AMD steals market share from Intel

           PC microprocessor sales climbed to $10.9 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, up 1.8 percent sequentially, and up 14.2 percent. IDC reports that for the entire year, PC microprocessor sales jumped by 13.2 percent to more than $41 billion. Much of the increase was due to higher average selling prices, which added about 9 percent.

Both Intel and AMD were able to gain market share in individual market segments, but it was AMD that came out on top overall. Intel ended the year with 80.1 percent share, down 0.6 points from 2010, while AMD gained 0.7 points to 19.7 percent and Via dropped 0.1 points to 0.2 percent share.

According to IDC, Intel suffered a 2.6 point loss in the mobile segment (down to 83.8 percent), as AMD added 2.7 points bringing it to 16.0 percent. AMD lost in the server and workstation segment where it is now at 5.5 percent, which was down 1.5 points. Intel is overwhelmingly dominant with 94.5 percent (up 1.5 points). In desktop processors, Intel came in at 73.8 percent (+1.7 points), while AMD was down 1.6 points to 26.0 percent.