers. If they choose to put short term profits ahead of long term market share it's not Intel's fault.

Marginal updates? They have given us probably the largest updates generation to generation since Ryzen was introduced for the last 15 years now. They have reworked their chip designs, architecture and very are very different updates that are very far from marginal. Are you sure you are not looking at Intel 14nm for marginal updates?