AMD hauls in Intel

There's a light at the end of the tunnel for AMD as it drags back some market share from competitor Intel.

Good news for smaller chipmaker AMD - market research outfit IDC claimed the firm gained some market share from rival Intel as the slump in PC shipments slowly eased in Q1.

IDC reckons global microprocessor shipments dropped just 10.9 per cent from Q408 to Q109, a less alarming drop than the precipitous 17 per decline from Q308 to Q408.

All in all, PC unit shipments saw a 13 per cent fall year on year compared with Q108. Even Intel's 'recession busting' Atom shipments suffered, falling 33 per cent since the fourth quarter of last year. IDC said this showed how much Atom inventory netbook makers were still saddled with as they entered 2009.

"Some inventory replenishment by [PC makers] at the end of the quarter helped to slow the decline and bring the quarter in at a level only slightly worse than typical seasonal decline," noted ray of sunshine, Shane Rau, director of personal computing semiconductors research at IDC.

IDC conceded PC maker demand for microprocessors had increased towards the end of the quarter, but added this was down to OEMs "replenishing their inventories rather than reflecting a return of solid end demand and return to market normalcy."

Despite the doom and gloom, the report probably gave AMD good reason to crack out the champers, as IDC claimed the littler chipper managed to claw itself some 4.6 per cent gain in unit shipments market share for Q109 to take a total 22.3 per cent of the processor pie.

Intel, in contrast, lost 4.7 per cent market share but still managed to grab a 77.3 per cent slice of mobile and desktop PC market share.