Microprocessor Market Plummets in Q4 as AMD Loses Further Chunk of the Market to Intel

From X-bit Labs: The global economic crisis has not only slowed sales growth of microprocessors, but actually decreased sales of central processing units (CPUs) in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the most recent data from Mercury Research. More alarming, average selling prices (ASPs) of processors started to get down in Q4 2008, which puts both leading chip suppliers into danger.

According to Mercury Research, there were 75.4 million x86 central processing units shipped in Q4 2008, down 8.8% year-over-year. Sales of desktop chips declined by 18% quarter-over-quarter, whereas shipments of mobile and server processors were down 25% quarter-over-quarter as both consumers and businesses started to reduce spending. The declines are projected to continue in Q1 2009.

“Clearly the processor market has been impacted by the worldwide recession and financial crisis,” Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research, said in an interview with eWeek web-site.

Intel Corp., the world’s largest maker of x86 chips, gained 0.9% of the market sequentially and controlled 82.1% of shipments in Q4 2008 as AMD’s market share declined by 0.7% to 17%, while Via Technologies’ portion of the market shrank to 0.9%.

AMD’s ASP per CPU was $60 in Q4 2008, down from $63 per unit a quarter before. Meanwhile, Intel managed to add $1 to its average selling price per unit and its ASP was $100 in the fourth quarter.

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