AMD Up, HP Down in the Numbers Game - Page 2

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Up slope for AMD

There's some upside news for AMD. After several consecutive quarters of bleeding money, customers and marketshare, iSuppli said the company is finally gaining customer share. It's still marginal compared to Intel, but up is better than down.

In the first quarter of 2008, Intel accounted for 79.7 percent of global microprocessor revenue, up 1.2 percentage points from 78.5 percent in Q4 2007. However, Q1 08 was down 0.7 percent compared Q1 07.

In contrast, AMD lost market share on a sequential basis in the first quarter, taking 13 percent of global revenue, down 1.1 percentage points from 14.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007. On the other hand, the company managed to increase its share by 2.2 points compared to the first quarter of 2007.

AMD (NYSE: AMD), though, saw some year-over-year growth. It went from 10.9 percent in 1Q07 to 13.0 percent in 1Q08. That first quarter number was actually down from 14.1 percent in Q4 '07, but given seasonal shifts, that's about in line.

"Intel was the short-term winner in the first quarter microprocessor market," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, compute platforms, for iSuppli in a statement. "But over the previous 12-month period, the trend is reversed, with AMD growing its share."

About half of AMD's long-term growth came at the expense of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), said iSuppli. The remainder came out of the market-share of smaller suppliers.

In good news for both companies, iSuppli found that robust demand is keeping ASPs up from the fourth quarter, the busiest quarter of the year, to Q1, one of the slowest. The firm said this was an indication that price pressure has decreased and the pricing war between the two microprocessor suppliers has abated.

iSuppli's latest global PC forecast calls for unit shipment growth of 10.5 percent in 2008.