The market of graphics adapters tumbled in the first quarter of 2007 and while sales of all market players decreased, Nvidia Corp. has several reasons to celebrate: it solidified its positions in the market of desktop discrete graphics adapters and it has surpassed Intel Corp. in sales of graphics adapters for desktop computers.

“Normally Q1 will be flat or drop a little, this year it was a thud,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research.

78.8 Million Graphics Adapters Shipped

According to Jon Peddie Research, 78.8 million graphics adapters were shipped in Q1 2007, which is a 5.5% drop sequentially, but a 5.3% gain annually.

Intel remained the largest supplier of graphics adapters, however, even though its overall market share improved, its overall sales declined by about 2% - 3%. Nvidia’s shipments fell 5.7%, but its market share remained flat. Advanced Micro Devices not only faced 1.1% market share decline, but also saw its sales dropping by 10.2%.

Due to decreased sales of integrated graphics adapters for desktops, the rise of add-in-boards shipments and some other factors, Nvidia replaced Intel for first place in desktop market share, JPR claims.

54.8 Million Desktop Graphics Adapters Shipped

Desktop graphics came in at 54.8 million, declining 4.8% quarter-to-quarter, and 1.4% year-to-year. Two remarkable peculiarities of the quarter were 0.8% sequential increase in sales of discrete graphics processing units (GPUs) and 7.8% sequential decrease in shipments of integrated graphics processors (IGPs, graphics cores inside system core-logic). Still, discrete GPUs declined 2.6% year-to-year and IGPs slipped a modest 0.6%.

Nvidia Corp. was the company who capitalized on the uptick in demand for standalone graphics cards and boosted its market share in the desktop discrete graphics adapters by 5.5% to 59.3%, the highest share in the appropriate market for the company in several years. Meanwhile, ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, lost 6.1% of the market and ended up controlling 40.1% shipments of desktop discrete graphics adapters.

The increase of the total available market of standalone graphics adapters for desktops – which happened for the first time in many quarters – from 21.1 million in Q4 2006 means that there were roughly 21.27 million graphics adapters shipped. Nvidia shipped roughly 12.62 million, whereas ATI/AMD shipped approximately 8.53 million graphics processors for standalone desktop graphics cards.

Even though both ATI and Nvidia improved sales of desktop GPUs in Q1, the latter posted impressive 11% increase, whereas the former only managed to boost shipments of its desktop GPUs by 1%.

Total available market of desktop IGPs was approximately 32.944 million units, based on the figures released by Jon Peddie Research now and in April.

23.9 Million Mobile Graphics Adapters Shipped

Approximately 23.9 million graphics adapters for mobile computers were shipped in Q1, slipping 7.2% quarter-to-quarter, and growing a healthy 24.6% year-to-year.

Mobile discrete GPUs dropped to 5.2 million units, a decline of 14.6% quarter-to-quarter, and grew 2.9% year-to-year, while mobile IGPs declined 4.9% quarter-to-quarter and increased an amazing 32.5% year-to-year. JPR estimates that among mobile graphics adapters 18.74 million, or 78.4%, were IGPs.