AMD’s notebook PC share soars to an all-time high

Ryzen 4000 helped chip maker take some wind out of Intel's sails

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Ryzen 4000 CPU. Image: AMD

AMD’s market share in notebook processors has reached a new all-time high, according to new market research, thanks to the powerful mobile Ryzen 4000 processors AMD released in March. The numbers were compiled by Mercury Research for the third quarter of 2020.

AMD’s notebook market share, excluding processors sold into the Internet of Things market (IoT) has reached an all-time high of 20.2%, climbing by 5.5 percentage points in the past year. AMD’s overall market share (including products for the IoT market and also system-on-a-chip processors, or SoCs) increased 4.1 percentage points in the third quater, and 6.3 percentage points total over the past year. It now totals 22.4%, its highest point since 2007, according to Mercury.

With nearly all of the X86 processors sold into the PC market coming from either AMD or Intel, a gain by one rival is a loss for the other. Intel’s share in the notebook PC market sank to 79.8%, down 5.5 percentage points from a year ago. Intel’s overall share now stands at 77.6% – still an enormously commanding lead.

Those numbers will shift once again as Intel’s partners begin shipping notebooks with its Tiger Lake processors. Intel said in its recent conference call that demand for Tiger Lake has essentially doubled. But AMD, too, has another processor waiting in the wings: the Zen 3-based Ryzen 9, or the Ryzen 5000. 

In the desktop, at least, AMD’s rise has been slightly blunted. AMD’s share grew only 2.1% points over the past year, to 20.1%. Intel’s share stands at 79.9%. 

If the market-share numbers don’t round to 100% exactly, there’s a reason: Via Technologies, whose own legacy X86 chips still make up a barely tangible 0.1% share of the desktop PC CPU market.

IDG News Service

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