USA: Intel Corp. gained momentum in the worldwide microprocessor business in the first quarter, while rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) continued its long-term increase in market share, according to iSuppli Corp.

In the first quarter, Intel accounted for 79.7 percent of global microprocessor revenue, up 1.2 percentage points from 78.5 percent in the fourth quarter.

However, compared to the first quarter of 2007, Intel's microprocessor revenue market share was down by 0.7 percentage points.

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.

The attached figure presents iSuppli's estimate of global quarterly microprocessor market share.

Please note that the figure and this release present revenue for the entire global microprocessor market, including X86, RISC and other types of general-purpose microprocessors. This data is not limited to the X86 PC microprocessor market.

"Intel was the short-term winner in the first quarter microprocessor market," observed Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst, compute platforms, for iSuppli.

"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. The remainder came out of the market-share of smaller suppliers.

"AMD's PC microprocessor product portfolio has become much stronger during the last year, particularly on the desktop side," Wilkins said. "Customers clearly are responding to AMD's moves. At the beginning of the year we saw AMD add the quad-core Phenom microprocessors to its desktop portfolio, which it has since built on with tri-core and dual-core flavors, for the prosumer and business markets."

A better-than-expected Q1
First-quarter results were encouraging for the PC market. Global PC unit shipments rose to 69.9 million units in the first quarter, up 12.1 percent from 62.4 million in the first quarter of 2007.

Notebook shipments in the first quarter were very strong, with growth of more than 30 percent compared to the first quarter of 2007. In contrast, desktop PC shipments in the first quarter were essentially flat compared to a year earlier.

Microprocessor prices stand pat
Reflecting the robust demand situation, both Intel and AMD noted that their Average Selling Prices (ASPs) did not decrease in the first quarter compared to the fourth. This price stability is another indication that price pressure has decreased and the pricing war between the two microprocessor suppliers has abated.

Intel and AMD in the first quarter continued to gain share at the expense of smaller players in the market. Combined, AMD and Intel accounted for 92.7 percent of total microprocessor revenues in the first quarter of 2008, up 1.4 percentage points from the first quarter of 2007.

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