PC & Notebook Makers Turning To AMD Processor Over Struggling Intel

Days after Apple dumped Intel it’s been revealed that archrival AMD is expected to see its share of the notebook processor market reach a company record-high of 20% in 2020 according to market sources.

Mercury Research, one of the chip industry’s premier market analyst firms, claims that AMD had reached 18.3% of the overall x86 share and 19.7% of the client market.

ChannelNews understands that several major gaming machine manufacturers who moved to AMD after their operations were compromised by a lack of Intel product due to the big US chip manufacturer prioritising Apple processor manufacturing ahead of PC processors, are staying with AMD sourced processors for both their business and gaming notebooks.

The latest numbers for AMD are the company’s highest share since the fourth quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2012, respectively.

The company also broke its all-time record for notebook market share.

Last week HP unveiled a series of new PCs running AMD processors.

Among the new devices are new AMD-based products: The HP ProDesk 405, featuring AMD Ryzen Pro series processors, is the first-ever AMD-based business class desktop mini PC, HP said. The HP EliteDesk 805 G6 Small Form Factor is the first-ever AMD-based small form factor business class desktop. Meanwhile, the HP ProBook 635 Aero G7 is the lightest AMD-based business notebook.

Analysts claim that notebooks comprise roughly 65% of the consumer CPU market and have been a long, slow haul for AMD.

It’s clear that AMD’s targeted efforts have borne fruit with a 2.9-point gain over the prior quarter and a 5.8-point gain over the prior year claim Mercury Research.

AMD announced during its earnings report that it had notched a 12-year high in consumer processor sales as its client computing group grew by 45%, and much of that gain came from Ryzen 4000 notebook processor sales.

AMD’s mobile processor sales doubled YoY, and another 30+ models will join the 50+ notebooks on the market by the end of the year. That means AMD has a solid runway for more growth.

The notebook market exploded in the wake of the pandemic as a new paradigm of working from home took hold. While AMD increased sales by 20% Intel only managed an increase in sales of 9%.

Analysts claim that though the pie grew larger for both companies, AMD’s slice is obviously growing faster.

AMD made the wise decision to push into the lower rungs of the notebook market while Intel grappled with shortages last year, so Intel has felt the most share loss in cheaper, low-margin processors.

Intel has invested heavily in increasing its production capacity, and CFO George Davis remarked during the company’s recent earnings call that “We expect our share to improve throughout the remainder of the year as we begin to recover unit share in notebooks utilizing our smaller core products which we have not been able to fully serve given the strength of demand for our large core products.”