‘Gpu market experiences largest growth in six years’

The GPU market grew by eighteen percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the previous quarter. AMD in particular managed to take advantage of this. The supply of notebook GPUs even grew by almost 40 percent.

The GPU manufacturers managed to deliver 111 million graphics chips in the third quarter of this year, according to figures from research firm Jon Peddie Research. In the second quarter of this year, 94 million GPUs left the factories, while the third quarter of 2007 was good for 91 million GPUs delivered. The third quarter is traditionally a good quarter for GPU manufacturers, because orders are placed for the busy holiday month. “This quarter showed stronger growth than we’ve seen for a long time, despite a recession that is said to have started,” said Jon Peddie, chief executive of the research firm.

AMD in particular managed to benefit from the growth: the market share of this manufacturer grew by 22.8 percent in a year, while competitor Nvidia had to lose 6.4 percent. Intel’s market share increased from 33.4 percent to 49.4 percent compared to the third quarter of 2007. The market for desktop GPUs grew by 4.7 percent, but the largest growth was observed in laptops: 40 percent.

With the delivery of 49.4 million GPUs, notebook GPUs now occupy 44.4 percent of the market. Intel’s hegemony in the notebook market remains untouched with a share of 56.2 percent, although the manufacturer lost one percent from last quarter. The growth of AMD in the notebook market is striking: in the first quarter of this year, this manufacturer held 17.4 percent against 20.9 percent in the third quarter. Competitor Nvidia paints the opposite picture: its market share fell from 27 percent in the first quarter of 2008 to 21.8 percent in the third quarter. writes cnet.