AMD ups share in notebook channel

Its latest report studied distribution sales of components in the UK, France and Germany.

Though Intel still overshadows its rival in the value categories, which includes business sales, the rise of AMD at consumer level may give it a lead into corporate sales, according to analysts.

AMD’s Mobile Turion 64 X2 increased its share of distribution sales of PC notebooks, outperforming Intel in the consumer market, according to Context. In the volume channel, which includes multiple retailer and mail order categories, the share of Intel’s Core 2 Duo processor was 34 per cent in February. This represents stable growth on last year, but is down from 39 per cent market share registered in December.

In second position was Celeron M, with 26 per cent market share, followed by AMD Mobile Turion 64 X2, which registered at 21 per cent, an all-time high market share in this type of channel. Surprisingly, the product surpassed Intel’s Pentium Dual Core in fourth position, which registered a 14 per cent share.

In the consumer sector of the volume channel, AMD became the best-selling processor vendor for the first time in the past 12 months, reported Context.

The AMD Mobile Turion 64 X2 processor gained 30 per cent market share, outperforming Intel’s Core 2 Duo, which registered 27 per cent of the market and Celeron M with 24 per cent.

“If you take all the figures together, Intel still overshadows AMD,” said Paola Troilli, analyst at Context and author of the Notebook report, “but it is still encouraging for AMD”.

And IDC’s senior research analyst Eszther Morvay confirmed AMD’s fightback at consumer level.
“When the PC industry went mobile AMD was left behind. But business tools are often introduced by employees who bring their consumer products into work,” she said.