Definitely not a monopoly
In the fourth quarter of 2008, Intel accounted for 81.8 percent of global microprocessor revenue, according to a report from market researcher iSuppli. This represents a significant increase on its 78.4 percent market share in the same quarter a year ago.
"Intel grew its share of microprocessor in every quarter of 2008 on a sequential basis, effectively using each quarter as a building block for the next," said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst at iSuppli.
AMD's market share for Q4 was 10.6 percent, down from 14.1 percent a year ago. The RISC market share remained more or less static at 7.6 percent. Given that these figures are based on revenue rather than volume, the effect of Intel's popular Atom CPUs must only have been limited.
"Intel's Atom offering for the netbook segment has helped, although the major contribution to the company's share gains has undoubtedly come from the continued strength of the company's microprocessor brands and products in the desktop, notebook and server segments," said Wilkins.
The report concluded that it thinks AMD is better positioned this year than it was last and that the rest of the pack continues to lose share to the big x86 processor makers.
