by Anton Shilov
02/05/2007 | 07:53 AM
A leading market tracking firm Jon Peddie Research said that n the fourth quarter of 2006 shipments of graphics adapters were generally flat compared to the third quarter after merely increasing 0.9%. Meanwhile, Advanced Micro Devices’ graphics products group ATI has started to gain market share in the eroding desktop discrete market from Nvidia, who gained significantly in the mobile segment.
<%BANNER[article]%>“Overall, we didn’t see the big bang in Q4 this year everyone had hoped for. But, the mobile market is on fire, growing 13% this quarter and an astonishing 34% year-to-year. Nvidia is the big success story in that segment with the most growth, two quarters in a row,” said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research.
Jon Peddie Research estimates that approximately 83.5 million PC graphics devices shipped from major suppliers in Q4 2006, a surprisingly small 0.9% increase from the prior quarter and a 5.1% increase over the same period the previous year.
Intel Corp. remained the largest supplier of graphics adapters for personal computers (PCs) in Q4 2006 with 37.4% of the market, while Nvidia Corp. – the No. 2 supplier of graphics products – stayed flat with the previous quarter (28.5% in Q4 vs. 28.8% in the Q3), whereas ATI managed to increase its overall share to 23% from 20.9% in the prior quarter.
Please note that due to an adjustment made to Q3 report from JPR since because of a change in “reporting and reporting people at the GPU suppliers”, the research firm reported lower Nvidia’s chipsets with built-in graphics core desktop share in Q3. As a result, shares of ATI, Intel, SiS and Via for Q3 declined, whereas Nvidia's - increased.
John Peddie Research estimates that approximately 57.6 million desktop graphics devices shipped in Q4 2006. Overall, Intel held at 31.8% of the desktop graphics market, AMD increased to 22.8%, while Nvidia declined to 31.0% market share. In the discrete desktop segment, Nvidia also declined, to 53.8% share, and AMD grew to a 46.2% share during the period due to successful launch of very popular Radeon X1950 Pro and Radeon X1650 XT products.
The desktop graphics segment saw shipments decline by 4.0% from Q3 2006 to Q4 2006 and shipments shrunk 4.2% year-to-year. Desktop integrated graphics processor (IGP) shipments dropped 2.9% sequentially (the second consecutive quarter of decline) and decreased 1.5% annually. Discrete desktop dropped by 6.0% on a quarterly basis and 8.9% year-to-year.
“
The mobile graphics segment saw quarterly shipments rise a dramatic 13.8% and grow 34.1% year-to-year. Mobile IGP shipments drove growth in the laptop market in the second quarter with 13.0% increase in shipments during the period, and discrete mobile shipments grew a stunning 16.2% during the quarter and jumped 24.2% compared to the same period the previous year.
“The laptop market has moved to the large-screen, multimedia usage model,” said Mr. Peddie. “Now the criterion for performance is being able to play a full-length movie on one battery charge.”
JPR estimates that a record 25.8 million mobile graphics devices shipped in Q4 2006, 19.7 million of which were integrated chipsets (IGPs) for notebooks. Mobile IGPs claimed a commanding share of 76.3% in the mobile graphics market, up 13.0% from the prior quarter and up a dramatic 37.6% from the same period a year ago. Intel led the mobile graphics market with a 49.8% share (down from 51.4%), AMD dropped to a 23.4% share, and Nvidia jumped with a 22.9% market share gain for the quarter; both SiS and VIA saw declines in market share.
In the discrete mobile segment, AMD saw shipments decline on a quarterly basis while Nvidia saw shipments increase sequentially. Nvidia grew discrete mobile segment share from 53% in Q3’06 to 59.1% in Q4 2006. AMD’s segment share fell from 47.0% in Q3 2006 to 40.9% in Q4 2006.