iSuppli: Intel, AMD hold ground against each other
updated 11:00 pm EST, Wed December 15, 2010
Market grows generally, dominated by Intel
Intel continues to reign as the dominant player in the general microprocessor market, accounting for 80 percent of global revenue for the silicon chips that drive early every electronic gadget today -- but is unable to steal significant market share from rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Likewise, AMD cannot break out and "steal" any market share from Intel, figures from an iSuppli study show.
Compared to Intel's 80.1 percent stake of the market, AMD's 11.3 percent looks tiny -- but represents the only real competition the company has, consistently producing a well-matched competitive portfolio of products. The study, which looked at the overall microprocessor market rather than just in high-tech companies, still found that the two chipmakers account for 91.4 percent of the entire worldwide market.
What little movement has been generated by these numbers has gone mostly to the smaller, rival firms who compete against Intel and AMD. The report shows that third-party chip manufactures have seen sales up 0.7 percent over the last two quarters.
Overall, the microprocessor industry looks healthy -- showing 23 percent growth in the third quarter of 2010 compared to a year ago, and up three percent from the previous quarter.
