While the latest x86 CPU market share report reflects the ongoing threat that AMD poses to Intel at a difficult time in the latter company’s history, it wasn’t all bad news for Intel.

AMD is 1 point away from reaching a quarter of the Intel-dominated x86 CPU market for PCs and servers combined after posting a profit in the third quarter.

AMD’s share of the overall x86 CPU market grew 2.7 points sequentially and 4.3 points year over year to 24 percent versus Intel’s 76 percent share in the third quarter, excluding shipments of semi-custom, embedded and IoT products, according to the latest report from CPU tracking company Mercury Research.

(Related: Analysis: Intel’s efforts in AI chips stall as AMD gets a boost against Nvidia)

The market share movements represent CPU shipments for servers, laptops and desktops, three key battlegrounds that are the biggest sources of revenue for Intel and AMD. While the latest report reflects the current threat that AMD poses to Intel in a challenging time In the history of the latter company, not everything was bad news for Intel.

AMD achieved nearly a quarter of the x86 CPU market share in part by increasing its share in the desktop segment, where it had the largest gain, by 5.7 points sequentially and 9.6 points year over year through 28.7 percent versus Intel’s 71.3 percent share.

In the laptop segment, the Santa Clara, California-based chip designer increased its share by 2 points sequentially and 2.8 points year-over-year to 22.3 percent versus Intel’s 77.7 percent.

While AMD’s share in these segments was not a record, its share in the overall PC segment reached an all-time high in the third quarter, growing 2.9 points sequentially and 4.6 points year over year to 23.9 percent. percent, said Mercury Research president Dean McCarron. CRN in an email. (AMD’s desktop record was 29.1 percent in Q4 2006, while its laptop record was 24.8 percent in Q2 2022.)

In servers, AMD faced increased competition from Intel, but still managed to post a 0.1 point sequential increase and a 0.9 point year-over-year increase, bringing its share to 24.2 percent vs. 75.8 percent of Intel in the segment.

This also failed to meet AMD’s all-time high market share in the server CPU segment, which was 26.2 percent in the second quarter of 2006, according to McCarron.

What happened in the PC and server segments

AMD was able to achieve a significant gain in the desktop CPU segment thanks to seasonal growth, while Intel faced a decline in shipments, McCarron said.

Intel has blamed this decline on partners such as OEMs and system manufacturers working through existing inventory before making new purchases, according to the researcher.

McCarron said he saw “considerable activity” around AMD’s new Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors and noted an improvement in sales from the previous generation.

However, Mercury Research expects Intel to regain share in the desktop segment once the company’s partners work through existing inventory.

AMD and Intel experienced a similar story in the laptop segment, with the former seeing “well above seasonal increases” in CPU shipments, according to McCarron. However, Intel suffered a minor inventory correction and achieved “low but positive growth.”

“Both Intel and AMD saw significant increases in new mobile products” – Ultra 100 Core and Ryzen 8040, respectively, at the same time as the new Core Ultra 200V and Ryzen AI 300 processors in small quantities, according to McCarron.

The server segment was a different and more positive story for Intel.

“AMD and Intel experienced significant growth in server CPU shipments, and Intel saw gains in both the data center and networking/communications segments,” McCarron wrote.

The researcher said AMD’s stock rise was almost “insignificant” because both companies had “very similar growth rates.” He also noted that Intel’s standard Xeon server CPUs “slightly outperformed” AMD’s EPYC processors, while CPU shipments from the semiconductor giant’s Network and Edge Group “recovered.”

How integrated and semi-custom products change history

While semi-custom, embedded, and IoT products represent smaller businesses for Intel and AMD, CPU shipments in those segments were different enough to create a different picture by including them in the x86 CPU market.

From this point of view, AMD’s x86 CPU market share was 25 percent, up 0.5 points sequentially but down 5.6 points year over year. Intel’s share was 75 percent.

McCarron said AMD suffered when factoring in non-PC and non-server CPUs due to continued declines in semi-custom shipments, while Intel “saw a strong increase in shipments of IoT products.” AMD’s semi-custom business has been affected primarily because the latest video game consoles from Microsoft and Sony that use AMD chips are now several years into their respective life cycles, resulting in lower consumer demand.