Microprocessor market beats expectations in Q2
Unseasonable growth in shipments and revenue as system builders splash out on higher-end components
Chip shape: Sales in the PC microprocessor market grew 6.2 per cent sequentially in Q2
The worldwide PC microprocessor market enjoyed a successful second quarter, with shipments and revenue growing at way beyond normal seasonal levels.
Figures from IDC reveal global unit shipments during Q2 grew 3.6 per cent sequentially. The analyst claimed this is compared to a historic average growth rate of 1.6 per cent.
Second-quarter microprocessor revenue was up 6.2 per cent on Q1 – compared with the 2.8 per cent decline normally expected for this time of year.
Mobile PC processors were the market's star performer, with shipments growing 6.5 per cent sequentially. PC server processors enjoyed 6.1 per cent shipment growth, but the desktop PC processor space witnessed a 0.1 per cent decline.
Intel, which yesterday announced a $7.6bn agreement to buy security firm McAfee, held 80.7 per cent of the overall PC microprocessor market in Q2. This represents a loss of three tenths of a point on the preceding quarter.
Most of that went straight into the hands of arch rival AMD, which snagged a 19 per cent slice of the market. VIA Technologies was a distant third, holding just 0.3 per cent.
Across the whole of 2010, IDC expects year-on-year unit shipment growth of 19.8 per cent. But the analyst noted that demand for the technology had begun to weaken during Q2 "and is expected to remain weak in August".
Shane Rau, director of semiconductors: personal computing research at IDC, said: "Such a sequential increase in PC processor shipments alone would have been enough to conclude that the first half was strong for the market. However, a modest rise in revenue, too, points directly to a rise in average selling prices.
"System makers bought more and higher-priced PC processors in Q2 than in Q1. Digging a little deeper into the numbers shows that they bought more mobile processors and more server processors, while desktop processors remained flat."