12 TECH ADVISOR • MAY 2021NEWS
aswellas1.2percentagepointsin the
mobilemarket,DeanMcCarron,principal
analystat MercuryResearch,confirmed.
(BothnumbersexcludedtheInternetof
Thingsmarketandtablets.)AMDgained
sharein thehigher-marginserverspace,
McCarronsaidviaemail.That’sa slight
reversalfromNovember,whenAMDhit
anall-timehighin notebookPCMarket
share,atjustover 20 percent.
ThatIntelgainedshareisn’t
particularlysurprising.It haswrestled
withprocessorshortagesthatimpacted
someof 2019 and2020,asit negotiated
a problematictransitionfrom14nmto
10nmmanufacturing.Theshortages
causedInteltoprioritizehigh-value,
‘bigcore’productsthatcouldbesold
intopremiumPCs.Afteralleviating
someofthosecapacityconstraints,
Intelexecutivessaidthatthecompany
is nowabletomanufactureandsell
‘littlecore’productsforcheaperPCs.
Traditionally,ofcourse,thesesellin
higher volumes.
AMD finds itself in the opposite
situation. Though the company
hasn’t complained of an inability to
manufacture chips, demand for its
processors and GPUs remains incredibly
strong. “Our annual client processor
revenue grew by more than 50 per
cent as AMD Ryzen processor adoption
increased,” AMD chief executive LisaSusaid during the company’s recent
fourth-quarter earnings call. “We
delivered record client annual processor
revenue as we gained significant share
in 2020.” That, in turn, has given AMD
levels of success formerly known only to
Intel: AMD reported record revenues for
the fourth quarter, and profits soared by
450 per cent.